Die Götter Griechenlandes

"The Gods of Greece" ("Die Götter Griechenlandes") is a 1788 poem by the German writer Friedrich Schiller. It was first published in Wieland's Der Teutsche Merkur, with a second, shorter version (with much of its controversial content removed) published by Schiller himself in 1800. Schiller's poem proved influential in light of [Philhellenism] and seems to have influenced later German thinkers' views on history, Paganism and myth, possibly including Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Max Weber.^{[1]:78-80, 85-6}

In The Gods of Greece, Schiller presents a universal view of history. He uses the [gods] as a proxy for the perceived enchantment of nature and the moral-aesthetic values that Schiller associated with this imagined idea of nature. Schiller constructs the poem as a lamentation for myth and enchantment against mechanical philosophy.^[1]:82-3 Although (or perhaps because) the poem shows Christian Theosophical influences, The Gods of Greece became controversial when published because Schiller appeared to defend Paganism against Christianity, necessitating its second publication.^[1]:81

A fragment of this poem was set by Franz Schubert in November 1819 (D677).

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