Wilhelm Tell

Schiller’s last completed play dramatizes the legend of the Swiss marksman forced by a tyrannical governor to shoot an apple from his own son’s head. Out of that famous ordeal the drama builds a stirring account of a people rising against oppression, weaving Tell’s private courage into the wider struggle of the Swiss cantons for their freedom. Written near the end of Schiller’s life, it became a rallying cry for liberty across nineteenth-century Europe and the basis of Rossini’s opera. Grand, patriotic, and full of memorable scenes, it remains one of the best loved works of German theater. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.