Book excerpt: Friedrich Schiller, the great German classical poet and friend of the American Revolution, assigned to art the task of ennobling the spirit of Man, especially at those times when political circumstances are most unfavorable, men most degraded, and when the qualities of genius are most urgently required to find a way to avert political catastrophe. Reading Schiller’s poetry, as well as his historical, philosophical, and aesthetic works, has precisely the effect on the sensitive reader of which Schiller informed us--to produce in the reader an ennobling power which then continues to exist long after the reading is done. This is volume IV of the four volume collection of translations. Volume IV includes Schiller Institute English translations of the following: Mary Stuart The Artists Shakespeare's Shade Some Thoughts on the First Human Society . . . Philosophy of Physiology On the Reason We Take Pleasure in Tragic Subjects On Tragic Art On the Employment of the Chorus in Tragedy