Biography | Friedrich Von Schiller

Friedrich von Schiller

November 10, 1759 – May 9, 1805
Johann Christopher Friedrich von Schiller’s major poetic and dramaticworks — Die Räuber (1782), Don Carlos (1787), Wallenstein Stuart(1800) and Wilhelm Tell (1804) — all express a yearning for escape from tyranny.
The first of his histories, The History of the Revolt of theNetherlands against the Spanish Government (1788), and a recommendation from Goethe, secured him a professorship at the University of Jena in 1789. Schiller followed his appointment with A History of the Thirty Years War (1791-3) and The AestheticEducation of Man in a series of letters.
Beethoven used Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” in his fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony. Tchaikovsky received a Silver Medal for his graduation cantata on Johann Schiller’s An die Freude in December 1865.
“His Masonic membership has not been definitely established, but German brethren believe he was a member of Rudolstadt Lodge of Berlin.”
Freemason

Source: Denslow.
Image: Duyckinick, Evert A. Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women in Europe and America. New York: Johnson, Wilson & Company, 1873.