Goethe–Schiller Monument, Syracuse

The Goethe–Schiller Monument in Syracuse, New York incorporates a copper double-statue of the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. It was erected by the German-American organizations of Syracuse and Onondaga County, and was unveiled on October 15, 1911. Schiller, who is on the reader's right in the photograph, was called the "poet of freedom" in the US, and he had an enormous 19th Century following. The Syracuse monument was the last of 13 monuments to Schiller that were erected in US cities. Goethe was the "supreme genius of modern German literature"; he and Schiller are paired in the statue because they had a friendship "like no other known to literature or art." As Paul Zanker writes, in the statue a "fatherly Goethe gently lays his hand on the shoulder of the restless Schiller, as if to quiet the overzealous passion for freedom of the younger generation." Goethe is holding a laurel wreath in his right hand, and Schiller's right hand is reaching towards it. ()