German poet, playwright, philosopher, historian, one of Germany's most famous classics, who laid the foundations for modern German literature.
Born into a family of a military colonel in 1773-1780, he studied law and medicine at the Karl Eugenius Military Academy. His views were influenced by the French Enlightenment, especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1780 he was appointed regimental physician in Stuttgart, but when his play was produced in Mannheim in 1782, he was put in the Hauptwacht by the Duke and forbidden to print it, so he went to Dresden and lived in Weimar from 1787. In 1789 he was appointed professor of history and philosophy at the University of Jena (now the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena). In 1790 he married Charlotte von Langefeld, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.
In 1788 he met and from 1794 became friends with, and collaborated with, J. W. Goethe. From 1795 to 1797 he published the magazine Horen, and from 1796 to 1800 the Musenalmanach. In 1799 he settled in Weimar and became involved in the city's theatre life. The Weimar Theatre, founded by Goethe and Schiller, became the most famous theatre in Germany. He died of tuberculosis.
While at the academy, he began to write poems without anyone seeing. It was here that he wrote his first drama, The Robbers, which was staged to great acclaim at the Mannheim Theatre in 1781.
Many of his works inspired composers to write operas and ballets. His "Ode to Joy", set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven, became the anthem of the European Union.
