Ferdinand is an army major and son of President von Walter, a high-ranking noble in a German duke's court, while Luise Miller is the daughter of a middle-class musician. The couple fall in love with each other, but both their fathers tell them to end their affair. The President instead wants to expand his own influence by marrying Ferdinand to Lady Milford, the duke's mistress, but Ferdinand rebels against his father's plan and tries to persuade Luise to elope with him. "There are truly magnificent scenes and the characters are admirably put into effect." -Carl Wilhelm Ettinger (on the first production in 1784) "Schiller's talent was just made for the theater." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "If I did not regard Schiller as a great writer, I could not regard myself as a writer at all." -Franz Grillparzer (dramatist) "Nowadays, in a time of disoriented search for meaning and the canonization of the profane, Schiller's play is of astonishingly explosive force." -Thalia Theatre, Hamburg (2002)