Two themes had been suggested by his historical studies, and both had haunted his thoughts for years,--'The Knights of Malta' and 'Wallenstein'. The former, if his plan had been carried out, would have yielded a play of the classical type, with few characters and a severely simple structure. In the final balancing of the two subjects 'Wallenstein' prevailed, no doubt because it seemed in advance the easier and the more promising. It pointed to a familiar field where history itself had already shaped in the rough a stupendous and fascinating tragedy. To reproduce the form and pressure of the Thirty Years' War, at one of its most exciting moments, was an alluring problem to a dramatist who had written a history of the struggle, and who had always felt that his strength lay in the historical drama.
Serious musings upon 'Wallenstein' began, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1796.[113] The first great problem was, of course, the general plan of the piece,--how to select, dispose and concentrate. To quicken his imagination Schiller commenced reading again upon the history of the period and soon perceived that what he already knew would be quite inadequate; that it would be necessary to go over the whole ground anew and more thoroughly. He found the material dry, chaotic and abstract; in short, lacking in nearly all the poetic elements which he would have thought indispensable a few years before. He could not treat it in his earlier manner. He had no love for any of his personages except Max and Thekla, whom he had invented for the purpose of infusing a little warm blood into an action which would otherwise have been dominated altogether by the cold passions of ambition, vindictiveness and fear. Wallenstein was not great or noble; at best he could only be made terrible. The basis of his power was his army, and this--so it seemed to Schiller at first--was too large and complex a thing to be effectively portrayed. Then, too, his enterprise failed chiefly because of bad management, and he himself rather than fate was to blame for his catastrophe. This Schiller regarded as the weak point of the whole subject; but he took some comfort from the example of 'Macbeth'.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, he worked at his task with great eagerness, feeling that just such a subject as 'Wallenstein' would prove the crucial test of his powers. His old theory that love is what makes the artist was now completely outgrown, and he was gratified to observe that he had learned to keep himself out of his work. So much for the influence of Goethe, to whom he wrote, in November, 1796, as follows: