SOURCE: "Schiller: Juggler of Freedoms in Wilhelm Teli;' in Monatshefte, Vol. LXXVI, No. 1, Spring, 1984, pp. 73-88.

In the following essay, Frye asserts that Schiller's theoretical thinking dominates Wilhelm Tell, and appears especially in Schiller's effort to synthesize the "esthetically defined freedom of the 'Idylle'" with the "ethically defined freedom of the sublime."

Act V of Wilhelm Tell is a celebration of peculiar form and function. A tragedy would use this act to bid farewell to a hero departing the arena of action. But, of course, this drama was not meant to be a tragedy, although one figure, the non-hero Johannes Parricida, does wander through homeless. One might also wonder why precautions are taken to cleanse even the suggestion of guilt from the celebrants. However, there are the more positive values of Tell having come back to his family, of Berta being given back to Rudenz and to...