Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Search results 11 through 20 of 120

˂ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 12 ˃
292. The History of Art II: Greek and Early Christian Art, Symbolic Signs, the Mystery of Gold 22 Oct 1917, Dornach
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
Hagan allowing the Nibelungen treasure, the gold treasure, to sink into the Rhine, was a prophetic idea at the time the Nibelungen saga was created and is experienced as deeply tragic in view of the future, on all that the Rhine will become as a cause for antagonistic impulses against the future.
At that time, it was also really known in what sense the purely materialistic reference meant regarding “the old Rhine River”. What is the Rhine actually in a materialistic sense? It is the water of the Rhine. What flows in it these days will in future be somewhere else. The water of the Rhine is actually not really something one can call the old Rhine, and one does not usually think of the mere coincidence of the earth.
51. The History of the Middle Ages: Lecture II 25 Oct 1904, Berlin
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
In the opinion of Tacitus, these peoples were the original inhabitants of that land, for he cannot imagine that any other races would be able to get on in that inhospitable regiion. He mentions the tribes which dwell on the Rhine, the Lippe, the Weser, the Danube and in Brandenburg; these alone are known to him. He tells of characteristic features in them, and on account of their similarity groups them together under the name Germani.
We know that there existed among the southern Indo-Germanic tribes a legend which found artistic elaboration in Greece: The story of Odysseus. Tacitus found, in the neighbourhood of the Rhine, a place of worship dedicated to Odysseus and his farther Laertes. So we see that the culture of the Germani at this epoch was akin to the culture we meet with in Greece in the 8th and 9th centuries B.C.
In the first centuries A.D., Tacitus describes the Germani of the borderlands of the Danube, the Rhine and the Lippe. These races were characterised by the roving instinct, love of liberty, and delight in hunting and war.
92. Richard Wagner in the Light of Anthroposophy: Lecture One 28 Mar 1905, Berlin
Translator Unknown

Rudolf Steiner
Alberich brings the gold, the wisdom which has become hardened, out of the waters of the Rhine. Water always symbolizes the soul-element, the astral element. The Ego, gold, wisdom, come forth out of the soul. The Rhine is the soul of the new root-race out of which arises the understanding, the Ego consciousness. Alberich takes possession of the gold, he captures it from the Daughters of the Rhine, the female element characterising the original state of consciousness.
274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 24, 1923 24 Dec 1923, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
You will see this from a reference in one of the plays in the next few days, where the Rhine is mentioned. They were played in the areas north of the Rhine, as seen from Switzerland. Then tribes who played these Christmas plays migrated eastwards, to Hungary.
274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 29, 1923 29 Dec 1923, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
From a remark such as that made by the leader of the singers, where he points out that the Rhine is nearby, you can see that the things from the area north of the Rhine have migrated here to the east, and they have indeed retained the language.
274. Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays: December 14, 1923 14 Dec 1923, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
You can see from this that these plays originally came from a region along the Rhine. But the games that we are presenting today were not found here in these areas; they were discovered by my old teacher and friend Karl Julius Schröer in the middle of the last century in those areas of Upper Hungary that were actually still truly German at the time, but whose German character has long since faded, giving way to Slavic and Magyar elements.
But those who have cultivated these games are probably even of Alemannic origin and were originally settled in the areas that comprise Alsace and are located north of the Rhine, which forms the northern border of Switzerland. These Germans emigrated and settled in the area around Pressburg, north of the Danube, the so-called Oberufer region, and brought these Christmas plays with them as a precious souvenir of their old home further west.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Technology and Art 28 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
On the whole it still happens to many people, but they are not immediately aware of it. If someone is travelling down the Rhine and he speaks for instance of the ‘old Rhine’, what does he mean? No doubt he feels something. But what is he referring to? When people speak of the ‘old Rhine’ I do not think they mean the riverbed, the hollow in the ground. That would be the only permanent part, of course.
The old Rhine! Language is more inspired than man, because the language obviously means the River God, even if people are not conscious of it.
262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: Correspondence 78 29 Jan 1911,

Rudolf Steiner
Please take plenty of time to rest and write to me, even if it's just a line, to let me know how you are. Now, as always on the Rhine, it seems to be time to go. The stationery doesn't indicate the location correctly. I'm already writing to you from Cologne.
51. Philosophy, History and Literature: History of the Middle Ages IX 28 Dec 1904, Berlin

Rudolf Steiner
But more and more the privileges of the officials and the merchants who formed the patriciate were taken away from the privileged by those who lived depressed. On the Rhine in southern Germany, this equality was won in the 13th and 14th centuries. Kings and emperors reckoned with it.
We see how trade policy developed, powerful trade routes emerged, along the Rhine, through northern and central Germany, with important trading cities such as Magdeburg, Hildesheim, Erfurt, Breslau and so on.
We have seen how German mysticism blossomed, especially on the Rhine, how the brothers of the common life cultivated a deep piety completely independent of Rome. Two different currents of time now confront us: on the one hand, the bourgeois is concerned with the elevation of material life; on the other hand, we see here a spiritual life directed inwardly.
161. Wilhelm Jordan as the Renewer of the Nibelungenlied 28 Mar 1915, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
But Gunther promises Siegfried of the Lower Rhine that he will give him Kriemhilde as a wife if Siegfried will help him, Gunther, in his courtship of Brunhilde.
As the setting sun bathed the river of legend, The emerald Rhine, in a blush of parting, With garlands of molten gold, Numerous boats glided through the shining waves near Worms Up and down And led the people home from the festival.
Shadow-like, it rises in the shimmer of the stars Like storm-driven dream figures. On smoky wings over the Rhine Three gray sisters, giant figures, now stand resting high in the air above the ruler's palace.

Results 11 through 20 of 120

˂ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 12 ˃