SOURCE: "Schiller and the Sublime 1801-1805: Wilhelm Tell" in Pre-Romantic Attitudes to Landscape in the Writings of Friedrich Schiller, Walter de Gruyter, 1991, pp. 186-201.

In the following excerpt, Benn argues that the Swiss landscape acts not only as a setting for the action of Wilhelm Tell but also plays an essential role in the plot, theme, and characterization of the drama.

There is no evidence that Schiller studied any source material before depicting the Sicilian landscape setting in Die Braut von Messina. However, in the case of the Swiss landscape setting in Wilhelm Tell, quite the opposite is true, for Schiller was determined to familiarise himself with the landscape and people of a country he had never visited. He pinned up maps of Switzerland on the walls of his study⁴⁵ and read very widely in works giving factual accounts of the history, geography, customs and language of Switzerland...