IImmaaggeess ooff GGooeetthhee tthhrroouugghh SScchhiilllleerr's's E Eggmmoonntt Analysing a forgotten, unpublished performance script of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of Goethe's play Egmont, David John examines the collaboration be- tween the two playwrights as a means of addressing fundamental questions on the roles of text and performance. He shows that performance, not text, consti- tutes the essence of dramatic and theatrical experience. John argues that shifting the focus from the text to the efficacy of perfor- mance requires broadening our concept of performance beyond what occurs on stage and its critical reception to include the daily life of the society that pro- vides its context. It follows from this semiotic approach that there can be no fixed text or understanding of Egmont or of Goethe himself— only multiple im- ages. John's exploration of image includes literary motifs, acting, staging, and social role playing, with particular reference to Goethe's development as an artist and cultural icon. In addition to presenting a comprehensive analysis of the play and a discus- sion of Egmont's reception from its first appearance to the present (including productions on both stage and screen), John provides an in-depth performance analysis based on the theories of Alter, Burns, Carson, Fischer-Lichte, Goffman, Pavis, and Schechner. The book includes the complete Mannheim manuscript (M372), critically edited and published as a performance text for the first time. DAVID G. JOHN is professor of German, University of Waterloo. This page intentionally left blank Images of Goethe through Schiller's Egmont DAVID G. JOHN McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca McGill-Queen's University Press 1998 ISBN 0-7735-1681-6 Legal deposit third quarter 1998 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data John, David G. (David Gethin), 1947- Images of Goethe through Schiller's Egmont Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1681-6 I. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. Egmont. 2. Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805.1. Title. PTI9I5.E4J64 1998 832'.6 C097-901278-3 This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc. in 10/12 Adobe Garamond. Catharinae This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Illustrations 23, 36,168-75, 186-88, 200-08, 225 Introduction 3 1 Egmont as Text: Scholarly Documentation 24 2 Egmont. Ein Trauerspiel in drey Aujziigen 36 3 From Text to Performance 92 4 Reflections of the Text in Performance 123 5 Text and Image 148 6 Acting I: Image on Stage 176 7 Acting 2: The Director's Image 189 8 Acting 3: Image in Society 209 9 Goethe and Egmont Today: Stage and Screen 226 Conclusion 268 Notes 271 Works Cited 305 Index 320 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I wish to express first my gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its generous funding over the several years of research for this book, and to the Otto-Mann-Stiftung whose support in the last phase enabled me to complete it. With sincere appreciation I turn then to an academic's best friends, the li- brarians and archivists whose expertise and engaged assistance gave me such open access to the materials necessary for my investigation. My contact with them never failed to leave me with a sense of admiration for their professional- ism, competence, and academic integrity. Foremost among these are Liselotte Homering, director of the theatre collection of the ReiB-Museum in Mannheim, to whom I have turned many times over the past twenty years, and to whom I owe permission to publish the Egmont manuscript in Chapter 2. A number of others deserve mention: the library staff of my home university, the University of Waterloo, especially the interlibrary loan personnel, Helena Calogeridis of the German section and Michelle Sawchuk of Fine Arts; Chris Hughes and Dorit Sachs of Central Photographic; the superb Wiirttember- gische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, my home base for a productive sabbatical year; Katharine A. Lochnan of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Maija Vilcins of the National Gallery of Canada, Antony V. Griffiths of The British Museum De- partment of Prints and Drawings, Stefaan Hautekeete of the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, J.F.Heijbroek of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and personnel of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerp; the archivists of the Sammlung Oskar Fambach at the University of Bonn; Ulrike Miiller-Harang, Goethe-Nationalmuseum Weimar, and the staff of the Anna- Amalia-Bibliothek; further, Michael Assmann, Anhaltliches Theater Dessau;