The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XXV
[ 1 ] Associated with the Magazine group was a free Dramatic Society. It did not belong so intimately with the Magazine as did the Free Literary Society; but the same persons were on the board of directors here as in the other Society, and I was elected a member of this board immediately after I came to Berlin.
[ 2 ] The purpose of this Society was that of producing plays which, because of their special character, because they fell outside the usual taste and tendencies and the like, were at first not produced by the theatres. It was no light task that rested upon the directors, to succeed in the midst of so many dramatic attempts with the “misunderstood” plays.
[ 3 ] The productions were carried out in such a way that in each case a company of actors was made up of artists who played on the most varied stages. With these actors the play was given in the morning in a theatre rented or else lent freely by its managers. The actors proved to be very unselfish in relation to this Society, for it was not able by reason of its limited means to offer adequate compensation. But neither actors nor managers had any inner reason to object to the production of works of an unusual sort. They simply said: “Before the ordinary public and at an evening performance, this cannot be done, since it would cause financial injury to any theatre. The public is simply not ripe for the idea that the theatre should serve exclusively the cause of art.”
[ 4 ] The activity associated with this Dramatic Society proved to be of a character in a high degree suited to me; most of all the part having to do with the staging of the plays. Along with Otto Erich Hartleben I took part in the rehearsals. We felt that we were real stage-managers. We gave the plays their stage forms. In this very art it became evident that all theorizing and dogmatizing are of no use unless they come from a vital artistic sense which intuitively grasps in the details the general requirement of style. One must steadfastly resist the resort to general rules. Everything which the circumstances in such a sphere render possible must appear in a flash from one's sure sense for style in action, in arrangement of the scenes. And what one then does, without any logical reflection but from the sense for style, gives a feeling of satisfaction to every artist in the cast, whereas a rule derived from the intellect gives them the feeling that their inner freedom is being interfered with.
[ 5 ] To the experiences in this field which were then mine, I had occasion afterwards again and again to look back with satisfaction.
[ 6 ] The first play that we produced in this way was Maurice Maeterlinck's L'intruse.1The Intruder. Otto Erich Hartleben had made the translation. Maeterlinck was then considered by the aesthetes as the dramatist who was fitted to bring upon the stage before the eyes of the susceptible spectator the invisible which lies amid the gross events of life. That which is ordinarily called incident in drama, the form of development in dialogue, Maeterlinck so employs as to produce thereby upon the susceptible the effect of symbols. It was this symbolizing that attracted many whose taste had been repelled by the preceding naturalism. All who were seeking for the “spirit,” but who did not desire a form of expression in which a world of spirit is directly revealed, found their satisfaction in a symbolism that spoke a language not expressed in naturalistic form and yet entered into the spiritual only to the extent that this was revealed in the vague blurred form of the mystic-presentimental. The less one could “tell distinctly” what lay behind the suggestive symbols, the more were many enraptured by them.
[ 7 ] I did not feel at ease in the presence of this spiritual glimmering. Yet it was delightful to work at the management of such a play as The Intruder. For the representation of just such symbols by appropriate stage means required in an unusual degree a managerial function guided in the way described above.
[ 8 ] Moreover, it became my task to precede the production with a brief introductory address. This practice, common in France, had at that time been adopted also in Germany in connection with individual plays. Not, of course, in the ordinary theatre, but in connection with such undertakings as were adapted to the Dramatic Society. This did not occur, indeed, at every production of the Society, but infrequently: when it seemed necessary to introduce the public to an artistic purpose with which it was unfamiliar. The task of giving this brief stage address was satisfying to me for the reason that it afforded me an opportunity to make dominant in my speech a mood radiated to me myself from the spirit. And I was happy to do this in a human environment which had otherwise no ear for the spirit.
[ 9 ] Being vitally within this dramatic art was, at all events, really important for me at that period. From that time on I myself wrote the dramatic criticisms for the Magazine. Concerning such “criticism,” moreover, I had my own views, which, however, were little understood. I considered it unnecessary that an individual should pass “judgment” upon a play and its production. Such judgments, as these were generally given, should really be reached by the public for itself alone.
[ 10 ] He who writes about a theatrical production should cause to arise before his readers in an artistic-ideal picture what combination of fantasy-form stands behind the play. In artistically fashioned thoughts there should arise before the reader an ideal poetic reproduction as the living, though unconscious, germ from which the author produced his play. For to me thoughts were never merely something by means of which reality is abstractly and intellectually expressed. I saw that an artistic activity is possible in thought-conceptions just as in colours, in forms, in stage devices. And such a minor work of art should be created by one who writes about a theatrical production. But that such a thing should come about when a play is produced before an audience seemed to me a necessary co-operation in the life of art.
[ 11 ] Whether a play is “good,” “bad,” or “mediocre” will be evident in the tone and bearing of such an “art-thought form.” For this cannot be concealed even though one does not say it in the form of crass judgments. Anything which is an impossible artistic structure will be visible in the thought art reproduction. For one there sets forth the thoughts, but they appear as utterly unreal if the work of art has not come from true and living fantasy.
[ 12 ] Such a vital working in unison with the living art I wished to have in the Magazine. In this way something would have come about that would have given to the journal a character different from that of merely theoretical discussion and judgment upon art and the spiritual life. The Magazine would actually become a member of this spiritual life.
[ 13 ] For everything which the art of thinking can do for dramatic poetry is possible also for theatrical art. It is possible by means of thought-fantasy to bring into existence that which the art of the manager has introduced into the stage-conception; in this way it is possible to follow the actor, and, not through criticism but by “positive” presentation, cause that which is alive in him to stand forth. Then one becomes as a “writer” a formative participant in the artistic life of the time, and not a “judge” standing in the corner, “dreaded,” “pitied,” or even despised and hated. When this is practised for all branches of art, a literary-artistic periodical is in the midst of actual life.
[ 14 ] But in such things one always has the same experience. If one seeks to bring them into effect with persons who are engaged in writing, they either fail completely to enter into these things, because they are contrary to the writer's habits of thought, or else they laugh and say: “Yes, that's right, but I have always done so.” They do not observe at all the distinction between what one proposes and what they themselves “have always done.”
[ 15 ] One who can go alone on his spiritual path need not be disturbed in mind by this. But whoever has to work among persons united in a spiritual group will be affected to the depths of his soul by these relationships. Especially so if his inner tendency is one so fixed, grown into him, that he cannot withdraw from this into another vitally real.
[ 16 ] Neither my articles in the Magazine nor my lectures gave me at that time inner satisfaction. Only, anyone who reads them now and thinks that I intended to be a representative of materialism is mistaken. That I never wished to do.
[ 17 ] This can clearly be seen from the essays and abstracts of lectures that I wrote. It is only necessary to set over against those individual passages which have a materialistic note others in which I speak of the spirit, of the eternal. So it is in the article Ein Wiener Dichter.2“A Viennese Poet.” Of Peter Attenberg I say there. “What most interests the person who enters deeply into the world harmony seems foreign to him ... From the eternal ideas no light penetrates into Attenberg's eyes ...” (Magazin, July 17, 1897). And the fact that this “eternal world harmony” cannot be meant to signify something materialistic and mechanical becomes clear in utterances such as those in the essay on Rudolf Heidenhain (November 6, 1897): “Our conception of nature is clearly striving toward the goal of explaining the life of the organism according to the same laws by which the phenomena of inanimate nature must also be explained. General laws of mechanics, physics, chemistry are sought for in the bodies of animals and plants. The same sort of laws that control a machine must also be operative in the organism – only in immeasurably more complicated and scarcely comprehensible form. Nothing is to be added to these laws in order to render possible an explanation of the phenomenon we call life ... The mechanistic conception of the phenomena of life steadily gains ground. But it will never satisfy one who has the capacity to cast a deeper glance into nature's processes. Contemporary researchers in nature are too cowardly in their thinking. Where the wisdom of their mechanistic explanations fails, they say the thing is to us inexplicable ... A bold thinking lifts itself to a higher manner of perception. It seeks to explain by higher laws that which is not of a mechanical character. All our natural-scientific thinking remains behind our natural scientific experience. At present the natural-scientific form of thinking is much praised. In regard to this, it is said that we live in a natural-scientific age. But at bottom this natural-scientific age is the poorest that history has to show. Its characteristic is to hang fast to the mere facts and the mechanistic forms of explanation. Life will never be grasped by this form of thinking because such a grasp requires a higher manner of conceiving than that which belongs to the explanation of a machine.”
[ 18 ] Is it not obvious that one who speaks thus of the explanation of “life” cannot think materialistically of the explanation of “spirit”?
[ 19 ] But I often spoke of the fact that the “spirit issues” from the bosom of nature. What is meant here by “spirit”? All that out of human thinking, feelings, and willing which begets “culture.” To speak of another “spirit” would then have been quite futile. For no one would have understood me if I had said: “That which appears in man as spirit and lies at the basis of nature is neither spirit nor nature, but the complete unity of both.” This unity – the creative Spirit which in its creating brings matter into existence and thereby is at the same time matter, but which also shows itself wholly as spirit – this unity is grasped by an idea which lay as far as possible from the habits of thought of that period. But it would have been necessary to speak of such an idea if one was to present in a spiritual form of thinking the primal state of the evolution of earth and man and the spiritual material Powers still active to-day in man himself, which on the one hand form his body and on the other cause to issue forth the living spiritual by means of which he creates culture. But external nature would have needed to be so discussed that in it the primal spiritual-material is represented as dead in natural laws.
[ 20 ] All this could not be given.
[ 21 ] It could be linked up only with natural-scientific experience, not with natural-scientific thinking. In this experience there was something present which could set in shining light before a man's own mind a true, spirit-filled thinking regarding the world and man – something out of which might again be found the spirit now lost from the sort of knowledge confirmed by tradition and accepted on faith. The perception of spirit-nature I desired to draw from the experience of nature. I wished to speak of what is to be found on “this side” as the spiritual-natural, as the essentially divine. For in the knowledge confirmed by tradition the divine had come to belong to “the beyond” because the spirit of “this side” was not recognized and was therefore sundered from the perceptible world. It had become something which had been submerged in man's consciousness into an ever increasing darkness. Not the rejection of the divine-spiritual, but its setting within the world, its calling to “this side,” lay in such sentences as the following in one of the lectures before the Free Literary Society: “I believe that natural science can give back to us the consciousness of freedom in a form more beautiful than that in which men have yet possessed it. In the life of our souls there operate laws which are just as natural as those which send the heavenly bodies round the sun. But these laws represent something which is higher than all the rest of nature. This something is present nowhere save in man alone. Whatever flows from this, in that is man free. He lifts himself above the fixed necessity of laws of the inorganic and organic; he heeds and follows only himself.” (The last sentences are italicized here3That is, in the German text. for the first time; they were not italicized in the Magazine. For these sentences see the Magazine of 12th February, 1898.)
Chapter XXV
[ 1 ] Mit dem Magazinkreis im Zusammenhang stand eine freie «Dramatische Gesellschaft». Sie gehörte nicht so eng dazu wie die «Freie literarische Gesellschaft»; aber es waren dieselben Persönlichkeiten wie in dieser Gesellschaft im Vorstande; und ich wurde sogleich auch in diesen gewählt, als ich nach Berlin kam.
[ 2 ] Die Aufgabe dieser Gesellschaft war, Dramen zur Aufführung zu bringen, die durch ihre besondere Eigenart, durch das Herausfallen aus der gewöhnlichen Geschmacksrichtung und ähnliches, von den Theatern zunächst nicht aufgeführt wurden. Es gab für den Vorstand gar keine leichte Aufgabe, mit den vielen dramatischen Versuchen der «Verkannten» zurechtzukommen.
[ 3 ] Die Aufführungen gingen in der Art vor sich, daß man für jeden einzelnen Fall ein Schauspielerensemble zusammenbrachte aus Künstlern, die an den verschiedensten Bühnen wirkten. Mit diesen spielte man dann in Vormittagsvorstellungen auf einer gemieteten oder von einer Direktion frei überlassenen Bühne. Die Bühnenkünstier erwiesen sich dieser Gesellschaft gegenüber sehr opferwillig, denn sie war wegen ihrer geringen Geldmittel nicht in der Lage, entsprechende Entschädigungen zu zahlen. Aber Schauspieler und auch Theaterdirektoren hatten damals innerlich nichts einzuwenden gegen die Aufführung von Werken, die aus dem Gewohnten herausfielen. Sie sagten nur: Vor einem gewöhnlichen Publikum in Abendvorstellungen könne man das nicht machen, weil sich jedes Theater dadurch finanziell schädige. Das Publikum sei eben nicht reif genug dazu, daß die Theater bloß der Kunst dienten.
[ 4 ] Die Betätigung, die mit dieser dramatischen Gesellschaft verbunden war, erwies sich als eine solche, die mir in einem hohen Grade entsprechend war. Vor allem der Teil, der mit der Inszenierung der Stücke zu tun hatte. Mit Otto Erich Hartleben zusammen nahm ich an den Proben teil. Wir fühlten uns als die eigentlichen Regisseure. Wir gestalteten die Stücke bühnenmäßig. Gerade an dieser Kunst zeigt sich, daß alles Theoretisieren und Dogmatisieren nichts hilft, wenn sie nicht aus dem lebendigen Kunstsinn hervorgehen, der im Einzelnen das allgemein Stilvolle intuitiv ergreift. Die Vermeidung der allgemeinen Regel ist voll anzustreben. Alles, was man auf einem solchen Gebiete zu «können» in der Lage ist, muß im Augenblicke aus dem sicheren Stilgefühl für die Geste, die Anordnung der Szene sich ergeben. Und was man dann, ohne alle Verstandesüberlegung, aus dem Stilgefühle, das sich betätigt, tut, das wirkt auf alle beteiligten Künstler wohltuend, während sie sich bei einer Regie, die aus dem Verstande kommt, in ihrer inneren Freiheit beeinträchtigt fühlen.
[ 5 ] Auf die Erfahrungen, die ich auf diesem Gebiete damals gemacht habe, mußte ich mit vieler Befriedigung in der Folgezeit immer wieder zurückblicken.
[ 6 ] Das erste Drama, das wir in dieser Art aufführten, war Maurice Maeterlincks «Der Ungebetene» (l'intruse). Otto Erich Hartleben hatte die Übersetzung gegeben. Maeterlinck galt damals bei den Ästhetizisten als der Dramatiker, der das Unsichtbare, das zwischen den gröberen Geschehnissen des Lebens liegt, auf der Bühne dem ahnend erfassenden Zuschauer vor die Seele bringen könne. Von dem, was im Drama sonst «Vorgänge» genannt wird, von der Art, wie der Dialog verläuft, machte Maeterlinck einen solchen Gebrauch, daß dadurch zu Ahnendes wie im Symbol wirkt. Dieses Symbolisierende war es, was manchen Geschmack damals anzog, der von dem vorangegangenen Naturalismus abgestoßen war. Allen, die «Geist» suchten, aber keine Ausdrucksformen wünschten, in denen eine «Geistwelt» sich unmittelbar offenbart, fanden in einem Symbolismus ihre Befriedigung, der eine Sprache führte, die sich nicht in naturalistischer Art ausdrückte, die aber auf ein Geistiges doch nur insofern ging, als dieses in mystisch-ahnungsvoller, unbestimmt verschwimmender Art sich kundgab. Je weniger man «deutlich sagen» konnte, was hinter den andeutenden Symbolen liegt, desto verzückter wurden manche durch sie.
[ 7 ] Ich fühlte mich nicht behaglich gegenüber diesem geistigen Flimmern. Aber dennoch war es reizvoll, an der Regie eines solchen Dramas wie « Der Ungebetene» sich zu betätigen. Denn gerade diese Art von Symbolen durch geeignete Bühnenmittel zur Darstellung zu bringen, erfordert in einem besonders hohen Grade ein Regiewirken, das in der eben geschilderten Art orientiert ist.
[ 8 ] Und dazu fiel noch die Aufgabe auf mich, die Vorstellung durch eine kurze hinweisende Rede (Conférence) einzuleiten. Man hatte damals diese in Frankreich geübte Art auch in Deutschland bei einzelnen Dramen angenommen. Natürlich nicht auf dem gewöhnlichen Theater, aber eben bei solchen Unternehmungen, wie sie in der Richtung der «Dramatischen Gesellschaft» lagen. Es geschah das nicht etwa vor jeder Vorstellung dieser Gesellschaft, sondern selten; wenn man für notwendig hielt, das Publikum in ein ihm ungewohntes künstlerisches Wollen einzuführen. Mir war die Aufgabe dieser kurzen Bühnenrede aus dem Grunde befriedigend, weil sie mir Gelegenheit gab, in der Rede eine Stimmung walten zu lassen, die mir selbst aus dem Geist heraus strahlte. Und das war mir lieb in einer menschlichen Umgebung, die sonst kein Ohr für den Geist hatte.
[ 9 ] Das Drinnenstehen in dem Leben der dramatischen Kunst war für mich damals überhaupt ein recht bedeutsames. Ich schrieb daher die Theaterkritiken des « Magazin» selbst. Ich hatte auch von solchen «Kritiken» meine besondere Auffassung, die aber wenig Verständnis fand. Ich hielt es für unnötig, daß ein Einzelner «Urteile» abgibt über ein Drama und dessen Aufführung. Solche Urteile, wie sie da gewöhnlich abgegeben werden, sollte eigentlich das Publikum mit sich allein abmachen.
[ 10 ] Wer über eine Theateraufführung schreibt, sollte in einem künstlerisch4deellen Gemälde vor seinem Leser erstehen lassen, welche Phantasie-Bild-Zusammenhänge hinter dem Drama stehen. In künstlerisch geformten Gedanken sollte vor dem Leser eine ideelle Nachdichtung stehen als der in dem Dichter unbewußt lebende Keim seines Dramas. Denn mir waren Gedanken niemals bloß etwas, wodurch man Wirkliches abstrakt und intellektualistisch ausdrückt. Ich sah, wie im Gedanken-Bilden eine künstlerische Betätigung möglich ist wie mit Farben, wie in Formen, wie mit Bühnenmitteln. Und ein solches kleines Gedankenkunstwerk sollte derjenige geben, der über eine Theateraufführung schreibt. Daß aber ein Derartiges entstehe, wenn ein Drama dem Publikum vorgeführt wird, erschien mir als eine notwendige Forderung des Lebens der Kunst.
[ 11 ] Ob nun ein Drama «gut», «schlecht» oder «mittelmäßig» ist, das wird aus Ton und Haltung eines solchen «Gedanken-Kunstwerkes» ersichtlich werden. Denn in ihm läßt sich das nicht verbergen, auch wenn man es nicht grob-urteilend sagt. Was ein unmöglicher künstlerischer Aufbau ist, das wird anschaulich durch gedankenkünstlerische Nachbildung. Denn da stellt man zwar die Gedanken hin; sie erweisen sich aber als wesenlos, wenn das Kunstwerk nicht aus wahrer, in Wirklichkeit lebender Phantasie ist.
[ 12 ] Solch ein lebendiges Zusammenwirken mit der lebenden Kunst wollte ich im «Magazin» haben. Dadurch hätte etwas entstehen sollen, was die Wochenschrift nicht wie etwas die Kunst und das geistige Leben theoretisch Besprechendes, Beurteilendes erscheinen ließ. Sie sollte ein Glied in diesem geistigen Leben, in dieser Kunst selbst sein.
[ 13 ] Denn alles das, was man durch die Gedankenkunst für die dramatische Dichtung tun kann, das ist auch für die Schauspielkunst möglich. Man kann in Gedanken-phantasie erstehen lassen, was die Regiekunst in das Bühnenbild hineinversetzt; man kann in solcher Art dem Schauspieler folgen, und was in ihm lebt nicht kritisierend, sondern «positiv» darstellend erstehen lassen. Man wird dann als «Schreibender» ein Mitgestalter am ltünstlerischen Zeitleben, nicht aber ein in der Ecke stehender «gefürchteter», «bemitleideter» oder wohl auch verachteter und gehaßter «Beurteiler». Wenn das für alle Gebiete [358] der Kunst durchgeführt wird, dann eben steht eine literarisch-künstlerische Zeitschrift im wirklichen Leben darinnen.
[ 14 ] Aber mit solchen Dingen macht man immer dieselbe Erfahrung. Sucht man sie vor Menschen, die sich schriftstellerisch betätigen, zur Geltung zu bringen, so gehen sie entweder gar nicht darauf ein, weil sie ihren Denkgewohnheiten widersprechen, und sie aus diesen nicht herauswollen. Oder aber sie hören zu, und sagen dann:
[ 15 ] ja, das ist das Richtige; aber ich habe das immer schon so gemacht. Sie bemerken gar nicht das Unterscheidende zwischen dem, was man will, und dem, was sie «schon immer gemacht haben».
[ 16 ] Wer seine einsamen geistigen Wege gehen kann, den braucht das alles nicht seelisch zu berühren. Wer aber in einem geistigen Menschenzusammenhang arbeiten soll, der wird seelisch recht gründlich ergriffen von diesen Verhältnissen. Insbesondere dann, wenn seine innere Richtung eine so feste, mit ihm verwachsene ist, daß er in einem Wesentlichen nicht von ihr abgehen kann Weder von meinen Darstellungen im «Magazin», noch von denen meiner Vorträge konnte ich damals innerlich befriedigt sein. Nur, wer sie heute liest und glaubt, daß ich Materialismus hatte vertreten wollen, der irrt sich vollständig. Das habe ich niemals gewollt.
[ 17 ] Man kann das auch aus den Aufsätzen und Vortragsauszügen, die ich geschrieben habe, deutlich ersehen. Man muß nur den einzelnen materialistisch klingenden Stellen andere gegenüberhalten, in denen ich vom Geistigen, vom Ewigen spreche. So in dem Artikel: «Ein Wiener Dichter». Von Peter Altenberg sage ich da: «Was den Menschen, der sich in die ewige Weltharmonie vertieft, am meisten interessiert, scheint ihm fremd zu sein... Von den ewigen Ideen dringt kein Licht in Altenbergs Augen...» («Magazin» vom 17. Juli 1897). Und daß mit dieser «ewigen Weltenharmonie» nicht eine mechanisch-materialistische gemeint sein kann, wird deutlich an Aussprüchen wie die im Aufsatz über Rudolf Heidenhain (vom 6. November 1897): «Unsere Naturauffassung strebt deutlich dem Ziele zu, das Leben der Organismen nach denselben Gesetzen zu erklären, nach denen auch die Erscheinungen der leblosen Natur erklärt werden müssen. Mechanische, physikalische, chemische Gesetzmäßigkeit wird im tierischen und pflanzlichen Körper gesucht. Dieselbe Art von Gesetzen, die eine Maschine beherrschen, sollen, nur in unendlich komplizierter und schwer zu erkennender Form, auch im Organismus tätig sein. Nichts soll zu diesen Gesetzen hinzutreten, um das Phänomen, das wir Leben nennen, möglich zu machen ... Die mechanistische Auffassung der Lebenserscheinungen gewinnt immer mehr an Boden. Sie wird aber denjenigen nie befriedigen, der fähig ist, einen tieferen Blick in die Naturvorgänge zu tun... Die Naturforscher von heute sind in ihrem Denken zu feige. Wo ihnen die Weisheit ihrer mechanischen Erklärungen ausgeht, da sagen sie, für uns ist die Sache nicht erklärbar... Ein kühnes Denken erhebt sich zu einer höhern Anschauungsweise. Es versucht, nach höhern Gesezen zu erklären, was nicht mechanischer Art ist. All unser naturwissenschaftliches Denken bleibt hinter unserer naturwissenschaftlichen Erfahrung zurück. Man rühmt heute die naturwissenschaftliche Denkart sehr. Man spricht davon, daß wir im naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter leben. Aber im Grunde ist dieses naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter das ärmlichste, das die Geschichte zu verzeichnen hat. Hängenbleiben an den bloßen Tatsachen und an den mechanischen Erklärungsarten ist sein Charakteristikum. Das Leben wird von dieser Denkart nie begriffen, weil zu einem solchen Begreifen eine höhere Vorstellungsweise gehört als zur Erklärung einer Maschine.»
[ 18 ] Ist nicht völlig selbstverständlich, daß, wer so von der Erklärung des «Lebens » spricht, von der des «Geistes» nicht im materialistischen Sinne denken kann?
[ 19 ] Aber ich spreche öfter davon, daß der «Geist» aus dem Schoße der Natur «hervorgehe». Was ist da mit «Geist» gemeint? Alles das, was aus menschlichem Denken, Fühlen und Wollen die «Kultur» erzeugt. Von einem andern «Geiste» zu sprechen, wäre damals ganz zwecklos gewesen. Denn niemand hätte mich verstanden, wenn ich gesagt hätte: dem, was am Menschen als Geist erscheint, und der Natur liegt etwas zugrunde, das weder Geist, noch Natur ist, sondern die vollkommene Einheit beider. Diese Einheit: schaffender Geist, der den Stoff in seinem Schaffen zum Dasein bringt und dadurch zugleich Stoff ist, der ganz als Geist sich darstellt: diese Einheit wird durch eine Idee begriffen, die den damaligen Denkgewohnheiten so fern wie möglich lag. Von einer solchen Idee aber hätte gesprochen werden müssen, wenn in geistgemäßer Anschauungsart die Urzustände der Erd- und Menschheitsentwickelung und die heute noch im Menschen selbst tätigen geist-stofflichen Mächte hätten dargestellt werden sollen, die auf der einen Seite seinen Körper bilden, auf der andern das lebendig Geistige aus sich hervorgehen lassen, durch das er die Kultur schafft. Die äußere Natur aber hätte so besprochen werden müssen, daß in ihr das ursprünglich Geist-Stoffliche als erstorben in den abstrakten Naturgesetzen sich darstellt.
[ 20 ] Das alles konnte nicht gegeben werden.
[ 21 ] Es konnte nur angeknüpft werden an die naturwissenschaftliche Erfahrung, nicht an das naturwissenschaftliche Denken. In dieser Erfahrung lag etwas vor, das einem wahren, geisterfüllten Denken gegenüber die Welt und den Menschen lichtvoll vor dessen eigene Seele stellen konnte. Etwas, aus dem der Geist wiedergefunden werden konnte, der in den traditionell bewahrten und geglaubten Bekenntnissen verlorengegangen war. Die Geist-Natur-Anschauung wollte ich aus der Naturerfahrung herausholen. Sprechen wollte ich von dem, was im «Diesseits» als das Geistig-Natürliche, als das wesenhaft Göttliche zu finden ist. Denn in den traditionell bewahrten Bekenntnissen war dies Göttliche zu einem «Jenseits» geworden, weil man den Geist des «Diesseits» nicht anerkannte und ihn daher von der wahrnehmbaren Welt absonderte. Er war zu etwas geworden, das für das menschliche Bewußtsein in ein immer stärkeres Dunkel untergetaucht war. Nicht die Ablehnung des Göttlich-Geistigen, sondern die Hereinstellung in die Welt, die Anrufung desselben im «Diesseits» lag in solchen Sätzen, wie dem in einem der Vorträge für die «Freie literarische Gesellschaft»: «Ich glaube, die Naturwissenschaft kann uns in schönerer Form, als die Menschen es je gehabt haben, das Bewußtsein der Freiheit wiedergeben. In unserem Seelenleben wirken Gesetze, die ebenso natürlich sind wie diejenigen, welche die Himmelskörper um die Sonne treiben. Aber diese Gesetze stellen ein Etwas dar, das höher ist als alle übrige Natur. Dieses Etwas ist sonst nirgends vorhanden als im Menschen. Was aus diesem fließt, darinnen ist der Mensch frei. Er erhebt sich über die starre Notwendigkeit der unorganischen und organischen Gesetzmäßigkeit, gehorcht und folgt nur sich selbst.» (Die letzten Sätze sind erst hier unterstrichen, waren es noch nicht im «Magazin». Vgl. für diese Sätze das «Magazin» vom 12. Februar 1898.)
Chapter XXV
[ 1 ] A free "Dramatic Society" was associated with the magazine circle. It was not as closely associated with it as the "Freie literarische Gesellschaft"; but the same personalities were on the board as in this society; and I was immediately elected to it when I came to Berlin.
[ 2 ] The task of this society was to stage dramas that were not initially performed by the theaters due to their particular character, their being out of the usual taste and the like. It was no easy task for the board to cope with the many dramatic attempts by the "misjudged".
[ 3 ] The performances were organized in such a way that for each individual case an ensemble of actors was brought together from artists who had worked at various theatres. These were then used in morning performances on a rented stage or one provided free of charge by the management. The stage artists proved to be very willing to make sacrifices for this company, as it was not in a position to pay appropriate compensation due to its limited financial resources. But actors and theater directors at the time had no internal objections to performing works that were out of the ordinary. They just said that it couldn't be done in front of an ordinary audience in evening performances, because every theater would damage itself financially. The audience was simply not mature enough for the theaters to serve art alone.
[ 4 ] The activity connected with this dramatic society turned out to be one that suited me to a high degree. Especially the part that had to do with staging the plays. I took part in the rehearsals together with Otto Erich Hartleben. We felt that we were the actual directors. We designed the plays for the stage. This art in particular shows that all theorizing and dogmatizing is of no use if it does not emerge from a living sense of art that intuitively grasps what is generally stylish in the individual. The avoidance of the general rule is to be fully striven for. Everything that one is able to "do" in such a field must arise in the moment from a sure sense of style for the gesture, the arrangement of the scene. And what one then does, without any intellectual consideration, out of the feeling of style that is activated, has a beneficial effect on all the artists involved, whereas they feel that their inner freedom is impaired by a direction that comes from the intellect.
[ 5 ] I had to look back on the experiences I made in this field with much satisfaction in the time that followed.
[ 6 ] The first drama we performed in this way was Maurice Maeterlinck's "The Uninvited" (l'intruse). Otto Erich Hartleben had provided the translation. At the time, Maeterlinck was regarded by the aestheticists as the playwright who could bring the invisible, which lies between the coarser events of life, on stage before the suspecting spectator's soul. Maeterlinck made such use of what is otherwise called "events" in drama, of the way in which the dialog proceeds, that the things to be foreshadowed have a symbolic effect. It was this symbolizing quality that attracted many a taste at the time that had been repelled by the naturalism that preceded it. All those who sought "spirit" but did not want any forms of expression in which a "spiritual world" was directly revealed found satisfaction in a symbolism that used a language that did not express itself in a naturalistic way, but which only referred to a spiritual realm insofar as it manifested itself in a mystical, foreboding, indeterminately blurred manner. The less one could "clearly say" what lay behind the suggestive symbols, the more enchanted some became by them.
[ 7 ] I did not feel comfortable with this spiritual flickering. But it was still appealing to be involved in directing a drama like "The Uninvited". For it is precisely this kind of symbolism that requires a particularly high degree of stage direction, which is oriented in the way I have just described.
[ 8 ] And in addition, I had the task of introducing the performance with a short introductory speech (Conférence). At that time, this method, which was practiced in France, was also adopted in Germany for individual dramas. Not in the ordinary theater, of course, but in such undertakings as those in the direction of the "Dramatische Gesellschaft". This did not happen before every performance of this society, but rarely, when it was considered necessary to introduce the audience to an artistic intention that was unfamiliar to them. I found the task of this short stage speech satisfying for the reason that it gave me the opportunity to allow a mood to prevail in the speech that radiated from my own spirit. And that was dear to me in a human environment that otherwise had no ear for the spirit.
[ 9 ] Being inside the life of dramatic art was a very important thing for me at the time. I therefore wrote the theater reviews of the "Magazin" myself. I also had my own particular view of such "reviews", which, however, met with little understanding. I thought it unnecessary for an individual to make "judgments" about a drama and its performance. Such judgements as are usually made should actually be made by the audience alone.
[ 10 ] Whoever writes about a theatrical performance should allow the imaginary pictorial connections behind the drama to emerge before the reader in an artistic painting. In artistically formed thoughts, the reader should be presented with an idealized reinterpretation as the unconsciously living germ of his drama. For to me thoughts were never merely something through which one expresses the real in an abstract and intellectualistic way. I saw how artistic activity is possible in the formation of thoughts, as with colors, as in forms, as with stage means. And the person who writes about a theater performance should produce such a small work of thought art. But that such a thing should arise when a drama is presented to the audience seemed to me to be a necessary requirement of the life of art.
[ 11 ] Whether a drama is "good", "bad" or "mediocre" will become apparent from the tone and attitude of such a "thought-artwork". For this cannot be concealed in it, even if it is not said in a grossly judgmental way. What is an impossible artistic construction becomes vivid through thought-artistic reproduction. For although thoughts are presented there, they prove to be insubstantial if the work of art is not based on a true, living imagination.
[ 12 ] I wanted such a living interaction with living art in the "Magazin". This should have created something that did not make the weekly appear like something that theoretically discussed and judged art and intellectual life. It should be a link in this intellectual life, in this art itself.
[ 13 ] For everything that can be done for dramatic poetry through the art of thought is also possible for the art of acting. One can let arise in thought-fantasy what the art of directing puts into the stage setting; one can follow the actor in such a way, and let arise what lives in him, not criticizing, but "positively" representing. As a "writer", one then becomes a co-creator in the artistic life of the time, but not a "feared", "pitied" or even despised and hated "judge" standing in the corner. If this is carried out for all areas of art, then a literary-artistic journal will be inside in real life.
[ 14 ] But one always has the same experience with such things. If you try to bring them to the attention of people who are active as writers, they either don't respond to them at all because they contradict their habits of thought and they don't want to break out of them. Or they listen and then say:
[ 15 ] Yes, that's the right thing to do; but I've always done it that way. They don't even notice the distinction between what you want and what they've "always done".
[ 16 ] Wer seine einsamen geistigen Wege gehen kann, den braucht das alles nicht seelisch zu berühren. Wer aber in einem geistigen Menschenzusammenhang arbeiten soll, der wird seelisch recht gründlich ergriffen von diesen Verhältnissen. Insbesondere dann, wenn seine innere Richtung eine so feste, mit ihm verwachsene ist, daß er in einem Wesentlichen nicht von ihr abgehen kann Weder von meinen Darstellungen im «Magazin», noch von denen meiner Vorträge konnte ich damals innerlich befriedigt sein. Nur, wer sie heute liest und glaubt, daß ich Materialismus hatte vertreten wollen, der irrt sich vollständig. Das habe ich niemals gewollt.
[ 17 ] You can also see this clearly from the essays and lecture excerpts I have written. You only have to contrast the individual materialistic-sounding passages with others in which I speak of the spiritual, of the eternal. Thus in the article: "A Viennese Poet". There I say of Peter Altenberg: "What interests man most, who immerses himself in the eternal harmony of the world, seems to be alien to him... No light from the eternal ideas penetrates Altenberg's eyes..." ("Magazin" of July 17, 1897). And that this "eternal harmony of the world" cannot be meant to be a mechanical-materialistic one becomes clear from statements such as those in the essay on Rudolf Heidenhain (dated November 6, 1897): "Our conception of nature clearly strives towards the goal of explaining the life of organisms according to the same laws by which the phenomena of inanimate nature must also be explained. Mechanical, physical and chemical laws are sought in the animal and plant body. The same kind of laws that govern a machine should also be at work in the organism, only in an infinitely complicated and difficult to recognize form. Nothing should be added to these laws to make the phenomenon we call life possible ... The mechanistic view of the phenomena of life is gaining more and more ground. But it will never satisfy those who are capable of taking a deeper look at natural processes... The naturalists of today are too cowardly in their thinking. When they run out of wisdom in their mechanical explanations, they say that the matter cannot be explained for us... Bold thinking rises to a higher way of looking at things. It tries to explain in higher terms what is not mechanical. All our scientific thinking falls short of our scientific experience. The scientific way of thinking is highly praised today. It is said that we live in a scientific age. But basically this scientific age is the poorest that history has to record. It is characterized by a clinging to mere facts and mechanical explanations. Life is never comprehended by this way of thinking, because such a comprehension requires a higher mode of conception than the explanation of a machine."
[ 18 ] Is it not completely self-evident that whoever speaks in this way of the explanation of "life" cannot think of "spirit" in the materialistic sense?
[ 19 ] But I often speak of the "spirit" "emerging" from the bosom of nature. What is meant by "spirit"? Everything that produces "culture" from human thinking, feeling and willing. To speak of a different "spirit" would have been completely pointless at the time. For no one would have understood me if I had said that what appears in man as spirit and in nature is based on something that is neither spirit nor nature, but the perfect unity of both. This unity: creative spirit, which brings matter to existence in its creation and is thereby at the same time matter, which presents itself entirely as spirit: this unity is understood through an idea that was as far removed as possible from the habits of thought at the time. Such an idea, however, would have had to be spoken of if the original states of the development of the earth and mankind and the spiritual and material powers still active in man himself today, which on the one hand form his body and on the other allow the living spiritual to emerge from him, through which he creates culture, were to be depicted in a spiritually appropriate manner. External nature, however, should have been discussed in such a way that in it the originally spiritual-material presents itself as extinct in the abstract laws of nature.
[ 20 ] All this could not be given.
[ 21 ] It could only be linked to scientific experience, not to scientific thinking. In this experience there was something that could place the world and man in front of his own soul full of light in the face of true, spirit-filled thinking. Something from which the spirit could be rediscovered that had been lost in traditionally held and believed beliefs. I wanted to bring the spirit-nature view out of the experience of nature. I wanted to speak of that which is to be found in the "here and now" as the spiritual-natural, as the essentially divine. For in the traditionally preserved confessions, this divine had become a "beyond" because the spirit of the "this world" was not recognized and was therefore separated from the perceptible world. It had become something that had been submerged into an ever-increasing darkness for human consciousness. It was not the rejection of the divine-spiritual, but rather the acceptance of it in the world, the invocation of it in the "here and now", that lay in such sentences as the one in one of the lectures for the "Freie literarische Gesellschaft": "I believe that natural science can give us back the consciousness of freedom in a more beautiful form than human beings have ever had. There are laws at work in our souls that are just as natural as those that drive the heavenly bodies around the sun. But these laws represent something that is higher than all other nature. This something is present nowhere else but in man. What flows from it, man is free in this. He rises above the rigid necessity of inorganic and organic lawfulness, obeys and follows only himself." (The last sentences are only underlined here, they were not yet in the "Magazin". For these sentences, see the "Magazin" of February 12, 1898.)