When he stalks across the serious stage and rages and fumes and wipes
his bloody sword, we are inclined to smile or to yawn. As for the
villain Franz, with his abysmal depravity, and Amalia, with her witless
sentimentalism, we find it hard to take them seriously; they do not
produce a good illusion. And then the whole style of the piece, the
violent and ribald language, the savage action, the rant and swagger,
the shooting and stabbing,--all this seems at first calculated for the
entertainment of young savages, and moves one to approve the oft-quoted
_mot_ of the German prince who said to Goethe: 'If I had been God and
about to create the world, and had I foreseen that Schiller would write
'The Robbers' in it, I should not have created it.'[18]

This is one side of the story. The other side is that 'The Robbers'
made an epoch in German dramatic literature. Not only is it the
strongest and completest expression of the eighteenth-century storm and
stress, but it proved a highly effective stage-play. Nor was its
success ephemeral. Its author quickly outgrew it, but it maintained
itself during the entire period of Germany's leadership in matters of
dramatic art, and even to-day it preserves much of its old vitality. It
is true that when a modern audience assembles to see a performance of
'The Robbers', they are not impelled solely by the intrinsic merits of
the piece. Loyalty to the great dramatic poet of the nation plays its
part. People think: Thus our Schiller began,--and they expect to make
allowances. But when all such allowances are made, it remains true that
'The Robbers' is a powerful stage-play which reveals in every scene the
hand of the born dramatist. We may call it boyish if we will, but its
boyishness is like that of 'Titus Andronicus'. Each is the work of a
young giant who in learning the use of his hammer lays about him
somewhat wildly and makes a tremendous hubbub. But Thor is Thor, and
such boys are not born every day.