German Idealism Class(Session 4). Schiller's play, Robbers, Act 3

In this session, we turn to Act 3 of Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, the explosive center of one of the most radical dramas of the German Idealist era.
Up to this point, Karl Moor has styled himself as a champion of freedom—an outlaw animated by righteous fury against corruption and hypocrisy. But in Act 3, the moral ground begins to shift. The emotional intensity deepens. The rhetoric of liberation starts to fracture. What looked like heroic rebellion now reveals darker tensions: pride, theatrical self-consciousness, and the dangerous seduction of absolute freedom.
We will examine how Schiller stages the collision between freedom and law, passion and moral constraint, self-creation and self-destruction. How does Karl’s vision of justice differ from genuine moral autonomy? Is he a proto-Romantic hero, or a warning about revolutionary excess? Where does Schiller allow sympathy—and where does he withdraw it?
Act 3 is also crucial for understanding the play’s philosophical stakes. Beneath the melodrama lies a serious meditation on dignity, recognition, and the limits of self-authorization. What happens when the individual claims the right to remake the world? Can rebellion avoid becoming tyranny?
We will read closely, move carefully through key speeches, and open the discussion to broader themes in German Idealism: freedom, moral law, theatricality, and the longing for totality.
No prior expertise required. Come ready to read, think, and argue.