Love and Intrigue by Friedrich Schiller
The famous drama by the German poet Friedrich Schiller: Love and Intrigue (or. Kabale & Liebe, in French L'intrigue et l'amour). I read it in German, the EinFach Deutsch version, there it contained 117 pages. Girls and boys at the age of 16 plus. Originally published 1784
18th century, Germany: While his daughter Luise is on cloud nine, the musician Miller is not convinced of rich Ferdinand von Walter's feelings for her. He is not the only one who doesn't approve of this relationship: The secretary, Wurm, manipulates his master and Ferdinand's father, the president. And soon a plot is formed to separate the lovers and marry Ferdinand to the sovereign's mistress, Lady Milford, who is herself desperately in love with Ferdinand...
First of all, to the characters: Luise is a very gentle and caring girl, who knows about what's right and what's wrong. It sucks she fell in love with Ferdinand, because she deserved something far better than him.
Of course, Ferdinand isn't an actually bad person. He's arrogant, unresponsible, obsessive and, well, through these qualities the root of all her problems. But he has also an own codex of morality to which he sticks.
To the next characters: Wurm is interesting. His personality fits to his name (Worm) so I don't like him very much, but he has something. He's the brain behind Ferdinand's father, manipulative and has his own motives. He's the actual bad guy in this.
As for the parents of Luise... I'm sorry for the father. Not so much for the mother, but the father really wanted the best for Luise. And just about kept her from killing herself. Poor, poor father.
But Lady Milford... I LOVE her, she is the coolest and most developed character in this book. She knows, what she wants, but doesn't forget why she wants it. Not like Ferdinand. She knows that she wants to marry him, but she wants that because she loves him. So, in the end, she lets him go – because she loves him and she wants to see him happy. Far, far better than what Ferdinand did with Luise.
And I like Lady Milford's character development, her background and self-conflict. And, of course, how she solves it. She's a strong, independent and fascinating person. As I said, I like her.
It was fun to read and analyse it, this is my favourite school book. Really very well done. Especially when you consider the seven sins (when you have to analyse it).
In brief:
I give it a star for style, content, ideas, characters and the sins.