{"id":79727,"date":"2014-11-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=79727"},"modified":"2014-11-18T15:28:22","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T20:28:22","slug":"them-apples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/18\/them-apples\/","title":{"rendered":"Them Apples"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"William_Tell_Told_Again_-_plate_08\"<\/a>

An illustration by Philip Dadd for P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s William Tell Told Again<\/i>, 1904.<\/p><\/div>\n

According to legend, it was on November 18, 1307, that the Swiss patriot William Tell\u00a0shot an apple off his son\u2019s head. After refusing to pay homage to a Hapsburg liege, Tell was forced to submit to the test of marksmanship. Later, Tell killed the tyrant and went on to many a daring exploit in the service of the Old Swiss Confederacy.<\/p>\n

Although the William Tell legend is mentioned in books dating back to the late fifteenth century\u2014and one can find similar marksmanship myths throughout the world\u2014it was Schiller\u2019s highly politicized play that canonized the apple-centric version, and, buoyed by Switzerland\u2019s post-Napoleonic patriotism, made the archer iconic. Schiller had never visited Switzerland; he got the idea from his friend Goethe, who returned from a trip bearing tales of local lore. In 1804, the play premiered at Weimar under Goethe\u2019s direction. (The popular Rossini opera\u2014and the resulting Lone Ranger<\/em> theme\u2014was based on the play.)<\/p>\n

Although a part of the German dramatic canon (and initially a Nazi favorite), the play came into disfavor with Hitler. After a 1941 assassination attempt by a Swiss-born activist, the F\u00fchrer banned William Tell<\/em>, reportedly lamenting,\u00a0\u201cOf all people Schiller had to glorify this Swiss sniper.\u201d <\/p>\n

I would say Tell is well remembered, but lately I\u2019ve been very concerned. As readers of tabloids well know, the reality-star-turned-Pinterest-doyenne Lauren Conrad recently married a law student and former musician (Wikipedia\u2019s words; I would have thought you sort of kept amateur status throughout life) named William Tell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, one would think that the name William Tell would be a great boon. Every Halloween costume, every birthday-party motif, every college-admissions essay writes itself. At the very least, one would imagine that such a name would give rise to\u00a0a little apple-related badinage when the man in question became engaged to a bold-faced name. But no. Nary a bow and arrow decorated their wedding bower; nary a Schiller quote graced the pages of Us Weekly<\/em>. It\u2019s bad enough that the actress Anne Hathaway should have superceded Shakespeare\u2019s wife in the public consciousness; now Lauren Conrad\u2019s husband is hard on the Swiss patriot\u2019s heels in Google results. As Schiller said, \u201cAgainst stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to legend, it was on November 18, 1307, that the Swiss patriot William Tell\u00a0shot an apple off his son\u2019s head. After refusing to pay homage to a Hapsburg liege, Tell was forced to submit to the test of marksmanship. Later, Tell killed the tyrant and went on to many a daring exploit in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[13094,16089,16090,9295,13806,16088],"class_list":["post-79727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-apples","tag-lauren-conrad","tag-myths","tag-names","tag-switzerland","tag-william-tell"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn This Day, William Tell\u00a0Shot an Apple Off His Son\u2019s Head<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on them apples.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/18\/them-apples\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Them Apples by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 18, 2014 \u2013 According to legend, it was on November 18, 1307, that the Swiss patriot William Tell\u00a0shot an apple off his son\u2019s head. 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