Schiller e la storia come soggetto sublime. Convergenze e divergenze tra la Antrittsvorlesung e il saggio Über das Erhabene

Abstract

From a philosophical-historical point of view, Schiller’s essay On the sublime is commonly considered as a self-critical recantation of the opinions on “world history” previously expressed in his inaugural address in 1789. In fact, the degeneration of the French revolution into a regime of terror and oppression after 1792 seemed to disprove categorically the historical-teleological optimism asserted by the professor in his lecture. Actually, the ‘optimism’ of the ‘historian’ Schiller shouldn’t be overestimated. In the inaugural address, the aesthetic-creative role played by the “philosophical head” in the construction of “world history” already shakes the belief in an objective teleological sense of history. Later on, in the essay On the sublime, only the free will and the creative power of the human being explicitly guarantee the construction of sense and the development of culture. At the turn of the nineteenth century the tragic poet shows the grimace of teleology in Wallenstein. As a matter of fact, the astrological belief of this protagonist is a sign of his constitutive weakness and inability to act in the open-ended course of history.