Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) was a German dramatist, poet and philosopher, second only to Goethe in the German classical age. Forced into a military academy by the Duke of Württemberg, he trained as a surgeon and fled after the success of his first play, The Robbers, in 1782. Don Carlos, the Wallenstein trilogy, Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans and Wilhelm Tell made him Germany's national playwright, and Beethoven set his Ode to Joy. His essays on aesthetics, including the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, grew out of his study of Kant. He died of tuberculosis at Weimar, where he and Goethe are buried side by side.