11 - Diderot and Schiller's “Revenge”: From Parisian Parody to German Moral Education

Summary

AT THE CONCLUSION OF HIS SHORT STORY, “Ein merkwürdiges Beispiel einer weiblichen Rache” (A Remarkable Example of Female Revenge), Schiller adds a postscript in which he identifies his source. An unpublished manuscript by Diderot was making the rounds, he tells us, a novel, which Schiller calls, “Jakob und sein Herr oder Fatalismus” (Jacob and His Master or Fatalism). The theater director in Mannheim, Heribert von Dalberg, owned a copy, which he gave to Schiller. The “bold novelty of the intrigue,” the “unmistakable truth of the narrative,” and the “unadorned elegance of the description” persuaded him to attempt what he labels “a translation” for publication in his literary magazine, Die Rheinische Thalia in 1785 (see p. 37). But is what he produced a translation? A closer look will reveal that Schiller's work is best described as an adaptation of a segment of Diderot's novel. Contrary to what Schiller suggests in his postscript, he didn't merely translate, but rather restructured the story in such a way as to tell a different tale. As we shall see, Diderot's rendition is a piece of juicy gossip told by an innkeeper's wife about one of her aristocratic patrons. Schiller's version, by contrast, is meant as an example of unbridled vengeance, the ultimate intrigue against an unsuspecting ex-lover, in short: the work of a monster.