Tra amor sacro e amor profano: "Kabale und Liebe"

Abstract

In "Freigeisterei der Leidenschaft", Schiller claims that the conventions established by society and family suffocate the rights of passion. Freigeisterei is a libertarian philosophy born in France in the 17th Century, and Schiller’s writing supports the right to refuse the duty of obedience in favour of a greater autonomy of thought and of auto-determination. Similar claims are made also in "Die Kindsmörderin", but in more moderate terms, since the work deals with the consequences of an infanticide. The seduced and abandoned mother, who chooses to kill her own offspring, reflects on how sentiments often lead towards the wrong path. "Kabale und Liebe" is the summa of young Schiller’s philosophical, psychological and dramatic knowledge. In it, the linguistic experimentation and the variety of linguistic registers, particularly with regards to the theme of love, are of fundamental value. The article examines the relationship between love and power in the play, its language, as well as the figure of the woman and some aspects concerning the female gender, focusing on the character of Luise who is the emblem of an ideal of Neoplatonic love Schiller discusses in his younger years in his "Philosophische Briefe".