SOURCE: "Three Scenes from Wilhelm Tell," in The Discontinuous Tradition: Studies in German Literature in Honour of Ernest Ludwig Stahl, edited by P. F. Ganz, Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 99-112.

In the following essay, McKay discusses three scenes from the play-the opening scene, the Rütli scene, and the Parricida scene-examining the development of Tell's character and his subsequent evolution into a mythic hero.

The ambiguities and difficulties of Wilhelm Tell continue to exercise the minds of critics and producers alike. Perhaps no play of Schiller's is at one and the same time so theatrically effective and so dramatically puzzling. Perhaps no other work of his has suffered so much critically from its popularity; the Volksstück seemed to lend itself all too readily to nationalistic, even Nazi, interpretation, and even its dire quotability has made it to such a degree a part of popular culture that it is...