chunk: Schiller raises many disturbing issues in the play. For instance, he questions the dividing lines between personal liberty and the law and probes the psychology of power, the nature of masculinity and the essential differences between good and evil. He strongly criticizes both the hypocrisies of class and religion and the economic inequities of German society. He also conducts a complicated inquiry into the nature of evil.
  Schiller was inspired by the play Julius of Tarent (1774) by Johann Anton Leisewitz, a play Friedrich Schiller considered a favourite.