In all of his later dramas excepting _William Tell_, Schiller endeavored to introduce a factor which is called "the dramatic guilt," a circumstance, usually in the character of the hero but sometimes in his environment, which makes the tragic outcome inevitable and yet leaves room in the breast of the reader or spectator for sympathy with the hero in his fate. In the case of Wallenstein this "guilt" is the dalliance with the love of power and the possibility of rebellion, not a deliberate intention to commit treason. In the close of his treatment of Wallenstein in The Thirty Years' War Schiller says: "No one of his actions justifies us in considering him convicted of treason. * * * Thus Wallenstein fell, not because he was a rebel, but he rebelled because he fell."
The circumstances are urged that Wallenstein was a prince of the Empire, and had as such the right to negotiate with foreign powers; that his delegated authority from the Emperor gave him the right to do so in the Emperor's name; that the Emperor had not kept faith with Wallenstein, and had thus justified him in at least frightening the court; that self preservation seemed to indicate rebellion as the only recourse; that Wallenstein's belief in his destiny and the fatuous devotion of his army led him to reckless action; and finally that he did not originally intend to commit actual treason.
Thus prepared, the reader can easily sympathize with Wallenstein in his downfall; this sympathy is entirely won by the admirable courage with which Wallenstein bears the successive blows of fate, and it is strengthened by consideration of the mean motives of the men who serve as the tools of his execution, and by the remembrance that the fate of Max and Thekla is bound up in his. Schiller was concerned lest the love episode should detract from the interest due the chief persons of the tragedy; his art has effected the exact opposite.
The influence of Shakespeare is more or less obvious in all of Schiller's later dramas. Aside from the splendid rhetoric of the monologues, the character of Countess Terzky, so similar to that of Lady Macheth, suggests this. But such influence is not so controlling as to be in any respect a reproach to Schiller. Goethe in his generous admiration considered Wallenstein "so great that nothing could be compared with it." "In the imaginative power whereby history is made into drama, in the triumph of artistic genius over a vast and refractory mass of material, and in the skill with which the character of the hero is conceived and denoted, _Wallenstein_ is unrivaled. Its chief figure is by far the stateliest and most impressive of German tragic heroes." [22]
