Images of Transience in the Poems and Ballads of Friedrich Schiller

This study attempts to identify and analyze the images of transience in Schiller's poetic work. In the early poems a major series of images of transience reveals his baroque heritage. The surprising aspect of the poems which follow the historical studies and the engrossment in Kant is that the same images of transience remain. The persistent images of transience make it clear that Schiller was far from being an ivory tower idealist, rather he was a realist who perceived the grim visage of life.