Intrigue and Love
"Intrigue and Love" belongs to the era of Sturm und Drang and is categorised as a bourgeois tragedy, a genre attributable to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing – Lessing's own "Emilia Galotti" is a key influence on it. Tragedy had previously been limited to the nobility, through the Ständeklausel or "estates clause", but Lessing's genre opened it to the world of the German middle classes. "Intrigue and Love" has as its dominant motif the conflict between the middle-classes and the nobility in middle-class pride and aristocratic snobbery, with universal humanity at its centre, charged with open political grievances. In it, individual interests, subjective feelings and the demand for freedom from a class-ridden society's constraints are powerful drivers for the characters and ultimately lead to disaster. Schiller was personally aware of the pain of love across the classes, through his love for Charlotte von Wolzogen (sister in law of Caroline von Wolzogen – Caroline was sister of Charlotte von Lengefeld, who would later become Schiller's wife).