The Don Carlos Enigma Quotes

“Thus, "Nenne mich Du" might be the emblematic phrase of this character: the Infante's invitation - in Schiller's words - to both creators and readers/audiences to 'name' him beyond his historical identifier Don Carlos - and all of its variants of Dom Carlos, Don Karlos, Don Carlo. Naming him, in this case, does not mean giving him another name, but calling him into being, endowing him with an identity shaped by an envisioned course of events and actions that lead to an ending. This phrase represents the mystery behind the character and Schiller's disclaimer that what the public is reading or seeing can never be the real Don Karlos - history's Don Carlos remains, largely, an unknown.”
― Maria-Cristina Necula Ph.D., The Don Carlos Enigma: Variations Of Historical Fictions

“Such immediate sliding into fiction under the guise of history reveals a remarkable fluidity between history and fiction that, while pertinent to innumerable portrayals of historical personages of other eras and nationalities, seems to acquire a particularly transformational narrative power in the case of Don Carlos.”
― Maria-Cristina Necula Ph.D., The Don Carlos Enigma: Variations Of Historical Fictions

“[Don Carlos] will always remain open-ended, asking to be fleshed out by the imagination of others, silently demanding a finale of his authors, no matter how fantastical.”
― Maria-Cristina Necula Ph.D., The Don Carlos Enigma: Variations Of Historical Fictions

“Infatuation nurtured by imagination enflamed by a portrait turns into love at first sight in Saint-Réal's nouvelle as it will in Schiller's play and Verdi's opera.”
― Maria-Cristina Necula Ph.D., The Don Carlos Enigma: Variations Of Historical Fictions