Criticism

Deering, Robert Waller. Introduction to Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. Translated by Robert Waller Deering. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1894, pp. v-xxxix.

Outlines both Schiller's career and the Tell legend before discussing the themes, characters, and construction of the drama itself.

Dundes, Alan. "The 1991 Archer Taylor Memorial Lecture. The Apple-Shot: Interpreting the Legend of William Tell." Western Folklore 50 (October 1991): 327-60.

Analyzes specific elements of the Tell legend and how they emerge in various cultural readings and interpretations.

Garland, H. B. " Wilhelm Tell. " In Schiller: The Dramatic Writer: A Study of Style in the Plays. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969, pp. 261-86.

Examines the descriptions of landscape and nuances of language employed by Schiller in imparting realism and characterization in Wilhelm Tell.

Lamport, F. J. "The Silence of Wilhelm Tell." The Modern Language Review 76, Part 1 (October 1981): 857-68.

Argues that Tell is able to remain a simple and humble man, although he moves out of his simple world and gains historical significance in his confrontation with and triumph over Gessler.

Moore, W. G. "A New Reading of Wilhelm Tell" In German Studies Presented to Professor H. G. Fiedler, M. V. O., by Pupils, Colleagues, and Friends on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, 28 April 1937. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1938, pp. 278-92.

Argues that Wilhelm Tell is most properly viewed as a tragedy, placing its idealist hero in a position where it is impossible to act in a moral fashion.

Richards, David B. "Tell in the Dock: Forensic Rhetoric in the Monologue and Parricida-Scene in Wilhelm Tell." The German Quarterly XLVIII, No. 4 (November 1975): 472-86.

Conceives the Tell monologue in Act IV, scene III and the Parricida scene as a formal courtroom trial of Tell's action against Gessler. Richards argues that while the murder elevates Tell to the level of national figurehead, he is necessarily stripped of his humanity.

Spuler, Richard C. "Wilhelm Tell as American Myth." Yearbook of German-American Studies 17 (1982): 89-98.

Discusses the place of Wilhelm Tell in the American literary canon, and its incorporation into American political discourse.

Stoljar, Margaret. "Retelling Tell: Cultural Reception Reconsidered." Southerly 49, No. 2 (1989): 211-18.

Cites Australian use of the Tell legend in the development of its own ideology of liberty.

Waldeck, Mary-Louise. "Wilhelm Tell. " In The Theme of Freedom in Schiller's Plays. Frankfurt: Stuttgarter Arbeiten Zur Germanistik, No. 170, Hanz-Dieter Heinz Akademischer Verlag, 1986, pp. 73-85.

Argues that Tell exemplifies the truly free man. As such, Tell exists in the aesthetic state of mind described in Schiller's theoretical works, is able to transcend personal and political motivations, and, in killing Gessler, acts with the entirety of his being to maintain the natural order.

Wells, G. A. "Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and the Methodology of Literary Criticism." Oxford German Studies 16 (1985): 36-46.

Criticizes the body of scholarship on Wilhelm Tell that relies on hypothesized analogy and ignores a straightforward reading of the text.

Additional coverage of Schiller's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 94, and Discovering Authors.