Word: weimar
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...bells had struck midnight when a cheaply made coffin was carried through the deserted streets of the German town of Weimar on May 12, 1805. Its cargo: the rapidly decomposing body of Friedrich Schiller - poet, philosopher, historian, dramatist and rebel, who had died three days earlier. Its destination: the local Jacob's Cemetery, where his corpse was unceremoniously lowered into a common grave with, as Thomas Mann wrote in 1955, "no mild sound of music, no word from the mouth of priest or friend...
...befitting one of Germany's greatest poets. In 1826, in an effort to give Schiller his due, the mass burial site was reopened, but by then the body had decomposed beyond recognition. Determining which among 23 recovered skulls was Schiller's became an act of divination: the mayor of Weimar simply deemed the biggest one to be that of the cerebral poet. Schiller's friend Johann Wolfgang von Goethe later took the memento mori home to muse upon; he even wrote a reverential poem entitled Lines on Seeing Schiller's Skull. Since 1827, this cranium has had a place...
Romantics might prefer that the great man be left alone, but the scientists aren't about to bow before convention or literary legend. "Sapere aude - that which one can know, one should dare to know," argues Hellmut Seemann, president of the Weimar Classics Foundation, a cultural institution that oversees a memorial to Schiller and that helped initiate the project. "We believe it's our duty to resolve whether the remains thought to belong to Friedrich Schiller are authentic...
...tempting to read Borat's unmolested season on Lebanese screens as a sign of progress of the post-Syrian era towards a more tolerant, liberal society. But it could just as likely be the high water mark in a Weimar-like interregnum before the forces of reaction and intolerance reassert themselves. Outside of the theaters, Lebanese society is in the midst of a sense of humor failure. When a Lebanese television comedy show poked fun at Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah last year, his followers rioted, cutting off the road from Beirut airport. And with Hizballah firmly ensconced in central Beirut...
Werner Sollors, the Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot professor of English literature, says the Dolls aren’t far off—the satirical edge of Weimar-cabaret performances was razor-sharp...