Schiller’ S Aesthetic Enlightment Thoughts

Friedrich Schiller, as a poet, dramatist, philosopher, historian, is an importantrepresentative personage of enlightment in Germany. As well as Goethe, Schiller isalso a leaders of Stum und Drang. Schiller’s main characteristic of enlightenmentthoughts is aesthetic enlightenment, and it reflects the cultural connotation ofGermany enlightenment.Schiller’s aesthetic enlightenment thoughts follow the established tradition ofGermany’s humanism. He proposals to recover perception’s legal status, persue a typeof balance between perception and ration, so as to bridge the split human nature andrelise the “fully human”. He initiates the cultivation of the individual personality byaesthetic education, and gain the political freedom based on personalfreedom-aesthetic education is in the freedom ahead.Schiller opposes the hard-core and abstract rational pattern, and proposals tounify the perception and ration. Just as social level, Schiller shifts from cosmopoliteto nationalist, and advocates national heroism. Schiller dates back to30years warhistory in the seventeenth century, and wishes there would be the hero likeWallenstein to save the split and backward Germany. Schiller’s aestheticenlightenment thoughts advocate a type of personal freedom to political freedom, thatis realising the yearning republic of him, which is the fundamental objectives ofaesthetic education. Schiller’s aesthetic enlightenment thoughts is a kind ofhumanistic aesthetic ideal. He takes it into practice in his whole life and replaces thereligion to become the faith here.Schiller’s aesthetic enlightenment thoughts emphasize the individualself-cultivation, weakening the sociality of humanity, which is a little utopian; but hisemphasis on the self-cultivation and affective factors have far-reaching influence onthe German romantic movement; Schiller’s aesthetic enlightenment thoughts haveimportant practical significance on self-promotion, harmonious society constructionand the present aesthetic education.