SOURCE: Introduction to Wilhelm Tell, by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, translated and edited by William F. Mainland, University of Chicago Press, 1972, pp. xi-xxxiii.

In the following essay, Mainland places Wilhelm Tell in its historic context and claims that its importance lies not in the play's message, but in Schiller's portrayal of the Tell legend as a Swiss story of national liberation.

. . . Once again the North Netherlands were threatened with inundation, but a little boy crouching in the chilly night hours kept his thumb in the hole in the dyke and warded off disaster.

. . . Morning coffee in Vienna is accompanied by crescent rolls because marbles started to dance on a toy drum in a baker's cellar, and the attempt of the invading Turks to undermine the city was foiled.

.. . On a day late in the fall of 1307 a little Swiss boy stood by a linden tree with an...