Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller wrote "The Robbers" at twenty-two — a play about an honest man forced into crime by an unjust world. The Mannheim theatre staged it without his permission. Schiller slipped out of his duchy to see the premiere — and was arrested for absence without leave.

He was born in Marbach in 1759, the son of an army surgeon. Duke Karl Eugen compelled him to study at the military academy — medicine, then law. He fled in 1782.

"Don Carlos," "Mary Stuart," "William Tell," "The Maid of Orleans" — historical dramas of freedom and tyranny. His "Ode to Joy" became the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

His friendship with Goethe was that rare thing: two geniuses who supported rather than envied each other. He died of tuberculosis in 1805.