| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture II
06 Oct 1920, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture II
06 Oct 1920, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
Our present age, inartistic as it is, shows little awareness of the fact that recitation stands midway between speaking, or reading, which are not artistic, and artistically developed singing. In many circles there is a feeling that really anyone can recite – and this, of course, is not unconnected with the fact that in these same circles everyone flatters himself that he can also write poetry. It would not so easily enter anyone's head that someone could be a musician, or a painter, without having previously undergone any sort of artistic training. When we consider current views on the art of recitation, we are obliged to admit that, just as in people's ideas about the real nature of poetry, there is also a certain lack of clarity as to the nature of the art of recitation. As to how this art of recitation must use its instrument – the human voice in connection with the human organism – even for this there is no clear understanding. This is undoubtedly connected with the fundamental absence, in our present age, of any earnest feeling for the true nature of poetry. There is no doubt that poetry stands in a relationship with the whole being of man quite different to that of ordinary prose, of whatever kind this may be; everything that man must recognize as that higher world to which he belongs with the soul and spiritual parts of his being poetry must also stand in a certain connection with all this. Along with the lack of clarity which gradually invaded ideas concerning man's relationship with the super-sensible world, there also came about another partial lack of clarity, concerning man's relationship with that world which is expressed in the art of poetry. I should like to draw attention to two facts – things which resound to us from ancient times, though from quite different peoples, with quite differently evolved characters. One fact, though one which today is passed over so lightly, is something to which Homer, the great writer of Greek epic, draws our attention at the beginning of both his poems: namely, that what he wished to convey to the world as his poetry did not come from himself.
‘Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus' son Achilles ...’
It is not Homer, but the Muse who is singing. Our age can no longer take this seriously – for the understanding that lies hidden behind the opening of the Homeric poem had, in fact, already been extinguished by the eighteenth century, with its intellectual conceptions. When Klopstock began his Messiah, he did indeed look at the beginning of the Homeric poems; but in this respect he lived entirely in abstract ideas, intellectualistic ideas, and these could only lead him to say: the Greeks still believed in gods, in the Muses – modern man can replace this only by his own immortal soul. Thus, Klopstock begins with the words:
‘Sing, immortal soul, of sinful man's redemption.’
Now this opening of the Messiah, for anyone who can see into these things, is a document of the very greatest significance. And in the nineteenth century, too, all feeling had been completely lost for what Homer meant to convey – that when I reveal myself in poetry, it is really something higher that is revealed in me: my “I” withdraws, my ego withdraws, so that other powers make use of my speech-organism; divine-spiritual powers make use of this speech-organism in order to reveal themselves. One must, therefore, regard what Homer placed at the opening of his two poetic creations as something worthy of more serious consideration than is usually accorded to such things today. It is remarkable how something similar, and yet quite different, resounds to us from a certain period in the development of Central Europe, a period to which the Nibelungenlied points – although it was not written down until a later date. This begins in a manner similar to, yet quite different from Homer:
‘To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told’
“In olden maeren” – what are maeren, for those who still have a living feeling and perception for such things? I cannot go into all this in detail, but I need only allude to the real meaning of this expression, maer – Nachtmar (nightmare): for this same expression is used to describe certain dreams which are caused by being oppressed, as it were, by an Alp – by a nightmare. In this nightmare, this Alp, we have the last atavistic traces of what is indicated in the Nibelungenlied, when it says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told…”; something is here related which does not come out of normal day-time ego-consciousness, but from a kind of perception which proceeds in the manner of the consciousness we possess in an especially vivid dream such as the nightmare, the maeren. Here again our attention is directed not to ordinary consciousness, but to something which is revealed, through ordinary consciousness, from super-sensible spheres. Homer says: “Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus' son Achilles ...”; and the Nibelungenlied says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told.” What is referred to in the first instance? To that which is, in reality, brought forth by the Muse, when she makes use of the human organism, begins to speak through the human organism, to vibrate musically; our attention is directed to something musical which permeates the human being, and which speaks from greater depths than are reached by his ordinary consciousness. And when the Nibelungenlied says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told …” – it is something which permeates human consciousness as a perception similar to seeing, as something like visual perception, to which we are referred. The Nibelungenlied indicates something plastic and formative, something imaginative; in the Homeric epic we are given something musical. Both, however, from different sides, show us what wells up in poetry from the profounder depths of human nature, something which takes hold of the human being and finds utterance through him. One must have a feeling for this, if one is to experience the way in which true declamation gives expression in poetry, and takes hold of the human instrument of speech – though, as we shall see later, this involves the entire human organism. The manner, the whole way in which a human being is built up is an outcome of the forces of the spiritual world. And again, the whole manner in which a human being is able to bring his organism into movement when he declaims or recites poetry – this, too, must be the result of a spiritual force holding sway in the human organism. One must learn to trace this working of the spirit in the human organism when the art of poetry is expressed through recitation or declamation. Declamation then becomes what the human organism can be, when it is tuned in the most various ways. In order to gain a practical, artistic realization of these things in some detail, we would now like to show you what must live in declamation when something more of the nature of folk-poetry, or folk-song, is taken into consideration; we shall then proceed to something which is more definitely art – poetry. We hope to show you how fundamentally different the effect of declamation must be, depending on whether it sounds forth from those depths of human nature from which earnestness, or tragedy, resound; or whether it comes from those surface realms of the human organization from which gaiety, satire and humour emanate. Only when we have learned to apprehend these things quite concretely today will I permit myself to give certain intimations of the connection between poetry and recitation and declamation. From these, we will then show how there results an exact method of educating oneself in artistic recitation and declamation. We will ask Frau Dr. Steiner to declaim a poem of Goethe: a folk-poem in its whole tone and mood – Goethe's “Heidenröslein”. HEIDENRÖSLEIN
Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn, Röslein auf der Heiden, War so jung und morgenschön, Lief er schnell, es nah zu sehn, Sah's mit vielen Freuden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden.
Knabe sprach: Ich breche dich Röslein auf der Heiden, Röslein sprach: Ich steche dich, Dass du ewig denkst an mich, Und ich will's nicht leiden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden.
Und der wilde Knabe brach 's Röslein auf der Heiden; Röslein wehrte sich und stach, Half ihm doch kein Weh und Ach, Musst' es eben leiden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [Comparable in English in many respects is: MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. – Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North; The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth: Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlandsfor ever I love. – Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below: Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. – My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlandsa-chasing the deer: Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. – Robert Burns (1759-1796.]
We will now ask Frau Dr. Steiner to recite to us “Erlkönigstochter”, which gives opportunity for a quite special style in the rendering of folk-poems. Herr Oluf reitet spät und weit, Zu bieten auf seine Hochzeitleut': Da tanzten die Elfen auf grünen Land, Erlkönigs Tochter reicht ihm die Hand. ‘Willkommen, Herr Oluf, was eilst von hier? Tritt her in den Reihen und tanz mit mir.’ – ‘Ich darf nicht tanzen, nicht tanzen ich mag, Frühmorgen ist mein Hochzeittag.’ – ‘Hör’ an, Herr Oluf, tritt tanzen mit mir, Zwei güldne Sporen schenk' ich dir; Ein Hemd von Seide, so weiss und fein, Meine Mutter bleicht's im Mondenschein.’ – ‘Ich darf nicht tanzen, nicht tanzen ich mag, Frühmorgen ist mein Hochzeittag.’ – ‘Hör’ an, Herr Oluf, tritt tanzen mit mir, Einen Haufen Goldes schenk' ich dir.’ – ‘Einen Haufen Goldes nahm’ ich wohl; Doch tanzen ich nicht darf, noch soll.’ ‘Und willt, Herr Oluf, nicht tanzen mit mir, Soll Seuch' und Krankheit folgen dir.’ – Sie tät einen Schlag ihm auf sein Herz, Noch nimmer fühlt er solchen Schmerz. Sie hob ihn bleichend auf sein Pferd: ‘Reit heim zu deinem Bräutlein wert.’ Und als er kam vor Hauses Tiir, Seine Mutter zitternd stand dafür. ‘Hör’ an, mein Sohn, sag’ an mir gleich, Wie ist dein' Farbe blass und bleich?’ – ‘Und sollt’ sie nicht sein blass und bleich? Ich traf in Erlenkönigs Reich.’ – ‘Hört an, mein Sohn, so lieb und traut, Was soll ich nun sagen deiner Braut?’ – ‘Sagt ihr, ich sei im Wald zur Stund’, Zu proben da mein Pferd und Hund.’ – Frühmorgen als es Tag kaum war, Da kam die Braut mit der Hochzeitschar. Sie schenkten Met, sie schenkten Wein. ‘Wo ist Herr Oluf, der Bräutigam mein?’ – ‘Herr Oluf, er ritt in Wald zur Stund’, Er probt allda sein Pferd und Hund.’ – Die Braut hub auf den Scharlach rot, Da lag Herr Oluf, und er war tot. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803). [Comparable in style in English is: LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the Lake, And no birds sing. O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful – a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said – ‘I love thee true’. She took me to her elf in grot, And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep And there I dream'd – Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; Who cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!’ I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid darning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side. And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. John Keats (1795-1821).]
Now we will present Goethe's two poems “Olympos” and “Charon”, where we shall find an opportunity to demonstrate recitation or declamation as the case may be. In the Poem “Olympos”, which is drawn more from the pictorial element, we have the art of declamation; while the more metrical “Charon” is drawn more from the musical element. OLYMPOS
Der Olympos, der Kissavos, Die zwei Berge haderten; Da entgegnend sprach Olympos Also zu dem Kissavos: ‘Nicht erhebe dich, Kissave, Turken – du Getretener. Bin ich doch der Greis Olympos, Den die ganze Welt vernahm. Zwei und sechzig Gipfel zähl ich Und zweitausend Quellen klar, Jeder Brunn hat seinen Wimpel, Seinen Kämpfer jeder Zweig. Auf den höchsten Gipfel hat sich Mir ein Adler aufgesetzt, Fasst in seinen mächt'gen Klauen Eines Helden blutend Haupt.’ ‘Sage, Haupt! wie ist's ergangen? Fielest du verbrecherisch?’ – Speise, Vogel, meine Jugend, Meine Mannheit speise nur! Ellenlänger wächst dein Flügel, Deine Klauen spannenlang. Bei Louron, in Xeromeron So in Chasia, auf'm Olympos Kämpft’ ich bis ins zwölfte Jahr. Sechzig Agas, ich erschlug sie, Ihr Gefild verbrannt’ ich dann; Die ich sonst noch niederstreckte, Türken, Albaneser auch, Sind zu viele, gar zu viele, Dass ich sie nicht Ahlen mag; Nun ist meine Reihe kommen, Im Gefechte fiel ich brav. CHARON Die Bergeshöhn, warum so schwarz? Woher die Wolkenwoge? Ist es der Sturm, der droben kämpft, Der Regen, Gipfel peitschend? Nicht ist's der Sturm, der droben kämpft, Nicht Regen, Gipfel peitschend; Nein, Charon ist's, er saust einher, Entführet die Verblichnen; Die Jungen treibt er vor sich hin, Schleppt hinter sich die Alten; Die Jüngsten aber, Säuglinge, In Reih' gehenkt am Sattel. Da riefen ihm die Greise zu, Die Junglinge, sie knieten: ‘O Charon, halt! halt am Geheg, Halt an beim kühlen Brunnen! Die Alten da erquicken sich, Die Jugend schleudert Steine, Die Knaben zart zerstreuen sich Und pflücken bunte Blümchen.’ Nicht am Gehege halt’ ich still, Ich halte nicht am Brunnen; Zu schöpfen kommen Weiber an, Erkennen ihre Kinder, Die Männer auch erkennen sie, Das Trennen wird unmöglich. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [A similar contrast is presented within the work of Donne, between the vivid, declamatory style of “The Sunne Rising” and the more sustained, metrical “Elegie: His Picture”: THE SUNNE RISING Busie old foole, unruly Sunne, Why dost thou thus, Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run? Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices, Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride, Call countrey ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme, Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time. Thy beames, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou thinke? I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke, But that I would not lose her sight so long: If her eyes have not blinded thine, Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee, Whether both the ‘India's of spice and Myne Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee. Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay. Nothing else is. Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this, All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie. Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee, In that the world's contracted thus; Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee To warme the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art every where; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare. ELEGIE: HIS PICTURE Here take my Picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soule dwels, shall dwell. ‘Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more When wee are shadowes both, than 'twas before. When weather-beaten I come backe; my hand, Perhaps with rude oares torne, or Sun beams tann'd, My face and brest of hairecloth, and my head With cares rash sodaine stormes, being o'rspread, My body'a sack of bones, broken within, And powders blew staines scatter'd on my skinne; If rivall fooles taxe thee to 'have lov'd a man, So foule, and course, as, Oh, I may seeme then, This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say, Doe his hurts reach mee? doth my worth decay? Or doe they reach judging minde, that hee Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see? That which in him was faire and delicate, Was but the milke, which in loves childish state Did nurse it: who now is growne strong enough To feed on that, which to disused tasts seemes tough. John Donne (1573-1631).] We will now pass on to a more highly-wrought verse-form – the sonnet; and sonnets by Hebbel and Novalis will now be recited. DIE SPRACHE Als höchstes Wunder, das der Geist vollbrachte, Preist ich die Sprache, die er, sonst verloren In tiefste Einsamkeit, aus sich geboren, Weil sie allein die andern möglich machte. Ja, wenn ich sie in Grund und Zweck betrachte, So hat nur sie den schweren Fluch beschworen, Dem er, zum dumpfen Einzelsein erkoren, Erlegen wäre, eh' er noch erwachte. Denn ist das unerforschte Eins und Alles In nie begrifftnem Selbstzersplitt‘rungsdrange Zu einer Welt von Punkten gleich zerstoben: So wird durch sie, die jedes Wesenballes Geheimstes Sein erscheinen lässt im Klange, Die Trennung vollig wieder aufgehoben! Friedrich Hebbel (1813-1863).
I Du hast in mir den edeln Trieb erregt, Tief ins Gemüt der weiten Welt zu schauen; Mit deiner Hand ergriff mich ein Vertrauen, Das sicher mich durch alle Stürme trägt. Mit Ahnungen hast du das Kind gepflegt, Und zogst mit ihm durch fabelhafte Auen; Hast als das Urbild zartgesinnter Frauen, Des Jünglings Herz zum höchsten Schwung bewegt. Was fesselt mich an irdische Beschwerden? Ist nicht mein Herz und Leben ewig dein? Und schirmt mich deine Liebe nicht auf Erden? Ich darf fier dich der edlen Kunst mich weiten; Denn du, Geliebte, willst die Muse werden, – Und stiller Schutzgeist meiner Dichtung sein. II In ewigen Verwandlungen begrusst Uns des Gesangs geheime Macht hienieden, Dort segnet sie das Land als ew'ger Frieden, Indes sie hier als Jugend uns umfliesst. Sie ist's, die Licht in unsre Augen giesst, Die uns den Sinn für jede Kunst beschieden, Und die das Herz der Frohen und der Müden In trunkner Andacht wunderbar geniesst. An ihrem vollen Busen trank ich Leben: Ich ward durch sie zu allem, was ich bin, Und durfte froh mein Angesicht erheben. Noch schlummerte mein allerhöchster Sinn; Da sah ich sie als Engel zu mir schweben, Und flog, erwacht, in ihrem Arm dahin. Novalis (1772-1801). [The following three poems show some characteristics of the English sonnet: ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's – he takes the lead In summer luxury, – he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. John Keats SONNET O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray Warbl'st at Eve, when all the Woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love; O if Jove's will Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate Foretell my hopeless doom in som Grove ny: As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief; yet hadst no reason why: Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. John Milton (1608-1674).
\ My galy charged with forgetfulnes Thorrough sharpe sees in wynter nyghtes doeth pas Twene Rock and Rock; and eke myn ennemy, Alas, That is my lorde, sterith with cruelnes; And every owre a thought in redines, As tho that deth were light in suche a case. An endles wynd doeth tere the sayll apase \ Of forced sightes and trusty ferefulnes. A rayn of teris, a clowde of derk disdain, \ Hath done the wered cordes great hinderaunce; \ Wrethed with errour and eke with ignoraunce. The starres be hid that led me to this pain; \ Drowned is reason that should me consort, And I remain dispering of the port. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542).]
And now, in order to show how another, the very opposite mood must be drawn from quite different realms of the human organization when this serves as the instrument for poetry and declamation, we will end with something humorous and satirical – choosing a poem by Christian Morgenstern. ST. EXPEDITUS Einem Kloster, voll von Nonnen, waren Menschen wohlgesonnen. Und sie schickten, gute Christen, ihm nach Rom die schönsten Kisten: Äpfel, Birnen, Kuchen, Socken, eine Spieluhr, kleine Glocken, Gartenwerkzeug, Schuhe, Schürzen... Aussen aber stand: Nicht stürzen! Oder: Vorsicht! oder welche wiesen schwarzgemalte Kelche. Und auf jeder Kiste stand ‘Espedito’, kurzerhand. Unsre Nonnen, die nicht wussten, wem sie dafür danken mussten, denn das Gut kam anonym, dankten vorderhand nur IHM, rieten aber doch ohn’ Ende nach dem Sender solcher Spende. Plötzlich rief die Schwester Pia eines Morgens: Santa mia! Nicht von Juden, nicht von Christen Stammen diese Wunderkisten – Expeditus, o Geschwister, heisst er und ein Heiliger ist er! Und sie fielen auf die Kniee. Und der Heilige sprach: Siehe! Endlich habt ihr mich erkannt. Und nun malt mich an die Wand! Und sie liessen einen kommen, einen Maler, einen frommen. Und es malte der Artiste Expeditum mit der Kiste. – Und der Kult gewann an Breite. Jeder, der beschenkt ward, weihte kleine Tafeln ihm und Kerzen. Kurz, er war in aller Herzen. II Da auf einmal, neunzehnhundert- fünf, vernimmt die Welt verwundert, dass die Kirche diesen Mann fürder nicht mehr dulden kann. Grausam schallt von Rom es her: Expeditus ist nicht mehr: Und da seine lieben Nonnen längst dem Erdental entronnen, steht er da und sieht sich um – und die ganze delt bleibt stumm. Ich allein hier hoch im Norden fühle mich von seinem Orden, und mein Ketzergriffel schreibt: Sanctus Expeditus – bleibt. Und weil jenes nichts mehr gilt, male ich hier neu sein Bild: – Expeditum, den Gesandten, grüss’ ich hier, den Unbekannten Expeditum, ihn, den Heiligen, mit den Assen, den viel eiligen, mit den milden, weissen Haaren und dem fröhlichen Gebaren, mit den Augen braun, voll Güte, und mit einer grossen Düte, strebt ihr spärlich Los zu lindern. Einen güldnen Heiligenschein geb’ ich ihm noch obendrein den sein Lacheln um ihn breitet, wenn er durch die Lande schreitet. Und um ihn in Engeiswonnen stell’ ich seine treuen Nonnen: Mägdlein aus Italiens Auen, himmlisch lieblich anzuschauen. Eine aber macht, fürwahr, eine lange Nase gar. Just ins ‘Bronzne Tor’ hinein spannt sie ihr klein Fingerlein. Oben aber aus dem Himmel quillt der Heiligen Gewimmel, und holdselig singt Maria: Santo Espedito - sia! Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914). [An excerpt from “The Rape of the Lock” shows the great English satirist in a comparatively rare mood of good humoured and friendly mocking. It comes from Canto II:
But now secure the painted vessel glides, The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides; While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die; Smooth flow the waves, the Zephyrs gently play, Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay. All but the Sylph – with careful thoughts opprest, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons strait his Denizens of air; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair: Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light. Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew, Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes, While ev'ry beam new transient colours flings, Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings. Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd; His purple pinions op'ning to the sun, He rais'd his azure wand, and thus begun. Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear, Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Daemons hear! Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd By laws eternal to th' aerial kind. Some in the fields of purest Aether play, And bask and whiten in the blaze of day. Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high, Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky. Some less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, Or suck the mists in grosser air below, Or dip their pinions in the painted bowl Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain. Others on earth o'er human race preside, Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide: Of these the chief the care of Nations own, And guard with Arms divine the British Throne. Our humbler province is to tend the Fair, Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious care; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let th' imprison'd essences exhale; To draw fresh colours from the vernal Flow'rs; To steal from rainbows e'er they drop in show'rs A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelow. This day, black Omens threat the brightest fair That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight; But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)]
Now the art of recitation must undoubtedly follow the poetry. Recitation introduces the human element into poetry, for the human organization itself furnishes the instrument of artistic expression. How this instrument is used in singing and in recitation – that is something which has indeed been much investigated: we have already taken the opportunity here of pointing out, in response to certain questions, how many methods (one method after another!) exist in our present age, to singing and recitation. For in a certain sense we have entirely lost the deeper, inner relationship between poetic utterance or expression and the human organization. I will take as. a starting-point next today something apparently quite physiological – and next time, after our detour through physiology, we shall be able to show you what poetry, as expressed in recitation and declamation, really demands. Let us look first at something which has been frequently mentioned during the lectures of the last few days: the human rhythmic system. The human being is organized into the system of nerves and senses – the instrument for the thought-world, for the world of sense-representations, and so on; the rhythmic system – the instrument for the development of the feeling world, and for all that is mirrored from the feeling-world and plays into the world of mental representations; and the metabolic system – through which the will pulsates, and in which the will finds its actual physical instrument. [Note 4] First, let us look at the rhythmic system. In this rhythmic system, two rhythms interpenetrate each other in a remarkable way. In the first place, we have the breathing-rhythm. This is essentially regular – though everything living is different in this respect, and it varies from individual to individual – so that in the case of healthy people, we are able to observe 16-19 breaths per minute. Secondly, we have the pulse-rhythm, directly connected with the heart. Naturally, when we take into account that in this rhythm we are dealing with functions of a living being, again we cannot cite any pedantic number; but, generally speaking, we may say that the number of pulse-beats per minute, in a healthy human organism, is approximately 72. Hence we can say that the number of pulse-beats is about four times the number of respirations. We can thus represent the course of the breath in the human organism, and how while we take one breath, the pulse intervenes four times. Now let us devote our minds for a moment to this interaction of the pulse-rhythm and the rhythm of the breath to this inner, living piano (if I may so express myself) where we experience the pulse rhythm as it strikes into the course of the breathing-rhythm. Let us picture the following: one breath inhaled and exhaled; and a second inhaled and exhaled; and, striking into this, the rhythm of the heart. Let us picture this in such a way that we can see that in the pulse-rhythm, which is essentially connected with the metabolism, which touches on the metabolic system, the will strikes, as it were, upwards; thus we have the will-pulses striking into the feeling-manifestations of the breath-rhythm. And let us suppose that we articulate these will-pulses, in such a way that we follow the will-pulses in the words, inwardly articulating the words to ourselves. Thus we have, for instance: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short – one breath-stream; then we make a pause, a kind of caesura, we hold back; then, accompanying the next drawing of the breath, we have the heart-rhythm striking into it: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short.
¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È || ¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È ||
Then, when we allow two breaths to be accompanied by the corresponding pulse-beats, and between them we make a pause, a pause for breath – we have the hexameter. [Note 5] We can ask: what is the origin of this ancient Greek verse metre? It originated from the harmony between blood-circulation and breathing. The Greek wished to turn his speech inward, so that, having suppressed his “I”, he orientated the words according to the pulse-beats, allowing these to play upon the stream of breath. Thus he brought his whole inner organization, his rhythmic organization, to expression in his speech: it was the harmony between heart-rhythm and breath-rhythm that resounded in his speech. To the Greek, this was more musical – as if it resounded up from the will, resounded up from the pulse-beats into the rhythm of the breath. You know that what remained as the last, atavistic remnant of the old clairvoyant images – the Alp, the nightmare – found expression in pictures, and is connected with the breathing-process: and there is still a connection between the pathological form of the Alpdruck and breathing. Now let us assume – for me it is more than an assumption – that in those primaeval times when his experience was more closely connected with the internal processes, man went out more with the breath; the movement was more from above downwards. And then he put into one breath:
¤ ¤ ¤ ‘To us in olden maeren'
Again, three high-tones: three times the perception of how the pulse beats into the breathing, and how this brings to expression an experience that is more visual, finding expression in the light and shade of the language, in the high and low tones. In the Greek we have something metrical long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short; whereas in the Nordic verses we have something with more declamatory impetus – high-tone and low-tone:
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ‘To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ Of praise-deserving heroes, of labours manifold ...'
It is the interaction of the breathing-rhythm and the rhythm of the heart, the rhythm of the pulse. Just as the Greek experienced a musical element and expressed this in metre, so the Nordic man experienced a pictorial element, which he expressed in the light and shade of the words, in the high-tones and low-tones. But there was always the knowledge that one was submerged in a state of consciousness where the “I” yielded itself up to the divine-spiritual being which reveals itself through the human organism – which forms this human organism so that it may be played upon as an instrument through the pulsation of the heart, through the breathing-process, through the stream of exhaled and inhaled breath:
È ¾ È ¾ È ¾ È || ¾ È ¾ È ¾
You know that many breathing-techniques have been discovered, and much thought given to methods of treating the human body to facilitate correct singing or recitation. It is much more to the point, however, to penetrate the real mysteries of poetry and recitation and declamation: for both of these will proceed from the actual, sensible-super-sensible perception of the harmony between the pulse, which is connected with the heart, and the breathing-process. As we shall see next time, each single verse-form, each single poetic form including rhyme, alliteration, and assonance, may be understood when we start from a living perception of the human organism, and what it does when it employs speech artistically. This is why it was quite justified when people who understood such things spoke, more or less figuratively, of poetry as a language of the gods: for this language of the gods does not speak the mysteries of the transient human “I”; it speaks in human consciousness, speaks musically and plastically the cosmic mysteries – it speaks when the super-sensible worlds play, through the human heart, upon the human breath. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture IV
06 Apr 1921, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture IV
06 Apr 1921, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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The art of recitation and declamation, of which we are going to say something this evening, is not at present accorded its full status as an art-form. In our approach to this art we often give too little consideration to exactly what is presented by the poet and to the medium in which the reciter or declaimer has to be artistically active. This moves us to consider the essentials of the art of recitation and declamation – when, as you have seen demonstrated many times, it presents itself as an accompanying art to eurythmy. We then become deeply aware that recitation and declamation must go beyond the prose content of a poem, which is actually the poem’s thought-component. For to stress the prose content turns the recitation and declamation of the poem into something inartistic. When in reciting, as happens at the present day, importance is attached to a prosaic stress on the meaning, this is an indication of our having abandoned the domain of the truly artistic. Let us be clear that a poet – if he is a true poet – will certainly have had in his imagination (in the full sense of the word) something which ultimately becomes apparent in the recitation and declamation. A poet who only had in his soul the thought-content, or the word-for-word content of feeling, and not the inwardly heard sound- and word-movement of the poem, would simply not be a poet at all. But it must also be made clear that what is put before the reciter is, in the end, only a kind of score or music-script – and that the art of recitation and declamation must go beyond the script in the same way as a pianist or other practising musician has to do. The re-creation is a new creating and the new creation is a re-creating. A musician who composes a piano work will, of course, also have in his imagination the whole pattern of sound: and whoever wishes to re-create his composition must make himself familiar above all with the instrument itself and with its characteristic sound-pattern and tone – of the piano in this instance. He must comprehend the art of handling both the instrument and its medium. And likewise the reciter must understand the art of handling speech. His instrument is bound up much more closely with his own being than are the external instruments of the musician, and in deploying his particular instrument he will also have to develop his own special characteristics. But he will have to start with the handling of speech, the material by means of which he can give expression to what reaches him from the poet only as a sort of score. As regards the handling of speech, it will be just as necessary to begin with the fundamentals as in the art of piano-playing, though the study must in many respects be pursued more intensively than in the case of learning the piano. We must also take into consideration that we are now living in a time when much of what has hitherto lived instinctively within the soul of man must be raised into consciousness. There is still today in wide circles, and not least among artists, a certain fear of this consciousness when it is brought to bear on artistic, creative work. They think that by introducing this sort of consciousness they will injure instinctive, imaginative creation and cripple it; many believe, too, that by becoming conscious of what really goes on in the soul in artistic creation they will lose that spontaneity essential to the creation of art. There is certainly some truth in all this. But, on the other hand, we must realise that what we are striving for in the sphere of anthroposophical perception is a matter of exceptional importance for our time and our civilisation. The slow struggle toward the experience of what in our spiritual stream is called Imagination weaves and lives in an element quite other than the intellectual, so that artistic feeling need in no way be lost when it is confronted with Imaginative experience. Indeed, if we are dealing with genuine Imaginations it cannot be lost. For what is disclosed in an Imagination with a view to knowledge is objectively (not subjectively but objectively) different from the Imagination manifested when the soul gives it an artistic form. If I may refer for a moment to something personal: I would like to say that to me it was always extremely distasteful if someone or other came along and tried to interpret my Mystery Plays in a symbolic way and imported into them all sorts of intellectual notions. For what lives in these Mystery Plays is experienced Imaginatively – down to every single sound. The picture stands there as a picture and has always stood there as a picture. It would never have occurred to me to begin with an intellectual idea and then fashion it into a picture. In that way I was able to discover by experience how, when one is attempting to impart artistic form, the Imaginative comes to be something objectively quite different to the form assumed by an Imagination that is directed toward cognition. Hence this prejudice, that spontaneity and instinctive imagining will be impaired if one raises artistic activity into consciousness, will have to be overcome. Our times require that this prejudice should be overcome. We may then perhaps be guided to the true foundations of declamation and recitation, as it is in this direction that they will have to be developed in the near future. We cannot put recitation and declamation into practice unless we fathom the fundamental differences presented in poetry by, on the one side, lyric; on the second side, epic; and on the third, the dramatic. [Note 10] Today we shall only be able to present something of the lyric and the dramatic. We shall then continue with something that might be called a ‘prose-poem’. There were reasons for this choice. The epic will be considered separately later on – indeed the epic can perhaps best illustrate the art of recitation when once we have advanced beyond the elementary stages of the art. In order to penetrate to a real declamatory and recitative art involving the lyric, dramatic and epic, the following must be observed. Whoever aims at this kind of vocal production must, for instance, develop a distinct feeling for the connection between lyric and the constituents of speech – and this he will achieve through a living experience of the vowels. A feeling for the vowels, for the intimacy of the vowels, must be sought if the lyrical is to be embodied and brought to expression. For it is in the vowel sounds that man’s essentially inward experience is expressed. In the single vowel-sounds – when penetrated by a sensitive understanding, a discerning sensibility – lies the whole spectrum of human inner experience. In vocalisation (the sounding of the vowels) lives everything which we might describe as coming from musical experience and which is projected into the lyric. Lyrical experience can definitely be traced back to musical experience. But in musical experience we find inwardness being unfolded in the movement of sound. In the lyric, we find inwardness absorbed into the very substance of the vowel itself. Yet whoever wishes to approach recitation from this point of view must avoid a certain error – and no greater error in the art of recitation is conceivable. For when we are learning how to handle the materials and elements of speech, we might be tempted to commence by introducing an element of feeling, to put subjective feeling into the vowel; and this is just what would actually make it prosaic. This is the opposite approach to that of recitation. Anyone who wishes to recite lyrical poetry must have a sensitivity to the vowel itself. He must begin by experiencing the vowel as such. Just as Goethe, for instance, recognises different shades of feeling in the various shades of colour, so we shall not only experience in the vowels different shades of feeling, but utterly different conditions of soul, different soul-contents. We shall feel every gradation, from sorrow and bitterness to joy and jubilation, in our sensing of the vowels and experience of what might be termed the vowel-scale. It will be readily admitted that much of what I am saying is often felt instinctively by the reciter when he comes to apply his art in individual poems. But he will be able to enhance his art significantly if he brings such a feeling to conscious awareness. Through vocalisation something capable of further development will be disclosed to him: he will discover how a vowel sounding earlier on still sounds in the later vowels – or a later vowel-sound modifies the earlier ones, etc. However, these things must not be practised in the mechanical and materialistic way often adopted nowadays, when various postures are assumed, along with artificial breath-control. Everything the body has to learn in this domain must derive purely from what is learnt in working with speech itself. Just as a painter can learn most when, instructed by an accomplished artist, he paints directly onto the canvas and only touches his work up here and there, – so too will the reciter best learn to recite by acquiring his grasp of speech from speech itself: from actual speaking, from handling the speech-movement. Afterwards, his attention can be drawn to any particular detail relating to external, bodily control. It is a curious tendency of our materialistic times first to move away from the poem and adjust the instrument of speech and only then return to artistic speaking. This aberration might almost be called nonsense; it certainly does not derive from true artistic feeling. Furthermore, if it is with the help of the vowel-sounds that we come to experience the lyric it is through the consonants that we shall begin to get a feeling for the epic. Truly to enter into the consonants is to experience over again, within ourselves, what is going on outside us. And if we feel in the consonantal element this peculiar imitation within us of the outside world, we shall be led artistically from these elementary constituents to an inner re-experiencing of what is also to be found in the images of a far-ranging epos. I can only touch upon this today; at another opportunity it can be referred to again. In this way it will be possible to develop what ought to lie at the foundation of recitation and declamation into a true art-form, down to its handling of the constituents of speech. And it will necessarily become clear to us, if we see the essential feature of this art in the way it handles actual speech, that the nuances of the art will show up in its response to the different languages – each language having its own special recitative or declamatory requirements. A language which is essentially mimetic, one which takes its departure from the intellect and classification and has developed language in the sphere of the intellect, a language which has abstracted itself from what can be experienced in the outer world, – such a language will have to tackle recitation and declamation quite differently to one in which the sounds (vowels and consonants) themselves express their relationship to inwardness or to externality. Now, in the first part of what Frau Dr. Steiner is going to declaim, you will hear to begin with something lyrical. From this you should actually be able to hear how lyrical poems come to expression with varying nuances, depending on the language in which they are presented. That will be the first part of our programme – a performance of essentially lyrical poems.
Three poems of Goethe’s youth. BEHERZIGUNG
Ist es besser, ruhig bleiben? Klammernd fest sich anzuhangen? Ist es besser, sich zu treiben? Soll er sich ein Häuschen bauen? Soll er unter Zelten leben? Soll er auf die Felsen trauen? Selbst die festen Felsen beben.
Eines schickt sich nicht für alle! Sehe jeder wie er’s treibe, Sehe jeder wo er bleibe, Und wer steht, dass er nicht falle! MEERES STILLE Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser, Ohne Regung ruht das Meer, Und bekümmert sieht der Schiffer Glatte Fläche rings umher. Keine Luft von keiner Seite! Todesstille fürchterlich! In der ungeheuern Weite Reget keine Welle sich. MIT EINEM GEMALTEN BAND Kleine Blumen, kleine Blätter Streuen mir mit leichter Hand Gute junge Frühlingsgötter Tändelnd auf ein luftig Band.
Zephyr, nimm’s auf deine Flügel, Schling’s um meiner Liebsten Kleid! Und so tritt sie vor den Spiegel All in ihrer Munterkeit.
Sieht mit Rosen sich umgeben, Selbst wie eine Rose jung: Einen Blick, geliebtes Leben! Und ich bin belohnt genung.
Fühle, was dies Herz empfindet, Reiche frei mir deine Hand, Und das Band, das uns verbindet, Sei kein schwaches Rosenband!
A little English lyric: SONG April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter; Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears! April, that mine ears Like a lover greetest, If I tell thee, sweetest, All my hopes and fears, April, April, Laugh thy golden laughter, But, the moment after, Weep thy golden tears! William Watson (1858-1935). THE BELLS OF ST. PETERSBURGH Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells, Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those joyous hours are past away! And many a heart, that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells!
And so ’twill be when I am gone; That tuneful peal will still ring on, While other bards shall walk these dells, And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!
Thomas Moore (1799-1852).
An example of Russian lyric: NILE DELTA Lucid gold and emerald, and black earth’s thick fecundity: landscape aloof, your wealth witheld from ease, in mute profundity…
Bosom laden with your fruit, – how many slumberous shapes repose secure in you, most lowly root, or fertile corpses decompose?
Yet not for all slow dissipation: not those that yearly upward flame, like ghosts at magic conjuration, and vernal life from death proclaim;
not Isis, crowned with flowers supernal, lush companions of the spring – the Touch-me-not, the Maid eternal, the Rainbow’s incandescent ring! Vladimir Soloviov (1853-1900). Trans. Neil Thompson and A.J.W. [Note 11] [Of considerable interest too is the beautiful German translation used in the original programme: NILDELTA Goldenglänzendes, smaragdenes, Tief schwarzerdenes Gefild, Deines Kraftens reicher Segen Aus der Scholle quillt.
Dieser Schoss, der keimetragende, Tote bergend in den Ton, Er litt stumm, der allergebene, Die jahrtausend lange Fron.
Doch nicht alles so Empfangene Trugst empor du jedes Jahr. Das vom alten Tod Gezeichnete Sieht des Lenzes sich noch bar.
Isis nicht, die Kronen tragende, Wird dir bringen jenen Kranz, Doch die unberührte, ewige Magd im Regenbogenglanz. Trans. Marie Steiner.] WANDRERS STURMLIED Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Nicht der Regen, nicht der Sturm Haucht ihm Schauer übers Herz. Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wird dem Regengewölk, Wird dem Schlossensturm Entgegen singen, Wie die Lerche, Du da droben.
Den du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst ihn heben übern Schlammpfad Mit den Feuerflügeln; Wandeln wird er Wie mit Blumenfüssen Über Deukalions Flutschlamm, Python tötend, leicht, gross, Pythius Apollo.
Den du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst die wollnen Flügel unterspreiten, Wenn er auf dem Felsen schläft, Wirst mit Hüterfittichen ihn decken In des Haines Mitternacht.
Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst im Schneegestöber Wärmumhüllen; Nach der Wärme ziehn sich Musen, Nach der Wärme Charitinnen.
Umschwebet mich ihr Musen, Ihr Charitinnen: Das ist Wasser, das ist Erde, Und der Sohn des Wassers und der Erde, Über den ich wandle Göttergleich.
Ihr seid rein, wie das Herz der Wasser, Ihr seid rein, wie das Mark der Erde, Ihr umschwebt mich und ich schwebe Über Wasser, über Erde, Göttergleich.
Soll der zurückkehren, Der kleine, schwarze, feurige Bauer? Soll der zurückkehren, erwartend Nur deine Gaben, Vater Bromius, Und helleuchtend umwärmend Feuer? Der kehren mutig? Und ich, den ihr begleitet, Musen und Charitinnen alle, Den alles erwartet, was ihr, Musen und Charitinnen, Umkränzende Seligkeit Rings ums Leben verherrlicht habt, Soll mutlos kehren?
Vater Bromius! Du bist Genius, Jahrhunderts Genius, Bist, was innre Glut Pindarn war, Was der Welt Phöbus Apoll ist.
Weh! Weh! Innre Wärme, Seelenwärme, Mittelpunkt: Glüh’ entgegen Phöb’ Apollen; Kalt wird sonst Sein Fürstenblick Über dich vorübergleiten, Neidgetroffen Auf der Ceder Kraft verweilen, Die zu grünen Sein nicht harrt.
Warum nennt mein Lied dich zuletzt? Dich, von dem es begann, Dich, in dem es endet, Dich, aus dem es quillt, Jupiter Pluvius! Dich, dich strömt mein Lied, Und kastalischer Quell Rinnt ein Nebenbach, Rinnet Müssigen, Sterblich Glücklichen Abseits von dir, Der du mich fassend deckst, Jupiter Pluvius!
Nicht am Ulmenbaum Hast du ihn besucht, Mit dem Taubenpaar In dem zärtlichen Arm, Tändelnden ihn, blumenglücklichen Anakreon, Sturmatmende Gottheit!
Nicht im Pappelwald An des Sybaris Strand, An des Gebirges Sonnebeglänzter Stirn nicht Fasstest du ihn, Den bienensingenden, Honig-lallenden, Freundlich winkenden Theokrit.
Wenn die Räder rasselten, Rad an Rad rasch ums Ziel weg, Hoch flog Siegdurchglühter Jünglinge Peitschenknall, Und sich Staub wälzt’, Wie vom Gebirg herab Kieselwetter ins Tal,— Glühte deine Seel’ Gefahren, Pindar Mut.—Glühte?—
Armes Herz! Dort auf dem Hügel, Himmlische Macht! Nur so viel Glut, Dort meine Hütte, Dorthin zu waten! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [For such lyrical intensity and power in English this famous ode remains unsurpassed: ODE TO THE WEST WIND I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! II Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aery surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and spare
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life: I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).]
When studying poetry with a view to artistic declamation, it is of primary importance to lose nothing of what wells up in the words from the poet’s soul, or is contained in what is given to us by him. Recitation, as well as poetry itself, will only become artistic when everything that the soul expresses in the prose content is recast into form, into something formed. In the lyric it must go more into the musical. In the epic and particularly in the dramatic, more into imagery, into what has been given a definite form. The lyrical, as I said, inclines toward the vowel-sounds; but we must not forget that every consonant also has in it a vowel-element. In every consonant there lies a disposition toward a vowel and every vowel has a tendency toward a consonant. Consequently through art, just as in other spheres where something similar is effected, the opposition between subjective and objective will be completely overcome. The whole inner being of man will be able to live in the outer world and the outer world will be brought to expression in its full strength through the inner being of man. Speaking about the art of reciting in our course last autumn, I drew your attention to the universal, cosmic rhythm which is expressed in the rhythmic system of man. Furthermore, I showed how this comes to find expression in poetry – and thence, of course, in recitation as the manifestation of poetic art. We may say that an element with a more spiritual tendency (since the spirit manifests itself in everything physical) unfolds in the tempo of the human pulse-beat; while something more psychic, we may also say, something that takes its course in the soul, unfolds in the rhythm of breathing. A greater part of what is expressed in poetic form depends on the interplay between the rhythms of the pulse and breathing and the ratio of one to the other. And it is in the hexameter that the primary and most self-evident ratio between pulse-rhythm and breathing-rhythm is displayed. Fundamentally the hexameter involves two breaths, with four pulse-beats to each breath and this, of course, is the natural ratio between human breathing and the pulse. In this way, what wells up in poetry comes to actual corporeal utterance. And conversely, the poetic must come to expression through recitation and declamation out of the human being as a whole. It is as if the pulse-rhythm were playing upon the breathing-rhythm – rhythm on rhythm. And what lives in rhythm is expressed again in the musicality of speech, in lyrical poetry. All the prose content of a poem must be led back to this inner rhythmic treatment of metre and tempo. Everything that lies in the what of the content must also lie in the how of the performance, so that in discovering the one in the other there is really an experience of the whole. [Note 12] If, in poetry or reciting, we find ourselves having to exert our intellect to grasp the merely word-for-word content, then the artistic is at that point disrupted. This should really be ever-present in our mind when in any field of art we have to struggle through from inartistic content to genuine artistic form or to what has been permeated by the element of music. The latter is especially evident in reciting or declaiming a poem that is lyrical in origin. In the case of dramatic art, too, its own artistic forms must be represented when it is expressed in speech-formation. In fact we can say: Recitation as an independent art must take account of the way that it evolves the dramatic rather differently from how it is evolved in a fully staged production. Yet the essence of the stage-production must appear in the way the speech is handled – in the recitative-declamatory treatment of the drama. What do we actually have before us when we consider poetic drama? It is essentially something that only comes into existence through the characters on stage – or, if we do not see the drama with our eyes and hear it with our ears, through what our imagination has picked up from the poetic language and set in its totality before our souls. Everything must flow in moving form. But although the drama is only complete when presented on stage, we must realise all the same that everything standing before us, the persons on the stage, everything we hear, is fundamentally the expression of a soul-quality. The soul-quality which evolves as drama, in the separate characters and in their interaction – this is really the essential content of the drama. At this point it becomes necessary to take note of what actually goes on in the soul. What goes on there, especially in the re-creation of a drama, is something imaginative; and this is so even when it is only with the poetry that we are concerned. On the stage the presentation must be pictorial. But here, too, what is spoken is a pictorial representation of what lives in the poet’s soul. What is presented on the stage is effective, not through its reality, but through what derives from the ’fair seeming’: [Note 13] it is imaginative despite its reality. And when the dramatic forms come before our souls as images – that too is imaginative, albeit in a special sense. Imagination is not experienced in its true being, but as a projection into our souls in image-form. In the same way a shadow thrown onto the wall by a three-dimensional object is related to the object itself, though in no way containing what lives in the object; as a good two-dimensional portrayal contains everything its three-dimensional subject has: so what is represented in our imaginings contains the shadow thrown there by imagination. The stage presentation is fundamentally nothing but an external, corporeal representation of what lives in these images and for this reason we feel an aversion (if we have any healthy feeling for such things) whenever in the drama external reality is merely imitated naturalistically. Dramatic art can no more tolerate realistic imitation than can the other arts of speech – though these are less liable to such difficulties. And when, as in our times, the tendency toward realism has so often emerged in drama productions, and we have seen Schiller’s characters shown on stage with their hands in their pockets! When an attempt has been made to produce a realistic imitation of external, physical nature, this only shows that we have strayed from a genuinely aesthetic perception, and little by little in the general course of civilisation lost the truly artistic. It is possible to adopt a materialistic world-conception, and in a certain sense this is appropriate for the external organic world. In outer life it is possible to be realistic, but it is not so in art. For what we then produce is no longer in the domain of art at all – and this can be seen both in the drama itself and in the way speech is handled in these dramatic productions. It is really a matter of putting everything an artistic speech-formation can achieve into the treatment of the language. This comprises the most varied elements. I should only like to point out a few details – our limited time does not allow more. There may exist, for example, in what is presented through speech-formation, a sort of average tempo. We feel this and starting from this average tempo we can effect a transition to a quicker one, to a more rapid delivery of the words, or to a slower one. The first, the more rapid delivery, always expresses a kind of going-out of the human “I” – a going out from oneself and widely extending oneself. Naturally one can feel this in different ways: as a separation, for example, from some thing one longs to reach. A slowing-down of the words, notably in dramatic speech, will present a kind of being-within-oneself. Everything expressed in a self-collected contemplation, a resting within oneself, will be connected with a slowing-down of the tempo. Another formative principle lies in the raising or lowering of the pitch. The first is connected with the spiritualisation of an inner experience, with an ascending of the “I” above itself. Going out of oneself in wide extension is connected with the tempo: and ascending above oneself is associated with a rising in pitch. Everything in the content which strives toward spiritualisation (even if only a spiritualisation in which the human intellect is overpowered by the will, by ardour, by enthusiasm) will bring itself to formative expression in raising the pitch. And when a human being sinks below the level of his ordinary life, whether in sorrow or in inwardness, this will be connected with a fall in pitch. All this will find particular expression in dramatic art and everything dramatic speech-formation demands will have to flow into the element of form – so that everything must be grasped, not by the sheer power of intellect, but as an expression of this formative treatment of speech – and of course, if it is a matter of stage production, through the gestures. It will all flow into this special way of speaking, so that in the very speech we can feel what the content is. It will not be very easy to bring certain things in dramatic art to perfection, because (as Aristotle already knew) drama has to do with causal connections in life; and for this reason what may be called the dramatic score, in the sense we spoke of earlier as that which has to be realised, is very largely based on an implicit understanding and discernment. It must be transformed into something that can be attained through the speech-formation itself: through tempo, metre, rhythm, the rise and fall of the pitch, etc. It is from the speech-formation that the images which arise before the soul must flow. We must enter into such intimacies of human life if we wish to find the truly artistic. Dramatic art itself, because it is lifted out of physical experience through imagination (even if only a reflection, a shadowy image of true imagination) can only become effective if it shows itself in the style, in the handling of the speech. Hence in dramatic art, even down to the treatment of speech, it is for dramatic style that one will have to cultivate a special sense. Style, not realism, must be all-important. Hence we can say that what has been developed in the way of dramatic style in the French theatre and has been imitated in other languages, what culminated in the classical French presentation of tragedy can stand before us like a model from which to learn the formation of a dramatic style. From the style in which the French classics were, until quite recently, presented on the French stage (and after them the non-classical drama too), we shall be able to obtain a good idea of how a uniquely dramatic mode stands out against naturalistic speech, such as depends on intellectual understanding rather than the element of form. Two passages, taken from the German and the French, will exemplify what I have roughly tried to indicate as regards dramatic style and the dramatic treatment of speech. Recitation by Marie Steiner. From Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, Act IV, Scene 5: TELL (enters with his crossbow): Durch diese hohle Gasse muss er kommen; Es führt kein andrer Weg nach Küssnacht – Hier Vollend’ ich’s. – Die Gelegenheit ist günstig. Dort der Holunderstrauch verbirgt mich ihm, Von dort herab kann ihn mein Pfeil erlangen; Des Weges Enge wehret den Verfolgern. Mach deine Rechnung mit dem Himmel, Vogt, Fort musst du, deine Uhr ist abgelaufen.
Ich lebte still und harmlos – Das Geschoss War auf des Waldes Tiere nur gerichtet, Meine Gedanken waren rein von Mord – Du hast aus meinem Frieden mich heraus Geschreckt, in gärend Drachengift hast du Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt, Zum Ungeheuren hast du mich gewöhnt – Wer sich des Kindes Haupt zum Ziele setzte, Der kann auch treffen in das Herz des Feinds.
Die armen Kindlein, die unschuldigen, Das treue Weib muss ich vor deiner Wut Beschützen, Landvogt! – Da, als ich den Bogenstrang Anzog – als mir die Hand erzitterte – Als du mit grausam teufelischer Lust Mich zwangst, aufs Haupt des Kindes anzulegen – Als ich ohnmächtig flehend rang vor dir, Damals gelobt’ ich mir in meinem Innern Mit furchtbarm Eidschwur, den nur Gott gehört, Dass meines nächsten Schusses erstes Ziel Dein Herz sein sollte. – Was ich mir gelobt In jenes Augenblickes Höllenqualen, Ist eine heil’ge Schuld – ich will sie zahlen.
Du bist mein Herr und meines Kaisers Vogt; Doch nicht der Kaiser hätte sich erlaubt, Was du. – Er sandte dich in diese Lande, Um Hecht zu sprechen – strenges, denn er zürnet – Doch nicht um mit der mörderischen Lust Dich jedes Greuels straflos zu erfrechen; Es lebt ein Gott, zu strafen und zu rächen.
Komm du hervor, du Bringer bittrer Schmerzen, Mein teures Kleinod jetzt, mein höchster Schatz – Ein Ziel will ich dir geben, das bis jetzt Der frommen Bitte undurchdringlich war – Doch dir soll es nicht widerstehn. – Und du, Vertraute Bogensehne, die so oft Mir treu gedient hat in der Freude Spielen, Verlass mich nicht im fürchterlichen Ernst: Nur jetzt noch halte fest, du treuer Strang, Der mir so oft den herben Pfeil beflügelt – Entränn’ er jetzo kraftlos meinen Händen, Ich habe keinen zweiten zu versenden.
(Wanderers pass over the stage.)
Auf dieser Bank von Stein will ich mich setzen, Dem Wanderer zur kurzen Ruh bereitet – Denn hier ist keine Heimat. – Jeder treibt Sich an dem andern rasch und fremd vorüber Und fraget nicht nach seinem Schmerz. – Hier geht Der sorgenvolle Kaufmann und der leicht Geschürzte Pilger – der andächtige Mönch, Der düstre Räuber und der heitre Spielmann, Der Säumer mit dem schwerbeladnen Ross, Der ferne herkommt von der Menschen Ländern, Denn jede Strasse führt ans End’ der Welt. Sie alle ziehen ihres Weges fort An ihr Geschäft – und meines ist der Mord’. (Sits down)
– Sonst, wenn der Vater auszog, liebe Kinder, Da war ein Freuen, wenn er wiederkam; Denn niemals kehrt’ er heim, er bracht’ euch etwas, Warts eine schöne Alpenblume, war’s Ein seltner Vogel oder Ammonshorn, Wie es der Wandrer findet auf den Bergen – Jetzt geht er einem andern Weidwerk nach, Am wilden Weg sitzt er mit Mordgedanken; Des Feindes Leben ist’s, worauf er lauert. – Und doch an euch nur denkt er, liebe Kinder, Auch jetzt – euch zu verteidigen, eure holde Unschuld Zu schützen vor der Rache des Tyrannen, Will er zum Morde jetzt den Bogen spannen. (Stands up). Ich laure auf ein edles Wild. – Lässt sich’s Der Jäger nicht verdriessen, tagelang Umher zu streifen in des Winters Strenge, Von Fels zu Fels den Wagesprung zu tun, Hinan zu klimmen an den glatten Wänden, Wo er sich anleimt mit dem eignen Blut, – Um ein armselig Grattier zu erjagen. Hier gilt es einen köstlicheren Preis, Das Herz des Todfeinds, der mich will verderben. (Gay music in the distance coming nearer.)
Mein ganzes Lebelang hab’ ich den Bogen Gehandhabt, mich geübt nach Schützenregel; Ich habe oft geschossen in das Schwarze Und manchen schönen Preis mir heimgebracht Vom Freudenschiessen. – Aber heute will ich Den Meisterschuss tun und das beste mir Im ganzen Umkreis des Gebirgs gewinnen. Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). [A speech from Dryden’s All for Love: or, The World Well Lost (his “imitation” of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra) may stand here as a sample of the Neoclassical drama in England. It comprises Act I, Scene i, 237ff: ANTONY (having thrown himself down) : Lye there, thou shadow of an Emperor; The place thou pressest on thy Mother-earth Is all thy Empire now: now it contains thee; Some few days hence, and then ’twill be too large, When thou’rt contracted in thy narrow Urn, Shrunk to a few cold Ashes; then Octavia, (For Cleopatra will not live to see it) Octavia then will have thee all her own, And bear thee in her Widow’d hand to Caesar; Caesar will weep, the Crocodile will weep, To see his Rival of the Universe Lie still and peaceful there. I’le think no more on’t. Give me some Musick; look that it be sad: I’le sooth my Melancholy till I swell, And burst my self with sighing—Soft Musick ‘Tis somewhat to my humor. Stay, I fancy I’m now turn’d wild, a Commoner of Nature; Of all forsaken, and forsaking all; Live in a shady Forest’s Sylvan Scene, Stretch’d at my length beneath some blasted Oke; I lean my head upon the Mossy Bark, And look just of a piece, as I grew from it: My uncomb’d Locks, matted like Misleto, Hang o’re my hoary Face; a mirm’ring Brook Runs at my foot… The Herd come jumping by me, And fearless, quench their thirst, while I look on, And take me for their fellow-Citizen, More of this Image, more; it lulls my thoughts. (Soft Musick again) John Dryden (1631-1700).] From Le Cid, Act III, Scene 4:
CHIMÈNE: Ah! Rodrigue, il est vrai, quoique ton ennemie, Je ne puis te blâmer d’avoir fui l’infamie; Et, de quelque façon qu’éclatent mes douleurs, Je ne t’accuse point, je pleure mes malheurs. Je sais ce que l’honneur, aprés un tel outrage, Demandait à 1’ardeur d’un généreux courage: Tu n’as fait le devoir que d’un homme de bien; Mais aussi, le faisant, tu m’as appris le mien. Ta funeste valeur m’instruit par ta victoire; Elle a vengé ton père et soutenu ta gloire: Même soin me regarde, et j’ai, pour m’affliger, Ma gloire à soutenir, et mon père à venger. Hélas! ton intérêt ici me désespère: Si quelque autre malheur m’avait ravi mon père, Mon âme aurait trouvé dans le bien de te voir L’unique allégement qu’elle eût pu recevoir; Et contre ma douleur j’aurais senti des charmes Quand une main si chére eût essuyé mes larmes. Mais il me faut te perdre après l’avoir perdu; Cet effort sur ma flamme a mon honneur est dû; Et cet affreux devoir, dont l’ordre m’assassine, Me force à travailler moi-même à ta ruine. Car enfin n’attends pas de mon affection De lâches sentiments pour ta punition. De quoi qu’en ta faveur notre amour m’entretienne, Ma générosité doit répondre à la tienne: Tu t’es, en m’offensant, montré digne de moi; Je me dois, par ta mort, montrer digne de toi.
RODRIGUE: Ne diffère donc plus ce que l’honneur t’ordonne: demande ma tête, et je te l’abandonne; Fais-en un sacrifice a ce noble intérêt; Le coup m’en sera doux, aussi bien que l’arrêt. Attendre après mon crime une lente justice, C’est reculer ta gloire autant que mon supplice. Je mourrai trop heureux, mourant d’un coup si beau.
CHIMÈNE: Va, je suis ta partie, et non pas ton bourreau. Si tu m’offres ta tête, est-ce à moi de la prendre? Je la dois attaquer, mais tu dois la défendre: C’est d’un autre que toi qu’il me faut l’obtenir Et je dois te poursuivre, et non pas te punir.
RODRIGUE: De quoi qu’en ma faveur notre amour t’entretienne. Ta générosité doit répondre à la mienne; Et, pour venger un père, emprunter d’autres bras Ma Chimène, crois-moi, c’est n’y répondre pas. Ma main seule du mien a su venger l’offense, Ta main seule du tien doit prendre la vengeance.
CHIMÈNE: Cruel! à quel propos sur ce point t’obstiner? Tu t’es vengé sans aide, et tu m’en veux donner! Je suivrai ton exemple, et j’ai trop de courage Pour souffrir qu’avec toi ma gloire se partage. Mon père et mon honneur ne veulent rien devoir Aux traits de ton amour ni de ton désespoir.
RODRIGUE: Rigoureux point d’honneur. Hélas! quoi que je fasse. Ne pourrai-je à la fin obtenir cette grâce? Au nom d’un père mort, ou de notre amitié Punis-moi par vengeance, ou du moins par pitié. Ton malheureux amant aura bien moins de peine A mourir par ta main qu’à vivre avec ta haine.
CHIMÈNE: Va, je ne te hais point.
RODRIGUE: Tu le dois.
CHIMÈNE: Je ne puis. Pierre Corneille (1606-1684). We shall continue now with something about the prose-poem. Here it is a matter of something in the artist’s soul which he experiences as poetry, but which cannot be expressed in any of the art-forms generally employed. Although put into prose, it is nonetheless a genuinely poetic art that is brought to expression in this form. But anything cast in the form of a prose-poem will need special treatment when it is expressed in speech-formation. It is almost universally – though quite erroneously – assumed that the recitation or declamation of prose-poems is something easy to accomplish. In reality, the recitative-declamatory speaking of prose-poetry is the most difficult, as it represents the most intimate form of the art. Everything that comes to light in lyric, dramatic or epic speech-formation, whether of a more delicate or more profound nature, must form a synthesis whenever a prose-poem is to be presented in oral production. In recitation of this kind everything that is to be found in verse, or any form of poetic art, will sound forth – but with a more delicate shading. In this way, merely touching upon what otherwise appears in the recitation and declamation with stronger emphasis, with more marked contours – by giving this only gentle emphasis – the recital will become essentially suffused with soul. Suffused with soul! The artistic recital of prose-poetry must become much more soul-filled: it must occasion our going beyond the conceptual understanding of the words toward something imaginative. The energetic impetus that underlies logical inference, for example, leads toward an image-forming experience; [Note 14] and at the same time there sounds through softly, as something musical, the octave. The image-forming treatment of speech in a prose-poem, when presented in recitation or declamation, is like a continually flowing stream with its even waves. And, as if from the depths, other waves arise, bringing variation into its even flow – this is the delicate musical element which should become perceptible in this kind of recitation. In speaking a prose-poem with poetic sensibility, the more intimate features of a language will come to light and the raising of what looks like a prose production into a poetical work, into the realm of art and poetry, is something of a triumph which man can give to his language. What we may call the soul of a language finds a very adequate embodiment there. We will now take an example – from The Apprentices of Sais by Novalis. In this novel, which remained unfinished, there is a wonderful little passage of prose in which all that I have tried to indicate about the recitation and declamation of prose-poems comes into prominence. The essential thing is that everything which otherwise comes to light in the reciting of poetry is transformed, through acquiring a more intimate character, into a particular mood or feeling. Everything, on the other hand, that serves to differentiate the mood will be taken up into the totality of the mood as a whole. Something like this can be attempted in an outstanding piece of prose like the fairy-tale in Novalis’ The Apprentices of Sais. In this wonderful fairy-tale, as in so much that has come to us from Novalis, is revealed the whole depth of his soul. The handsome youth Hyacinth loves the maiden Rosepetal. It is a love cherished in secret – only the flowers and the animals of the forest know of the love of the handsome youth for the maiden Rosepetal. And then there appears a man with a long beard, who makes a wondrous impression and tells marvellous stories, in which the handsome youth Hyacinth becomes completely immersed. He is seized with a great longing for the veiled Virgin, for the veiled image of Truth. His soul trembles with longing, which also enlarges his vision so that he becomes estranged from his immediate surroundings, and his heart yearns for the image of the veiled Virgin. He forsakes Rosepetal, who remains behind weeping. He wanders through all sorts of unknown regions, and comes to know many things on his way; and at last he arrives at the Temple of Isis. Everything seems familiar to him, and yet different from what he had experienced before – it seems so much more splendid. And behold! he ventures to lift the veil! and Rosepetal falls into his arms. It would be hard to represent with more intimate feeling the expansion of the soul out of her subjectivity into the wide universe; it would be hard to represent more intimately the longing of man for truth – hard to link more closely what man can experience when he rises to the highest spheres of truth with what he lives through in his most direct, intimate day-to-day experiences. All that is needed is sufficient intimacy of soul. What is expressed in this prose fairy-tale can only be brought to light by a soul such as that of Novalis, who really felt everyday life in such a way that it was for him a direct expression of the eternal. Novalis, after his first love had died, was able in inward truth of soul to live with her and to feel the direct presence of one who was in the other world as if she were in this world. Novalis’ soul was truly able to experience the super-sensible in the sensible and so raise what belongs to the sense-world to assume the character of the super-sensible. Everything flowed together in Novalis: striving after truth, striving after beauty and religious ardour. Only if we understand his comprehensiveness do we understand Novalis. Hence there could arise the remarkable feeling which resounds through The Apprentices of Sais, and wrests itself from Novalis’s soul: man has felt that in the image of Isis truth is veiled; “I am the past, the present and the future, no mortal as yet has lifted my veil” – that is the pronouncement of the veiled Isis and Novalis was sensible of it. Confronted with “No mortal as yet has lifted my veil”, Novalis responded with “Then we must become immortal”. Novalis never despaired of the soul’s ability to lift the veil of truth: but the soul must first become immediately aware of her own immortality. A man who experiences his immortality in himself may, in the sense of Novalis, lift the veil of truth. It is a powerful saying – “Then we must become immortal”. What lives in this feeling in a far-reaching way meets us again in an intimate mood when the handsome youth Hyacinth comes to the Temple of Isisafter long dream-wanderings through unknown regions, which are nonetheless familiar to him, though now appearing more splendid than he had once known. He comes to the Temple of Isis, lifts the veil and what he knows and loves – Rosepetal – comes to meet him. Yet, as we can envisage and feel intimately in this prose fairy-tale, she has become through this experience of eternity much more splendid than she once was. Truly it is a prose-poem conceived in a mood where the highest to which man can aspire takes the form of the most intimate – one of the fairest flowers of poetic prose, demonstrating that, in what is apparently prose, true poetry can be expressed. From Die Lehrlinge zu Sais: DAS MÄRCHEN VON HYAZINTH UND ROSENBLÜTE Vor langen Zeiten lebte weit gegen Abend ein blutjunger Mensch. Er war sehr gut, aber auch über die Massen wunderlich. Er grämte sich unaufhorlich um nichts und wieder nichts, ging immer still für sich hin, setzte sich einsam, wenn die andern spielten und fröhlich waren, und hing seltsamen Dingen nach. Höhlen und Wälder waren sein liebster Aufenthalt, und dann sprach er immerfort mit Tieren und Vögeln, mit Bäumen und Felsen, natürlich kein vernünftiges Wort, lauter närrisches Zeug zum Totlachen. Er blieb aber immer mürrisch und ernsthaft, ungeachtet sich das Eichhörnchen, die Meerkatze, der Papagei und der Gimpel alle Mühe gaben, ihn zu zerstreuen und ihn auf den richtigen Weg zu weisen. Die Gans erzählte Märchen, der Bach klimperte eine Ballade dazwischen, ein grosser dicker Stein machte lächerliche Bockssprünge, die Rose schlich sich freundlich hinter ihm herum, kroch durch seine Locken, und der Efeu streichelte ihm die sorgenvolle Stirn.—Allein der Missmut und Ernst waren hartnäckig. Seine Eltern waren sehr betrübt, sie wussten nicht, was sie anfangen sollten. Er war gesund und ass, nie hatten sie ihn beleidigt, er war auch bis vor wenig Jahren fröhlich und lustig gewesen, wie keiner; bei allen Spielen voran, von allen Mädchen gern gesehn. Er war recht bildschön, sah aus wie gemalt, tanzte wie ein Schatz. Unter den Mädchen war eine, ein köstliches, bildschönes Kind, sah aus wie Wachs, Haare wie goldne Seide, kirschrote Lippen, wie ein Püppchen gewachsen, brandrabenschwarze Augen. Wer sie sah, hätte mögen vergehn, so lieblich war sie. Damals war Rosenblüte, so hiess sie, dem bildschönen Hyazinth, so hiess er, von Herzen gut, und er hatte sie lieb zum Sterben. Die andern Kinder wussten’s nicht. Ein Veilchen hatte es ihnen zuerst gesagt, die Hauskätzchen hatten es wohl gemerkt, die Häuser ihrer Eltern lagen nahe beisammen. Wenn nun Hyazinth die Nacht an seinem Fenster stand und Rosenblüte an ihrem, und die Kätzchen auf den Mäusefang da vorbeiliefen, da sahen sie die beiden stehn und lachten und kicherten oft so laut, dass sie es hörten und böse wurden. Das Veilchen hatte es der Erdbeere im Vertrauen gesagt, die sagte es ihrer Freundin, der Stachelbeere, die liess nun das Sticheln nicht, wenn Hyazinth gegangen kam; so erfuhr’s denn bald der ganze Garten und der Wald, und wenn Hyazinth ausging, so rief’s von allen Seiten: Rosenblütchen ist mein Schätzchen! Nun ärgerte sich Hyazinth und musste doch auch wieder aus Herzensgrunde lachen, wenn das Eidechschen geschlüpft kam, sich auf einen warmen Stein setzte, mit dem Schwänzchen wedelte und sang:
Rosenblütchen, das gute Kind, Ist geworden auf einmal blind, Denkt, die Mutter sei Hyazinth, Fällt ihm um den Hals geschwind; Merkt sie aber das fremde Gesicht, Denkt nur an, da erschrickt sie nicht, Fährt, als merkte sie kein Wort, Immer nur mit Küssen fort.
Ach! wie bald war die Herrlichkeit vorbei. Es kam ein Mann aus fremden Landen gegangen, der war erstaunlich weit gereist, hatte einen langen Bart, tiefe Augen, entsetzliche Augenbrauen, ein wunderliches Kleid mit vielen Falten und seltsamen Figuren hineingewebt. Er setzte sich vor das Haus, das Hyazinths Eltern gehörte. Nun war Hyazinth sehr neugierig und setzte sich zu ihm und holte ihm Brot und Wein. Da tat er seinen weissen Bart voneinander und erzählte bis tief in die Nacht, und Hyazinth wich und wankte nicht und wurde auch nicht müde zuzuhören. So viel man nachher vernahm, so hat er viel von fremden Ländern, unbekannten Gegenden, von erstaunlich wunderbaren Sachen erzählt und ist drei Tage dageblieben und mit Hyazinth in tiefe Schachten hinuntergekrochen. Rosenblütchen hat genug den alten Hexenmeister verwünscht, denn Hyazinth ist ganz versessen auf seine Gespräche gewesen und hat sich um nichts bekümmert; kaum dass er ein wenig Speise zu sich genommen. Endlich hat jener sich fortgemacht, doch dem Hyazinth ein Büchelchen dagelassen, das kein Mensch lesen konnte. Dieser hat ihm noch Früchte, Brot und Wein mitgegeben und ihn weit weg begleitet. Und dann ist er tiefsinnig zurückgekommen und hat einen ganz neuen Lebenswandel begonnen. Rosenblütchen hat recht zum Erbarmen um ihn getan, denn von der Zeit an hat er sich wenig aus ihr gemacht und ist immer für sich geblieben. Nun begab sich’s, dass er einmal nach Hause kam und war wie neu geboren. Er fiel seinen Eltern um den Hals und weinte. ‘Ich muss fort in fremde Lande’, sagte er, ‘die alte wunderliche Frau im Walde hat mir erzählt, wie ich gesund werden müsste, das Buch hat sie ins Feuer geworfen und hat mich getrieben, zu euch zu gehn und euch um euren Segen zu bitten. Vielleicht komme ich bald, vielleicht nie wieder. Grüsst Rosenblütchen. Ich hätte sie gern gesprochen, ich weiss nicht, wie mir ist, es drängt mich fort; wenn ich an die alten Zeiten zurückdenken will, so kommen gleich mächtigere Gedanken dazwischen, die Ruhe ist fort, Herz und Liebe mit, ich muss sie suchen gehn. Ich wollt euch gern sagen, wohin, ich weiss selbst nicht, dahin wo die Mutter der Dinge wohnt, die verschleierte Jungfrau. Nach der ist mein Gemüt entzundet. Lebt wohl.’ Er riss sich los und ging fort. Seine Eltern wehklagten und vergossen Tränen, Rosenblütchen blieb in ihrer Kammer und weinte bitterlich. Hyazinth lief nun, was er konnte, durch Täler und Wildnisse, über Berge und Ströme, dem geheimnisvollen Lande zu. Er fragte überall nach der heiligen Göttin, Menschen und Tiere, Felsen und Bäume. Manche lachten, manche schwiegen, nirgends erhielt er Bescheid. Im Anfange kam er durch rauhes, wildes Land, Nebel und Wolken warfen sich ihm in den Weg, es stürmte immerfort; dann fand er unabsehliche Sandwüsten, glühenden Staub, und wie er wandelte, so veränderte sich auch sein Gemüt, die Zeit wurde ihm lang, und die innre Unruhe legte sich, er wurde sanfter und das gewaltige Treiben in ihm allgemach zu einem leisen, aber starken Zuge, in den sein ganzes Gemüt sich auflöste. Es lag wie viele Jahre hinter ihm. Nun wurde die Gegend auch wieder reicher und mannigfaltiger, die Luft lau und blau, der Weg ebener, grüne Büsche lockten ihn mit anmutigen Schatten, aber er verstand ihre Sprache nicht, sie schienen auch nicht zu sprechen, und doch erfüllten sie auch sein Herz mit grünen Farben und kühlem, stillem Wesen. Immer höher wuchs jene süsse Sehnsucht in ihm, und immer breiter und saftiger wurden die Blätter, immer lauter und lustiger die Vögel und Tiere, balsamischer die Früchte, dunkler der Himmel, wärmer die Luft, und heisser seine Liebe, die Zeit ging immer schneller, als sähe sie sich nahe am Ziele. Eines Tages begegnete er einem kristallnen Quell und einer Menge Blumen, die kamen in ein Tal herunter zwischen schwarzen himmelhohen Säulen. Sie grüssten ihn freundlich mit bekannten Worten. ‘Liebe Landsleute’, sagte er, ‘wo find’ ich wohl den geheiligten Wohnsitz der Isis? Hier herum muss er sein, und ihr seid vielleicht hier bekannter als ich.’ ‘Wir gehn auch nur hier durch’, antworteten die Blumen; ‘eine Geisterfamilie ist auf der Reise, und wir bereiten ihr Weg und Quartier, indes sind wir vor kurzem durch eine Gegend gekommen, da hörten wir ihren Namen nennen. Gehe nur aufwärts, wo wir herkommen, so wirst du schon mehr erfahren.’ Die Blumen und die Quelle lächelten, wie sie das sagten, boten ihm einen frischen Trunk und gingen weiter. Hyazinth folgte ihrem Rat, frug und frug und kam endlich zu jener längst gesuchten Wohnung, die unter Palmen und andern köstlichen Gewächsen versteckt lag. Sein Herz klopfte in unendlicher Sehnsucht, und die süsseste Bangigkeit durchdrang ihn in dieser Behausung der ewigen Jahreszeiten. Unter himmlischen Wohlgedüften entschlummerte er, weil ihn nur der Traum in das Allerheiligste führen durfte. Wunderlich führte ihn der Traum durch unendliche Gemächer voll seltsamer Sachen auf lauter reizenden Klängen und in abwechselnden Akkorden. Es dünkte ihm alles so bekannt und doch in niegesehener Herrlichkeit, da schwand auch der letzte irdische Anflug, wie in Luft verzehrt, und er stand vor der himmlischen Jungfrau. Da hob er den leichten, glänzenden Schleier, und Rosenblütchen sank in seine Arme. Eine ferne Musik umgab die Geheimnisse des liebenden Wiedersehns, die Ergiessungen der Sehnsucht, und schloss alles Fremde von diesem entzückenden Orte aus. Hyazinth lebte nachher noch lange mit Rosenblütchen unter seinen frohen Eltern und Gespielen, und unzählige Enkel dankten der alten wunderlichen Frau für ihren Rat und ihr Feuer; denn damals bekamen die Menschen so viel Kinder, als sie wollten.— Novalis (1772-1801). [The prose-poem is a relatively rare beast in English literature; but one of its descendants is the lyrical novel, as practised by (among others) Joyce. [Note 15] This is one of the formal poetic “epiphanies” from his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 4:
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life: A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on. He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he walked? What hour was it? There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood. He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies; and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast. He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watcher, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than the other. Evening had fallen when he woke and the sand and arid grasses of his bed glowed no longer. He rose slowly and, recalling the rapture of his sleep, sighed at its joy. He climbed to the crest of the sandhill and gazed about him. Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of skyline, the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand; and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools. James Joyce (1882-1941).] |
| 282. Speech and Drama: The Forming of Speech is an Art
05 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by Mary Adams Rudolf Steiner |
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| 282. Speech and Drama: The Forming of Speech is an Art
05 Sep 1924, Dornach Translated by Mary Adams Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear Friends, This course has a little history attached to it, and it is perhaps good that I should weave this little history into the introductory words that I propose to give today. For that is all we shall attempt in this first lecture—a general introduction to the whole subject. The proper work of the course will begin tomorrow and will be apportioned in the following way. I shall give the lectures; and then as far as demonstration is concerned, that will be taken by Frau Dr. Steiner. The course will thus be given by us both, working together. The arrangement of the course will be, roughly speaking, as follows. Part I will be devoted to the Forming of Speech, and Part II to the Art of the Theatre—dramatic stagecraft, production and so on. Then, in Part III, we shall consider the art of the drama in relation to what it meets with in the world outside, whether in the way of simple enjoyment or of criticism and the like. We may call this third part: The Stage and the Rest of Mankind. We shall have to discuss together certain demands that our age makes upon the art of the drama, and see how we can enable it to take its right place in the life of man as it is lived today. I said the course had a little history behind it. It began in the following way. A number of persons closely connected with the stage approached Frau Dr. Steiner and myself independently, in the conviction that anthroposophy, ready as one expects it to be to give new impulses today in every sphere of life—in religion, in art, in science—must also be able to furnish new impulses for the art of the drama. And that is most assuredly so. Several courses on speech have already been given here by Frau Dr. Steiner; and at one of them, where I also was contributing, I added some considerations that bore directly on the work of the stage. These had a stimulating effect on many of those who attended the course, some of whom have since been introducing new features into their work on the stage, that can be traced to suggestions or indications given by us. Groups of actors have made their appearance before the public as actors who acknowledge that, for them at least, the Goetheanum is a place where new impulses can be received. And then there is also the fact that the art which has been among us since 1912, the art of eurhythmy, comes very near indeed to the art of the stage. This follows from the very conditions eurhythmy requires for its presentation. Dramatic art will, in fact, in future have to consider eurhythmy as something with which it is intimately connected. This art of eurhythmy, when it was originally given by me, was at first thought of within quite narrow limits. I should perhaps not say ‘thought of’, for it was with eurhythmy as it is with everything within the Anthroposophical Movement that comes about in the right way: one responds to a demand of karma, and gives just so much as opportunity allows. No other way of working is possible in the Anthroposophical Movement. You will not find with us an inclination to plan ‘reforms’ or to put out some great ‘idea’ into the world. No, we take our guidance from karma. And at that time a need had arisen—it was in a quite small circle of people—to provide for some kind of vocation. It all came about in the most natural manner, but in a manner that was in absolute conformity with karma; and to begin with, what I gave went only so far as was necessary to meet this karma. Then one could again see the working of karma in the fact that about two years later Frau Dr. Steiner, whose own domain was of course very closely affected, began to interest herself in the art of eurhythmy All that eurhythmy has since become is really due to her. Obviously therefore this present course as well, the impulse for which goes right back to the years 1913–14, must take its place in the Section for the Arts of Speech and Music, of which Frau Dr. Steiner is the leader.1 For now, as a direct culmination of these events, the idea has arisen of doing something here for the development of the arts of speech and drama. Making a beginning, that is; for what we do would naturally only attain its full significance if the audience were limited to professional actors and those who, having the necessary qualifications, are hoping to become such. We should then probably have been a comparatively small circle; and we should have been able, working through the course in its three Parts (as I have explained is my intention), to carry our study far enough to allow of the participants forming themselves afterwards into a working group. They could then have gone out from Dornach as a touring company and proved the value, wherever they went, of the study we had carried through together here. For the deeper meaning of such things as I intend to put before you in this course will obviously only emerge when they are put into practice on the stage. This therefore would have been the normal outcome of a course of lectures on Speech and Drama. That not all of you assembled here desire a course on this basis is perfectly evident. Nor would it be possible to carry it through with the present audience. Obviously, that is not feasible—although perhaps it would not, after all, be such a terrible disaster for the world if in some of our theatres the present actors could be replaced from here! But I see a few friends sitting in the audience of whom I know very well that they have no such ambition! And so it turns out that there are two reasons why the course could not take on this orientation towards a practical end. For, in the first place, unfortunately neither those on whom it would have devolved to carry out the plan, nor we who were to give the impulse for it, have any money. Money is the very thing we are perpetually feeling the lack of. In itself the plan would have been perfectly possible, but there is no money for it; and unless it were properly financed, it could naturally not be put into effect. The only possibility would be that some of you who feel stimulated to do so should go ahead and undertake something at your own personal risk. Secondly, such a keen interest was aroused in the course that one had to begin to consider who else might perhaps be allowed to attend. At first, we were rather strict; but the circle having been once broken into, all control goes to the winds—and that has most emphatically been our experience on this occasion. Our course, then, will set out to present the art of the stage, with all that pertains to it, and we shall find that the art of the stage has to reach out, as it were, in many directions for whatever can contribute to its right development and orientation. Today, I want to speak in a general introductory way of what I have in mind as the essential content of our work together. The first thing that calls for attention is that if speech is to come in any way into the service of art, it must itself be regarded as an art. This is not sufficiently realised today. In the matter of speech you will often find people adopting an attitude such as they adopt also, for example, to the writing of poetry. It would hardly occur to anyone who had not mastered the preliminaries of piano-playing to come into a company of people and sit down at the piano and play. There is, however, a tendency to imagine that anyone can write poetry, and that anyone can speak or recite. The fact is, the inadequacy and poverty of stage speaking as it is at present will never be rectified, nor will the general dissatisfaction that is felt on the matter among the performers themselves be dispelled, until we are ready to admit that there are necessary preliminaries to the art of speech just as much as there are to any performance in the sphere of music. I was once present at an anthroposophical gathering which was arranged in connection with a course of lectures I had to give. It was a sort of ‘afternoon tea’ occasion, and something of an artistic programme was to be included. I do not want to enter here into a description of the whole affair, but there was one item on the programme of which I would like to tell you. (I myself had no share in the arrangements; these were made by a local committee.) The principal person concerned came up to me and I asked him about the programme. He said he was going to recite himself. I had then to call to my aid a technique that is often necessary in such circumstances, a technique that enables one to be absolutely horror-struck and not show it. It is a faculty that has to be learned, but I think on this occasion I succeeded pretty well, to begin with, in the exercise of this little artifice. I asked him then what he was going to recite. He said he would begin with a poem by the tutor of Frederick William IV, a poem about Kepler. I happened to know it—a beautiful poem, but terribly long, covering many pages. I said: ‘But won't it be rather long?’ He merely replied that he intended following it up with Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; and that if all went well, he would then go on to recite Goethe's poem Die Geheimnisse. I can assure you that with all the skill I could muster it was now far from easy to conceal my dismay. Well, he began. The room was only of moderate size, but there were quite a number of people present. First one went out, then another, then another; and presently a group of people left the room together. Finally, one very kind-hearted lady was left sitting all alone in the middle of the room—his solitary listener! At this point the reciter said: ‘It will perhaps be rather too long.’ So ended the scene. It is, as you see, not only outside the Anthroposophical Society but even within it that such a point of view in regard to speech may be met with. I have taken a grotesque example, but the same sort of thing is constantly occurring in milder form, and it is imperative that we make an end of it, if our performances in this domain are to find approval with those who understand art and are moved by genuine artistic feeling. There must be no doubt left in our minds that the forming of speech has to be an art, down to each single sound that is uttered, just as music has to be an art, down to each single note that is played. Only when this is realised will any measure of satisfaction be possible; and, what is still more important, only then will the way open for style to come again into the arts of speech and drama. For the truth is, people have ceased troubling about style altogether in this domain; and no art is possible without style. But now, if we are to speak together here of these things, the need inevitably arises that I should at the same time draw your attention to the way that speech and drama are related to the occult—the occult that is ever there behind. And that brings us to the question: Whence in man does speech really come? Where does it originate? Speech proceeds, not directly from the I or ego of man, but from the astral organism. The animal has also its astral organism, but does not normally bring it to speech. How is this? The explanation lies in the fact that the members of the human being, and also of the animal, are not there merely on their own; each single member is interpenetrated by all the others, and its character modified accordingly. It is never really quite correct to say: Man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and I; for the statement may easily give the impression that these members of the human being are quite distinct from one another, and that we are justified in forming a conception of man which places them side by side. Such a conception is, however, quite untrue. In waking consciousness, the several members interpenetrate. We ought rather to say: Man has not just a physical body as such (the physical body would look quite different if it simply followed its own laws), but a physical body that is modified by an etheric body and again by an astral body, and then again by an I or ego. In each single member, the three other members are present. And so, if we are considering the astral body, we must not forget that every other member of man's nature is also present in it. It is the same with the animal: in the astral body of the animal the physical body is present, and the etheric body too. But man has, in addition, the I, which also modifies the astral body; and it is from this astral body, modified by the I, that the impulse for speech proceeds. It is important to recognise this if we want to carry our study of the art of speech right into the single sounds. For, while in ordinary everyday speech the single sounds are formed in entire unconsciousness, the activity of forming them has to be lifted up into consciousness if speech is to be raised to the level of art. How then did speech begin? Speech did not originate in the speaking we use in ordinary life, any more than writing originated in the writing of today. Compare with the latter the picture-writing of ancient Egypt; that will give you some idea of how writing first came about. And it is just as useless to look for the origin of speech in the ordinary talking of today, which contains all manner of acquired qualities—the conventional, the intellectual, and so on. No, speech has its source in the artistic life. And if we want in our study of speech to find our way through to what is truly artistic, we must at least have begun to perceive that speech originates in the artistic side of man's nature—not in the intellectual, not in man's life of knowledge, as knowledge is understood today. Time was when men were simply incapable of speaking without rhythm, when they felt a need always, whenever they spoke, to speak in rhythm. And if a man were saying something to which he wanted to give point or emphasis, then he would attain this by the way he formed and shaped his language. Take a simple example. Suppose you wanted to say—speaking right out of the primeval impulses of speech—that someone keeps stumbling as he walks It would suffice to say: He stumbles over sticks. For there were certainly sticks of wood lying about in primeval times. There were also plenty of stones, and you could just as well say: He stumbles over stones. You would not, however, say either. You would say: He stumbles über Stock and Stein (over stick and stone). For, whether or no the words exactly describe what the speaker sees, we have in ‘stick and stone’ an inner artistic forming of speech. Or again, in order to make our statement more telling, we do not merely say that a ship is sinking together with the men in it. We add what is perhaps far from welcome on a ship; we add the mice. If we are really forming our speech out of what was the original impulse behind all speaking, we say: The ship is going down mit Mann and Maus (with man and mouse).2 Today, the original impulse for speech is present in mankind only in the very smallest degree. There is ample reason for the fact. Unhappily, speech as an art has no place now in education.3 Our schools, and the schools of other nations too, have lost touch with art altogether; and that is why in our Waldorf School we have to make such a strong stand for the artistic in education.’ The schools of our time have been founded and established on science and learning—that is, on what counts as such in the present day, and it is inartistic. Yes, that is what has happened; this modern kind of science and learning has for a long time been steadily seeping down into the education given in our schools. Gradually, in the course of the last four or five centuries, these have been changing, until now, for anyone who enters one of them with artistic feeling, these schools of ours give the impression of something quite barbaric. But if art is absent in our schools—and don't forget that the children have to speak in class; good speaking is part of the instruction given at school—if the artistic side of education is completely absent, it need not surprise us if art is lacking in grown men and women. There is, in fact, among mankind today a sad dearth of artistic feeling; one can therefore hardly expect to find recognition of the need to form speech artistically. We do not often have it said to us: ‘You didn't say that beautifully’, but very often, ‘You are not speaking correctly’. The pedantic grammarian pulls us up, but it is seldom we are reproved for our speech on artistic grounds. It seems to be generally accepted as a matter of course that speech has no need of art. Now, the astral body is mainly in the unconscious part of man's nature. But the artist in speech must learn to control what in ordinary speaking takes its course there unconsciously. In recent times people have begun to appreciate this. Hence the various methods that have been put forward—not only for singing, but also for recitation, declamation, etc. These methods, however, generally set to work in a very peculiar way. Suppose you wanted to teach someone to plough, and never took any trouble to see what the plough was like, or the field, did not even stop to consider what the ploughing is for, but instead began enquiring: ‘If here is the person's arm, at what angle should he hold it at the elbow? What will be its natural position for ploughing?’ (How constantly one hears this word ‘natural’!) ‘And what movement should he be making with his leg while he holds his arm in this position?’ Suppose, that is, you were to take not the slightest interest in what has to be done to the field by the plough, but were merely to ask: ‘What method must I use to bring the pupil into a certain train of movements?’ It sounds absurd, but modern methods of speech training are of this very kind. No regard whatever is paid to the objective comprehension of what speech is. If you want to teach a man to plough, the first thing will be to make sure that you yourself know how to handle a plough and can plough well and accurately; and then you will have to watch your pupil and see that he does not make mistakes. It is no different with speech. All these modern methods that are constructed in the most dilettante fashion (I mean these methods of breath technique, diaphragm technique, nasal resonance and the rest) omit to take into consideration what is, after all, the heart and core of the matter. They set out to instruct as though speech itself were not there at all! For they take their start, not from speech, but from anatomy. What is important before all else is a thorough knowledge of the organism of speech, of the living structure of speech as such. This organism of speech has been produced, has come forth, out of man himself in the course of his evolution. Consequently, if rightly understood, it will not be found to contradict, in its inherent nature, the organisation of man as a whole. Where it seems to do so, we must look into the speech itself in detail to see where the fault lies; it will not be possible to put the matter right by means of methods that have as little to do with speech as gymnastics has to do with ploughing—unless a plough should ever be included among the gymnastic equipment, which up to now I have never known to be the case. Not that I should consider it stupid or ridiculous to include a plough in the apparatus of a gymnasium; it might perhaps be a very good idea. It has only, so far as I know, never yet been attempted. The first thing to do then is to acquire a thorough knowledge of the speech organism, this speech organism of ours that has, in the course of mankind's evolution, broken loose, as it were, from the astral body, come straight forth from the ego-modified configuration of man's astral body. For that is where speech comes from. We must, however, not omit to take into account that the astral body impinges downwards on the etheric body and upwards on the ego—that is, when man is awake; and in sleep we normally do not speak. Consider first what happens through the fact that the astral body comes up against the etheric body. It meets there processes of which man knows very little in ordinary life. For what are the functions of the ether-body? The ether-body receives the nourishment which is taken in by the mouth, and gradually transforms it to suit the needs of the human organism—or rather, I should say, to meet its need of the force contained in the nourishment. Then again it is the etheric organism that looks after growth, from childhood upwards until man is full grown. And the ether-body has also a share in the activities of the soul; it takes care, for instance, of memory. Man has, however, very little conscious knowledge of the various functions discharged by the ether- body. He knows their results. He knows, for example, when he is hungry; but he can scarcely be said to know how this condition of hunger is brought about. The activity of the ether-body remains largely unconscious. Now it is the production of the vowel element in speech that takes place between astral body and ether body. When the impulse of speech passes over from the astral body, where it originates, to the ether body, we have the vowel. The vowel is thus something which comes into operation -deep within the inner being of man; it is formed more unconsciously than is speech in general. In the vowel sounds we are dealing with intensely intimate aspects of speech; what comes to expression in them is something that belongs to the very essence of man's being. This is then the result when the speech impetus impinges on the ether-body: it gives rise to the vowel element in speech. In the other direction, the astral body impinges on the I, the ego. The I, in the form in which we have it in Earthman, is something everyone knows and recognises. For it is by means of the I that we have our sense perceptions. We owe it also essentially to the I that we are able to think. All conscious activity belongs in the sphere of the I or ego. What goes on in speech, however, since there the astral body is also concerned, cannot be performed entirely consciously, like some fully conscious activity of will. A fragment of consciousness does, nevertheless, definitely enter into the consonantal element in ordinary speech; for the speaking of consonants takes place between astral body and ego.  We have thus traced back to their source the forming of consonants and the forming of vowels. But we can go further. We can ask: What is it in the totality of man's nature that speech brings to revelation? We shall be able to answer this question when we have first dealt with the further question: How was it with the primeval speech of man? What was speech like in its beginnings? The speech of primitive man was verily a wonderful thing. Apart from the fact that man felt instinctively obliged from the first to speak in rhythm and in measure, even to speak in assonance and alliteration—apart from this, in those early times, man felt in speech and thought in speech. Looking first into his life of feeling, we find it was not like ours today. In comparison with it, our feelings tend to remain in the abstract. Primeval man, in the very moment of feeling, were it even a feeling of the most intimate kind, would at once express it in speech. He would not have found it possible, for instance, to have a tender feeling for a little child without being prompted in his soul to bring that feeling to expression in the form of his speech. Merely to say: ‘I love him tenderly’, would have had no meaning for him; what would have had meaning would have been to say perhaps: ‘I love this little child so very ei-ei-ei!’[5] There was always the need to permeate one's whole feeling with artistically formed speech. Neither in those olden times did men have abstract thoughts as we do today. Abstract thoughts without speech were unknown. As soon as man thought something, the thought immediately became in him word and sentence. He spoke it inwardly. It is therefore not surprising that at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John we do not find it said: ‘In the beginning was the Thought’, but : ‘In the beginning was the Word’—the verbum, the Word. today we think within, thinking our abstract thoughts; primeval man spoke within, talked within. Such then was the character of primeval speech. It contained feeling within it, and thought. It was, so to say, the treasure-casket in man for feeling and thought. Thought has now shifted, it has slipped up more into the ego; speech has remained in the astral body; feeling has slid down into the ether body. The poetry of primeval times was one, was single; it expressed in speech what man could feel and think about things The original poetry was one. When, later on, speech threw back feeling inwards, into man's inner nature, that gave rise to the lyric mood of speech. The kind of poetry that has remained most of all like the primeval, the kind of poetry that, more than any other, is inherent in speech itself is the epic. It is, in fact, impossible to speak epic poetry without first reviving something of the original primal feeling in regard to speech. Finally, drama drives speech outwards and stands, in so far as Earth-man is concerned, in relation with the external world. The artist who is taking part in drama, unless of course he is speaking a monologue, confronts another person. And this fact, that he is face to face with another person, enters into his speaking just as surely as what he experiences in himself. The artist who has to speak a lyric is not confronting another person. He faces himself alone. His speech must accordingly be so formed that it may become the pure expression of his inner being. The lyric of today can therefore not be spoken in any other way than by letting even the consonants lean over a little in the direction of vowels. (We shall go into this in more detail later.) To speak lyrical poetry aright, you need to know that every consonant carries in it a vowel nuance. L, for example, carries in it an i (ee), which you can see for yourselves from the fact that in many languages where at some time in their development an I occurs in a certain word, in other forms of that word we find an i.4 As a matter of fact, all consonants have within them something of the quality of a vowel. And for speaking lyrics it is of the first importance that we should learn to perceive the vowel in each single consonant. The epic requires a different feeling. (All that I am saying in this connection has reference to recitation or declamation before an audience.) The speaker must feel: When I come to a vowel, I am coming near to man himself; but directly I come to a consonant, it is things I am catching at, things that are outside. If the artist once has this feeling, then it will be possible for the epic to be truly present in his speaking. Epic has to do, not with man's inner life alone, but with the inner life and an imagined outer object. For the theme of the epic is not there; it is only imagined. If we are relating something, it must belong to the past, or in any case cannot be there in front of us; otherwise, there would be no occasion to relate it. The speaker of epic is thus concerned with the human being and the object or theme that exists only in thought. For the speaker of drama, the ‘object’ of his speaking is present in its full reality, the person he addresses is standing there in front of him. There then you have the distinguishing characteristics of lyric, epic and drama. They need to be well and carefully noted. I have already in past years spoken of them here and there from different points of view, and have sought to evolve a suitable terminology for distinguishing the different ways of speaking them. What I have given on those earlier occasions—I mean it to be experienced, I mean it to be felt. You must have a clear and accurate feeling for what each kind of poetry demands. Thus, you should feel that to speak lyrical poetry means to speak right out of one's inner being. The inner being of man is here revealing itself. When man's soul within him is so powerfully affected that it ‘must out’—and this is how it is with the lyric—then what was, to begin with, mere feeling, passes over into a calling aloud; and we have, from the point of view of speech, declamation. One domain, then, of the art of speech is declamation, and it is especially adapted for lyrical poetry. The lyrical element is present of course in every form of poetry; while we are speaking epic or drama, we can often find ourselves in the situation of having to make the transition here and there to the lyrical. With the speaker of epic, the essential point is that he has before him an object that is not seen but thought, and by means of the magic that lies in his speech he is continually ‘citing’ this object. The artist of the epic is pre-eminently a ‘re-citer’. So here we have recitation. The speaker of the lyric expresses himself, reveals himself; he is a declaimer. The speaker who cites his object, making it present to his audience by the magic of his speech—he is a reciter. And now in this course of lectures we have opportunity to go further and complete our classification. We come then to the speaker who has before him, not his imagined object that he cites, but present before him in bodily form the object to whom he speaks, with whom he is conversing. And so we reach the third form of speech: conversation.  It is through these three kinds of speech-formation that speaking becomes an art. The last is the one that is most misunderstood. Conversation, as we know all too well, has been dragged right away from the realm of art, and today you will find persons looked up to as past masters in conversation who are less at home in art than they are—shall I say—in diplomacy, or perhaps in the ‘afternoon-tea’ attitude to life. The feeling that conversation is a thing capable of highly artistic development has been completely lost. Sometimes of course acting ceases to be conversation and becomes monologue. When this happens, drama reaches over into the other domains, into declamation and recitation. To draw distinctions in this way between different forms of poetry may perhaps seem a little pedantic, but it will help to show that we do really have to create for the teaching of speech something similar to what we have, for example, in the teaching of music. When, for instance, a dialogue is to be put on the stage, it will be necessary to form that dialogue in a way that is right and appropriate to it as ‘conversation’. I would like now to show you how within speech itself, if we see it truly for what it is, the need for artistic forming emerges. We use in our speaking some thirty-two sounds. Suppose you had learned the sounds, but were not yet able to put them together in words. If you were then to take up Goethe's Faust, the whole book would consist for you of just these thirty-two sounds. For it contains nothing more! And yet, in their combination, these thirty-two sounds make Goethe's Faust. A great deal is implied in this statement. We have simply these thirty-two sounds; and through the forming and shaping of them, sound by sound, the whole measureless wealth of speech is called into being. But the forming is already there within the sounds themselves, within this whole system of sounds. Let us take an example. We speak the sound a (ah). What is this sound? A is released from the soul, when the soul is overflowing with wonder. That is how it was to begin with. Wonder, astonishment, liberated from the soul the sound a. Every word that has the sound a has originated in a desire to express wonder; take any word you will, you will never be altogether out, nor need you ever be afraid of being dilettante, if you assume this Take, for instance, the word Band (a band or ribbon). In some way it happened that what the man of an earlier time called Band filled him with wonder, and that is why he brought the a sound into the word. (That the same thing has in another language quite a different name is of no consequence. It means only that the people who spoke that language felt differently related to the object.) Whenever man is particularly astonished, then if he has still some understanding of what it is to be thus filled with wonder (as was the case when language began to be formed), he will bring that wonder or astonishment to expression by means of the sound a. One has only to understand where wonder is in place. You can, for instance, marvel at someone's luxurious Haarwuchs (growth of hair) You can also marvel at the Kahlkopf (bald head) of someone who has lost his Haar. Or again, you can be astounded at the effect of a Haarwasser (hair lotion) which makes the hair grow again. In fact, everything connected with hair can evoke profound admiration and astonishment—so much so that we do not simply write Har, we write the a twice—Haar! Wherever you meet the sound a, look for the starting- point of the word in an experience of wonder, and you will be carried back to the early days of evolution, when man was first shaping and forming his words. And this forming of words was an activity that worked with far greater power than present-day theories would lead us to suppose. But now, what does this mean? It means that when a man is filled with wonder at some object or event, he gives himself up to that object or event, he lets himself go. For how is the sound a made? What does it consist in? A requires the whole organism of speech to be opened wide, beginning from the mouth. Man lets his astral body flow out. When he says a, he is really on the point of falling asleep. Only, he stops himself in time. But how often will the feeling of fatigue find expression at once in the sound a! Whenever we utter a, we are letting our astral body out, or beginning to do so. The act of opening out wide—that is what you have in a. The absolute opposite of a is u (oo). When you say u, then beginning from the mouth you contract the speech organs, wherever possible, before you let the sound go through. The whole speech organism is more closed with u than with any other vowel sound. There then you have the two contrasting opposites: a u. Between a and u lies o. O actually includes within it, in rightly formed speech, the processes of a and the processes of u; o holds together in a kind of harmony the processes of opening out and the processes of closing up.
U signifies that we are in process of waking up, that we are becoming continually more awake than we were. When you say u, it shows that you are feeling moved to wake up in respect of some object that you perceive. When the owl makes himself heard at night, you instinctively exclaim: ‘Uhu!’5 You could not find stronger expression for the desire to wake up. The owl makes you want to wake up and be alive to the fact of its presence. And if someone were to fling a little sand at you—we don't of course have sand on our desks now, we use blotting paper—but suppose you were being pelted with sand, then, if you were to give way to your feelings without restraint, you would say ‘uff’. For it is the same whether something or other wakes you up, or you yourself are wanting to wake up. In either case u comes out. The astral is here uniting itself more closely with the etheric and physical bodies. The a is thus more consonantal and the u more vocalic
In some of the German dialects, one can often not discern whether people are saying a or r, for the r becomes with them vocalic and the a consonantal. In the Styrian dialect, for example, it is impossible to know whether someone is saying ‘Bur’ or ‘Bua’. All the other vowels lie between a and u. Roughly speaking, the o is in the middle, but not quite; it occupies the same position between a and u as in music the fourth does in the octave. Suppose now we want to express what is contained in O. In O we have the confluence of A and U; it is where waking up and falling asleep meet. O is thus the moment either of falling asleep or of awaking. When the Oriental teacher wanted his pupils to be neither asleep nor awake, but to make for that boundary between sleeping and waking where so much can be experienced, he would direct them to speak the syllable OM. In this way he led them to the life that is between waking and sleeping.  For, anyone who keeps repeating continually the syllable OM will experience what it means to be between the condition of being awake and the condition of being asleep. A teaching like this comes from a time when the speech organism was still understood. And now let us see how it was when a teacher in the Mysteries wanted to take his pupils further. He would say to himself: The O arises through the U wanting to go to the A and the A at the same time wanting to go to the U. So, after I have taught the pupil how to stand between sleeping and waking in the OM, if I want now to lead him on a step further, then instead of getting him to speak the 0 straight out, I must let the 0 arise in him through his speaking AOUM. Instead of OM, he is now to say AOUM. In this way the pupil creates the OM, brings it to being. He has reached a higher stage. OM with the O separated into A and U gives the required stillness to the more advanced pupil. Whereas the less advanced pupil has to be taken straight to the boundary condition between sleep and waking, the more advanced has to pass from A (falling asleep) to U (waking up), building the transition for himself. Being then between the two, he has within him the moment of experience that holds both. If we are able to feel how such modes of instruction came about, we can have some idea of what it means to say that in olden times it was by way of art that man came to an instinctive apprehension of the nature of speech. For down into the time of the ancient Greeks, men still had knowledge of how every activity and experience had its place in the world, where it intrinsically belonged. Think of the Greek gymnastics,—those marvellous gymnastics that were really a complete language in themselves! What are they? How did they evolve? To begin with, there was the realisation that the will lives in the limbs. And the very first thing the will does is to bring man into connection with the earth, so that a relationship of force develops between man's limbs and the earth, and you have: Running In running, man is in connection with the earth. If he now goes a little way into himself, and to the dynamics into which running brings him and the mechanics that establishes a balance between him and the earth's gravitation, adds an inner dynamic, then he goes over into: Leaping. For in leaping we have to develop a mechanics in the legs themselves. And now suppose to this mechanics that has been developed in the legs, man adds a mechanics that is brought about, not this time merely by letting the earth be active and establishing a balance with it, but by coming also to a state of balance in the horizontal,—the balance already established being in the vertical. Then you have: Wrestling.
In Running, you have Man and Earth; in Leaping, Man and Earth, but with a variation in the part played by man; in Wrestling, Man and the other object. If now you bring the object still more closely to man, if you give it into his hand, then you have: Throwing the Discus. Observe the progression in dynamics And if then to the dynamics of the heavy body (which is what you have in discus-throwing), you add also the dynamics of direction, you have: Throwing the Spear.
Such then are these five main exercises of Greek gymnastics; and they are perfectly adapted to the conditions of the cosmos. That was the feeling the Greeks had about a gymnastics that revealed the human being in his entirety. But men had the very same feeling in those earlier times about the revelation of the human being in speech. Mankind has changed since then; consequently, the use and handling of speech has inevitably also changed. In the Seventh Scene of my first Mystery Play, where Maria appears with Philia, Astrid and Luna, I have made a first attempt to use language entirely and purely in the way that is right for our time and civilisation. Thought, which is generally lifted out of speech, abstracted from it, is there brought down again into speech. We will accordingly take tomorrow part of this scene for demonstration, and so make a beginning with the practical side of our work. Frau Dr. Steiner will read from the scene; and then, following on today’s introductory remarks, we will proceed with the First Part of the course—the study of the Forming of Speech.
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