Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty fraternity and deep betrayal it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. Wallenstein produced nineteen years later is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
