Wallenstein’s Lager / Wallenstein’s Camp

Wallenstein’s Lager / Wallenstein’s Camp – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Friedrich Schiller

This is the first part of the Wallenstein trilogy by German playwright and mastermind Friedrich Schiller. The work as a whole produced a profound impression, and it is certainly Schiller’s masterpiece in dramatic literature. He brings out with extraordinary vividness the ascendency of Wallenstein over the wild troops whom he has gathered around him, and at the same time we are made to see how the mighty general’s schemes must necessarily end in ruin, not merely because a plot against him is skilfully prepared by vigilant enemies, but because he himself is lulled into a sense of security by superstitious belief in his supposed destiny as revealed to him by the stars. Wallenstein is the most subtle and complex of Schiller’s dramatic conceptions, and it taxes the powers of the greatest actors to present an adequate rendering of the motives which explain his strange and dark career. The love-story of Max Piccolomini and Thekla is in its own way not less impressive than the story of Wallenstein with which it is interwoven.

This is the bilingual edition of this literary masterpiece including the English and German versions of the play.

Wallenstein's Lager / Wallenstein's Camp

Wallenstein’s Lager / Wallenstein’s Camp

Format: Paperback.

Wallenstein’s Lager / Wallenstein’s Camp.

ISBN: 9783849673147.

Available at amazon.com and other venues.

 

Plot summary of Wallenstein’s Camp (from wikipedia)

Introducing the second and third parts, Wallenstein’s Camp is by far the shortest of the three. Whilst the main action takes place among the higher ranks of the troops and nobility, Wallenstein’s Camp reflects popular opinion, particularly that of the soldiers in Wallenstein’s camp. They are enthusiastic about their commander, who to all appearances has managed to bring together mercenaries from a wide variety of locations. They praise the great freedom he allows them—plunder, for instance—whenever they are not engaged in fighting, and his efforts on their behalf in negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor, of whom some of the troops are critical. They also praise the war for improving their own lives despite its toll on the civilian population. Still, we hear a peasant complain that the troops steal from him, and a monk criticize their wicked life. At the end of this part, the soldiers find out that the emperor intends to place a section of the army under the command of Spanish Habsburgs. Unhappy, they agree to ask Max Piccolomini, one of their commanders, to urge Wallenstein not to fulfill the emperor’s wishes.

The Capuchin’s sermon in Wallenstein’s Camp is based on the Discalced Augustinian Abraham a Sancta Clara’s 1683 book, Auf, auf, ihr Christen. Schiller, who like Abraham was from Swabia, wrote to Goethe, “This Father Abraham is a man of wonderful originality, whom we must respect, and it would be an interesting, though not at all an easy, task to approach or surpass him in mad wit and cleverness.”

 

(The text of the last section was taken from a Wikipedia entry and is available under the the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

 

Publisher’s Note: This book is printed and distributed by Createspace a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC and is typically not available anywhere else than in stores owned and operated by Amazon or Createspace.

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