THE WRITING OF WALLENSTEIN had cost Schiller much effort. It had been a struggle to adopt a new style and create a new type of drama, but the production of the play in Weimar had proved a triumph. The writing of Maria Stuart was less demanding and gave Schiller more immediate satisfaction, even though it was interrupted by illness and by his move to Weimar — which would lead to Goethe engaging Schiller for theater projects (a production of Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris (Iphigenia on Tauris) and a translation of Shakespeare's Macbeth). The original idea for a play on the Scottish queen dated back to Schiller's time in Bauerbach in 1783. Now, in 1799, it was to be an exemplary piece of classical drama, influenced by Schiller's thinking on aesthetics in the 1790s, using an elevated style, characters of high standing, and greater concentration of the dramatic action than in Wallenstein. Schiller had developed a closer association with the theater, and the play was written with the stage in mind. There is no clearer indication of this than his words to Goethe: