The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The fact that eurythmy originated within the Anthroposophical Movement is not in the least arbitrary, even if the actual circumstances of the case seem almost like chance. Eurythmy developed in such a way that it was only in the course of years that its essential character was revealed. The whole process of the development of eurythmy has been such that it could only have emanated from the Anthroposophical Movement, this Movement which is suited to the needs of modern times and which is in keeping with the conditions of the present and near future.

Eurythmy must be looked upon as a quite particular art, an art which is based upon the revelation of the nature and being of man through movements of the limbs carried out by a single human being or a group of human beings, either standing still or moving in space.

I have often called this revelation of the human being ‘visible speech’. It is visible speech in so far as the content of a poem or piece of music may, by its means, be brought to expression through human gesture based on laws not less exact than those which would be present if the same poem or piece of music were to be expressed through speech or song. Everything which may truly be termed art springs from a source which must be looked for in the spiritual world. It must be recognized, for instance, that architecture originated from quite definite conceptions of a supersensible nature. One may call to mind the external fact that, the further we look back in time, the more certainly do we find that monuments were erected over burial places. And when we call to mind such thoughts as are bound up with the erection of the tombstone, these thoughts would take some such form as this.

We must say to ourselves: The human being, when regarded in his entirety, does not achieve the goal of his existence by earthly life alone. He forsakes the physical body with his true being when he passes through the gate of death. His existence is continued beyond the boundary of his life on earth.

The question arises: In what way will the human being be received by the cosmos when he forsakes his physical body ?—and anyone who is able to perceive as imagination this mystery of the human being, anyone able to solve this riddle imaginatively, will discover that the answer is contained in the forms of the memorial monument or tomb.

A monumental memorial stone erected over a grave is moulded in forms which seem to conceal in themselves those lines and directions along which the soul, when released from the body, will wing its way into the wide spaces of the cosmos. The tombstone answers for us the question: What are the directions taken by the soul when it forsakes the physical body?

This of course is a very radical conception of architecture. For the conception of architecture may quite justifiably be widened out so as to include certain buildings necessary for life on earth. We can then put the question to ourselves in another form, albeit this is more prosaic: If the human being, while on the earth, is obliged to have the protection of some quite definite shelter for that which is the vehicle of his soul during earthly life, what architectural surroundings suited to what he has to do on earth must he have for his physical body?

I can only touch on these things, but I wish to point out by their means how architecture, for instance, has emanated from a supersensible origin, from a spiritual vision.

And again, when examining plastic art, one will find that the origin of sculpture lies in the answer to the question: What was the work of the Gods on the human form, and what does the human being himself make out of this form during his life on earth? What in this human form is the gift of the Gods? How does the soul-life of the human being influence this divine gift?

That which is added to this divine gift by the soul-life of man is left out of account by the sculptor as not belonging to art. That which in the human form is the gift of the Gods was what was originally made manifest through plastic art.

It was during an age in which people pondered the question: What are the directions taken by the soul after death?—that monumental architecture came into existence. This may still be seen from those Catholic Churches where the altar is a tomb or memorial, and even from the Gothic churches, for these are erected over a tomb. Just as architectural conceptions were originally born out of a supersensible vision, so the conceptions of sculpture arose in an age in which people were considering the question: In what way is the human body a gift of the Gods?

In the case of each individual form of art it is possible to point out how in the corresponding epoch of time the origin of a particular form of art arose out of the raising of human consciousness into supersensible worlds. And all naturalistic tendencies in art, everything which is not a spiritual inheritance, must be looked upon as signs of decadence, as signals of the downfall of art.

From this one may see that the origin of any art can only be traced back to supersensible worlds. When we examine the special character of our present age, it speaks to us on all sides of the way in which the forces of the subconscious and of the unconscious are weaving and working in the psycho-spiritual life of man. Most people to-day, however, allow their unconscious life to remain unconscious. Formerly, when anyone showed a certain tendency in his soul-life, people simply expressed their trust in the goodness of God, which meant that they were not going to bother any more about it. And to-day also it must be said of most people who talk about ‘the unconscious’, that they also allow the unconscious life to remain unconscious; they are not really troubling about it. On the other hand, it is the task of anthroposophical spiritual knowledge to raise up this unconscious life and unite it with a super-consciousness, to grasp what lives directly in the human being as psychic-spiritual in its connection with the higher spirituality.

In this respect, however, we find that, as a means of human expression, speech can be said only partially to reveal the human being. Speech is above all the vehicle of thought; and the way in which thought has developed in our modern civilization has led to the loss of poetry through too much thinking about it. This shows itself most clearly in the fact, in spite of a healthy reaction in this direction,—that it is no longer possible to recite or declaim in a way which is really artistic. It is only with years of work and infinite pains that Frau Dr. Steiner has succeeded in leading declamation and recitation back to their true form.

A true art of recitation and declamation reveals the essential nature of poetry. For the nature of poetry may only be discovered by one who with full inner understanding can echo the words of the poet: ‘Spricht die Seele, so spricht, ach, schon die Seele nicht mehr’. (If the soul speaks, then alas, the soul speaks no more.) When the soul comes to the lips, finding expression in words which have long lost their connection with the realities of the universe, then we have prose; we no longer have poetry. We only rediscover poetry when we return to a manner of speech in which the words wing their way in greater or lesser curves, in undulating waves, or lines, sharp and angular, thus forming themselves into the strophe or verse. Such pictures of the imagination as are sought by the true poet must be led over into the rhythms of the Iambic or the Trochaic, into pulse or beat, into the melodic phrase which can transform speech into music. Then we reach something which lies beyond words; whereas most people to-day emphasize the prose element in recitation and declamation, even if, as I have said, a reaction has already set in.

Speaking in a wide sense, however, we must hold to the fact that a poem can only fully be understood when the following is borne in mind.

The reciter or declaimer has no means at his disposal other than the utterance of words. All the possibilities of his art lie in the way the words are spoken. Anyone who understands how to listen to recitation or declamation with the ear of an artist feels conjured up within him an impression either imaginative or musical, a picture arising out of the actual sounds of speech, or out of the musical element in speech,—both of which are on a far higher level than thought.

Thought is a reflection of sense-impressions. We ascend to the supersensible. When we express thought by means of speech, then, because thought lives in the breath, it calls upon that which unites itself with the breath. And with the breath is connected the pulsation of the blood.

The pulsation of the blood, even to its slightest variations, expresses the experiences and perceptions of the soul; it is the expression of the soul-life. Anyone able to enter into these things with true insight is aware that, if we speak, for instance, such a word as ‘Klingen’, the blood-pulsation during the first syllable ‘Kling’, where there is the i-sound, differs from that during the second syllable, where the sound is e. When, with the help of the breath, thought is allowed to stream into words, the blood-pulsation, the inner movement of the human being, is stimulated.

This process continues as long as we remain in the sphere of thought. If thought clothes itself in pictures, as it can do by means of words, then we have a task different from the mere stimulation of the activity in the blood.

At the present time, when anyone speaks the sound i, it is spoken with the greatest indifference. It is an i merely, a sound which occurs in so and so many words. But this was not the case when the i originally appeared in human life, when it was literally wrested out of the being of man.

Anyone really able to experience the i would feel the way in which this sound is permeated by the breath, and would also realize the intimate connection of the breath with the pulsation of the blood. He would know that with the utterance of the sound i the speaker places himself, his own being, as it were, in space. With the e-sound, on the other hand, he feels an inner spiritual experience. When he utters the sound o he must have the feeling: the spiritual reveals itself before him. For anyone who can feel and experience language, each individual sound transforms itself into a picture, taking on quite definite contours.

Language is rich in feeling and this manifests itself in the transition from one sound to another. In the course of civilization we have lost that inner jubilation which should be experienced in the case of certain words. Soberness and indifference have conquered and the soul-life of the human being has become soured and morose. This is why, when modern civilization speaks, one frequently feels that words are produced by tongues coated with a mixture of salt and vinegar. In this civilized manner of speaking, articulation has become such that all sounds tend towards a type of hissing dental sound; they have the effect of a mixture of salt and vinegar on the tongue. But the primal language of humanity was a liquid honey. Language is essentially sweet in its nature; and it is the means by which the being of man reveals itself in sound. Poetry to-day is fettered when it struggles to embody feeling in words, we have lost from language the feeling which it once possessed.

If this feeling is to be re-awakened, language as such must be raised to a higher level. We must realize that human speech in all its aspects is, as it were, overshadowed by a heavenly world, wherein the whole content of the soul-life of man is expressed in a mighty panorama.

When one gains the possibility of perceiving that archetype of which speech is the shadow, one becomes aware of an imaginative language in which imaginations can be expressed through the microcosm, a little world, through man, who is enabled by his form as a spatial being to bring all mysteries to expression.

When one has learned to know those imaginations which reveal themselves in their relationship to all the separate forms of speech, one may then pass over to the separate forms of song. And when these are translated into the sphere of human movement we get this art of eurythmy. There is an imaginative revelation of language. Language to-day has become intellectualistic. If we go back to the imaginative origin of language,—and we must do this, for in each and every sphere we must find our way back to what is spiritual,—then we shall feel how necessary it is to bring imagination into language once more. This may be done by making use, as the most significant means of artistic expression, of the possibilities of human movement in space, of the actual movements in space of the human being himself. When we wish to give expression to the deeper elements lying behind language we must do more than merely influence the circulation of the blood, which we do in speech owing to the connection existing between the breathing and the blood. We must enter a realm which soars, as it were, above the head, above thoughts, above abstract language; we must enter the reahn of imaginative language. For this we need, not the circulation of the blood merely, which is influenced when we speak even when standing still; but we must pass over from the circulation of the blood into the visible movements of the human being himself. Then the gestures in the air which are produced by speech, for we unconsciously impress the imagination into air-gestures,—are transformed into visible gestures. And these visible gestures are eurythmy.

Eurythmy has arisen out of the very nature of our age and out of its fundamental needs. Just as one can show how architecture had to arise out of one particular epoch, and how sculpture, painting and music arose in their corresponding epochs, so one day people will understand that eurythmy, this art of human movement, was bound to arise out of this our present age.

It has been a task of special difficulty to weld into book form these lectures which originally depended so much upon the living co-operation of lecturer and demonstrators. These lectures were not meant as an encyclopaedic recapitulation of the whole sphere of eurhythmy; they were given just at that point in the evolution of eurhythmy where it became necessary to review all that had been accomplished during the course of many years’ activity, and which had already been carried out into the world by the various teachers; The intention was to examine and correct the results of this work and ‘to gather together a number of guiding lines, developed entirely from out of the nature of eurhythmy itself.’ Rudolf Steiner says in the last lecture of this course that his intention was to give his lectures such a form that they would show ‘how eurhythmy arises out of the feeling life, out of the soul; how a eurhythmic technique must be won from out of the love of eurhythmy, just as everything must in reality arise out of love.’ And indeed his own words streamed forth from a fountain of love, bringing help and aid to the work already accomplished,—the work which from then on was to be based on an even surer foundation. Up to this time there had been no shorthand reports of the teaching by means of which Rudolf Steiner introduced this art to the world. In the year 1912 he gave ten lessons to a seventeen year old girl, who, through the death of her father, was faced with the necessity of assisting in the maintenance of her younger brothers and sisters. She greatly wished to devote herself to some art of movement which was not based upon the materialistic tendencies of the age. This concrete fact proved the impulse for that teaching which has resulted in eurhythmy. I was invited to take part in these lessons; they consisted in the rudiments of sound-formation, and a number of exercises in reality belonging to the educational aspect of eurhythmy,—that is to say the basic principles of standing, walking and running, certain postures and gestures, and a number of staff exercises and rhythmic exercises. From these basic principles several girls, pupils of the first eurhythmist, worked out the educational aspect of eurhythmy; later they passed on to the expression of poems by means of movements corresponding to the sounds. This was the first phase of eurhythmic development. Every now and again, when the work was shown to him, Rudolf Steiner explained and corrected, answering any questions put to him. A second phase of eurhythmic development began when this new art found a foothold in Dornach, at the Goetheanum. The first group of young teachers requested and received a further course, in which more especially teaching about the formation of words, word-relationships, the nature of speech, the structure of poetry was given, as also new group forms. The work was carried out into the world, but the war soon checked its activity. In order to save this art and to rescue the eurhythmists from their enforced inactivity, it became necessary for me to take the work in hand. Destiny brought this task to me quite naturally, for a new style of recitation was necessary for eurhythmy, and I had to find my way into this new method, to understand and develop it. I recognized the great significance of eurhythmy as a regenerating source for all branches of art, and deeply regretted the fact that the eager work of these young eurhythmists should be rendered fruitless by the war. There is no better remedy against the errors of taste of the present day than this new art, which leads us back to the primeval forces, to the creative forces of the universe. It is of untold benefit to mankind. Thus I worked half of the year in Germany with one group of eurhythmists, and the other half of the year at the Goetheanum in Dornach, always supported and assisted by Rudolf Steiner, to whom we could turn with all our questions. The instruction we received from him in the course of time has been gathered together in book form by Annemarie Dubach-Donath, one of our best and most experienced eurhythmists, the second in that line of young girls who devoted themselves to the study of eurhythmy. This book, entitled The Basic Principles of Eurythmy, and published by the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, sets forth and explains these principles, thus building a foundation which is, absolutely necessary if eurhythmy is to be understood, and without which it would always remain incomplete.

We met together to take part in this course as if uniting in a common festival. Many were the questions put to Rudolf Steiner; he recapitulated the teaching, clearing up many things about which we held differing opinions. The whole nature of this course was that of spontaneous improvisation; diagrams were rapidly sketched on the board, exercises demonstrating certain points were carried out by the eurhythmists; everything bore the character of intimate conversation and co-operative work, not of pedantic instruction. This was often the case with the teaching given by Rudolf Steiner to his pupils, but never to such a degree as in this course on eurhythmy. He himself, in all probability, wished the content of these lectures first to be assimilated and experienced, and then later on cast into another form and given to the world through the agency of some other person. Now, however, when he has gone from us, his own words are what we value most. Even here,—when the effect cannot be other than fragmentary, constantly interrupted as the lectures were by practical example and demonstration,—many subtle relationships are brought to light, and we are moved to the heights and depths of our being in a way which would be impossible through the words of another. During his lectures, as he himself delivered them, the cadences of his voice seemed to stream out from spiritual depths, revealing radiant glimpses of cosmic mysteries. And now, even after his death, he still makes for us that sacrifice which he had to make throughout his whole life,—the sacrifice, that is to say, of allowing the disjointed fragments of his spirit to be preserved and written down by another hand. Those who drew life from his spirit demanded this sacrifice. None knew what it cost him. But the sacrifice was made. It has saved for our age the wisdom which reveals the relationship of universe and man; it has preserved for present-day humanity,—no longer able to remember the word of the spirit without the aid of the written record,—that store of knowledge which can raise man ever more and more to the consciousness of the concrete reality of the spirit; it contains the kindling, life-awakening spark.

Among the many branches of the spiritual work of Rudolf Steiner eurhythmy was one of those which he held most dear. It developed quite organically from the smallest beginnings, adding shoot to shoot, and reaching goodly proportions, thanks to the health-giving nurture and tireless labours of its creator. It ennobled those who gave themselves to its study, compelling them more and more to put aside all that is personal; it left no room for caprice. Its inherent laws were rooted in a spiritual necessity; these laws were gladly acknowledged, for in them one experienced necessity, one experienced God. This is why eurhythmy was able to arouse such heartfelt enthusiasm; many eager students banded themselves together in selfless work, so that the field of activity grew ever wider and wider. Side by side with the development of recitation, eurhythmy entered into the realm of music and in this domain also it opened up fresh channels and gave fresh possibilities of expression. A new art of stage lighting came into being, following the laws of eurhythmy, and a new style of dress, simpler, more impersonal, more dignified; these were based upon the experience of the colours, upon what might be called a eurhythmy of colour. In its connection with the drama, eurhythmy led to a means of representing those beings which otherwise had to be represented in a more or less materialistic way. The portrayal of the super-sensible and sub-sensible in earthly life now became possible. Thus, as the years went by, we were able to produce on the stage of the Schreinerei at the Goetheanum all those scenes in Faust in which the supersensible plays a part and which otherwise are either omitted or mishandled. The romantic Walpurgisnacht revealed undreamed of life and intricacy of detail, and the classical Walpurgisnacht also, with its manifold ghostly happenings. Elves, angels, the hosts of heavenly beings were represented in these performances with simplicity and dignity, and in a way entirely convincing. The greater our activity and work the greater was our gain. Every effort which resulted in deeds was rewarded by fresh gifts from our generous teacher. So many possibilities of work arose that we could not keep pace with them in the time at our disposal.

After several years of tireless training and a good deal of stage experience before friendly audiences, the time came for eurhythmy to be carried out into the world. The result was striking; it was received with enthusiastic appreciation or violent opposition,—never with indifference. We were threatened with the ostracism of the cultured world; the press representatives were usually instructed to write from an antagonistic point of view, even if, as they often asserted, they themselves were enthusiastic. Representatives of other branches of art were often deeply impressed, often, also, aggressively ironical. Members of such societies as aim at reforms of all kinds felt their nebulous systems threatened by an unknown but assured and powerful force. Unprejudiced onlookers thanked God that there could be so true and pure an art. Children frequently asked if those were the angels of whom they had been told, and loud ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ of wonderment were often the eloquent testimony of their impressions. This art worked into the quagmire of our modern civilization as a purifying light or flame; the lovers of darkness gave vent to their opprobrium,—those who wished to rise up out of the low-lying levels of our civilization felt as if cleansed and purified. The power of the spirit manifested itself in this art and its effect was purifying and invigorating.

It so chances that I am writing these words in England. The life of London, the capital of the world, has been working upon me, the quintessence of that element in our modern civilization which has produced the predominance of all that is physical in life, of all that can serve our material well-being. The business life of this world-centre, its industrial and commercial life, rushes noisily on its way. That to-day is a matter of course. But the menace to humanity is this: everywhere one hears the shrill sound of the wireless, the rasping of the gramophone, the whirring of the film; machinery has conquered on all sides, even in the realm of art; the most vital impulses are liable to waver and become mechanized. A performance which I witnessed in the Rudolf Steiner Hall in London, with its beautiful stage, a performance consisting of the interpretation of the music of early composers played on old instruments, had the effect of pictures from a past age. The performers (who were not Anthroposophists), attired in costumes of the period, produced a reposeful music full of feeling and inwardness, a music demanding leisure, which is not to be hurried, which deepens the contemplative life. The effect of such music is somewhat antiquated; but if one can persuade one’s modern nerves to adapt themselves to an earlier attitude, curbing their restlessness, it has a beneficent influence. It has about as much resemblance to the hustle of modern music as the long, flowing dresses of earlier times, still admired by painters, have to the lanky legs of to-day, where the hem of the dress comes well above the knee. The effect of these legs on the stage, when looked at from the stalls of a theatre, is terribly obtrusive. They are shown off with determination; they are meant to be seen. The qualities formerly regarded as feminine and charming are but little in evidence in a modern drawing-room. An actress, if playing the part of a young girl, likes to loll about on some padded sofa; she thrusts out her legs, crossed over each other, and beyond that one has in perspective a little bobbed or shingled head. When one is faced with a whole row of such attitudes, the aesthetic element must really be said to be lacking!

But this is only lack of beauty. What is still worse is that the very speech and gesture has been affected by this mechanical, noisy music, which rattles from all the gramophones, from the wireless, from the pianolas, and which even in many of the best London theatres has taken the place of the orchestra. They carry on their ceaseless noise during the intervals, drumming their hard sounds into the head and deadening the consciousness of the ego. When, at the end of a performance the conventional phrase of ‘God save the King’ is played and the audience rises to its feet, without the slightest pause the music falls into some wild jazz. Where is the need of breathing space or a moment’s consideration?—the machine needs no such thing. But the lack of any transition between two contrasted moods has a stultifying effect upon the soul. Young girls enter the stage, or drawing-room, even in Paris, with that rolling movement of hips and shoulders which negro dances have made second nature. They themselves do not notice this eternal rolling movement of the limbs: the effect is almost that of a wound-up doll, or of hypnosis. In woods, on the sea-shore, everywhere one is horrified by the sound of the gramophone and the sight of partners indulging in this sliding, rolling motion. Dancing, which seemed to be dying out when the decorative elegant French dances lost their charm, when even the waltz and the polka had failed to interest, has come to life again in the crude and primitive form of imitated negro dances. ‘We like the rhythm’ several girls replied, when I inquired what was so fascinating about these dances.—But this rhythm is in reality no rhythm. It is anti-rhythmic, it is an earth force which whirls upwards, an over-emphasized or furtive and indistinct beat, an increased blood pulsation coupled with lowered consciousness. One only needs to look at the figures of the dancers, with their vacant, expressionless faces, to be convinced that this is so,—especially so with the men, who now, young and old alike, have suddenly developed a passion for dancing. These dances appeal to the lower instincts, and for this reason they have as adherents even the most blasé, and those whose souls have become lifeless and barren. But that which was merely animal nature in the case of the negro has with us become mechanical. The demons of machinery here find means of access; they gain a hold on the human being through his movement, through his vitality. They do not only influence his brain, but enter into this externalizing of that which should remain as inner mood of the soul. The mechanical musical instruments exercise their powerful, soul-deadening forces, doing away with all atmosphere and feeling. And this non-rhythmic, mechanical element is even rejected in the manner of speech of modern actors on the stage. The sentences are shot out in a way which is jerky, rough and disjointed; they seem scarcely to belong to the human being, but only to his bony structure. The human being is not himself, active, but is only an automaton functioning through intellect and senses. When, added to this, there is nervous, hysterical emotion, the producer’s requirements may be said to be fulfilled. All this works its way into the souls of our young people, making them barren and empty. What will be the result? What is the outlook for future generations if no reaction sets in? A London newspaper is lying before me; a picture attracts my attention. The picture entitled ‘Urchin Humanity’ depicts a street arab,—cheeky, impertinent, with an old face,—drawing a cart. In the centre of this cart sits Science, holding a gun: Poison Gas. On one side is the figure of Literature, eagerly perusing a book: Detective Romances; on the other side the figure of Art,—she is holding the apparatus for producing films; and below her sits Music, with a gramophone on her knee.—This is our age. Self-knowledge is shown by such a picture, and self-realization,—the only path which can lead to salvation.

One might despair; one might give way to the most drastic Spenglerism, if, in this time of need, the means of salvation had not also been given. Salvation lies in the spiritual work of Rudolf Steiner. He sounded the awakening call which can free humanity from the dangers of becoming animalized, stupefied and mechanized.

That which once, in the ancient Mysteries, was offered to men as Wegzehrung (Sustenance by the Way), as they traversed the path leading to the unfolding of the personality, is now offered to them anew. It is offered at this moment when the personality might be annulled, when that which is human threatens to sink to the level of the sub-human if this gift is not grasped and assimilated in its very essence. The intellect alone cannot aid us here; understanding, left to itself, has led us to Agnosticism, to ‘Ignoramibus’, to ‘Spenglerism’. But if man opens himself to that which is spiritual, if he allows the spiritual to reveal to him his path, the creative forces of the spirit will conquer the seeds of death and transmute those forces of destruction which are now at work in ‘urchin humanity’.

In order to see that which is of really great dimensions one must wait for the discovery of a new apparatus; otherwise it can as little be observed as that which is minute can be observed without the aid of the microscope. The distances of time alone may sometimes give the necessary perspective. The work of Rudolf Steiner towers so immeasurably over what may be grasped and understood at the present day that it is only the moving passage of time, with its widened outlook, which will first make possible a true valuation. It is our duty to apply ourselves to the many and various branches of the work, gradually bringing them into the range of vision; for here, on all sides may be found the life-belts to which we may ding in the surrounding waters of destruction and disintegration.

That which is seemingly limited often proves to be of the greatest significance. Let us begin with education by means of and in art; leg us trace the path leading back to the source from which art had its first beginning. Truly this origin was no mean one. It was the dance of the stars and its reflection in the human sphere that was known as the dance of the planets, as Temple Dancing. Here the creative forces streamed into the human body, building its form, directing it in space, and conjuring up those forces which give to man the possibility of working creatively upon himself.

And out of these forces there arose in man the faculty of leading his inner activity over into works of art, plastic and musical. Such works of art were channels which allowed the divine to radiate down into matter. They were a reflection of the cosmos.

But when the onslaught of materialism silenced the divine forces within man, rendering them powerless, when the human brain became the coffin for dead thinking and was no longer able to grasp the spiritual, then arose a deliverer. He spiritualized the intellect; he freed it from its rigidity; he restored to it its living mobility.

Indeed he brought movement into all domains of human activity. We, however, had no recollection of movement in a spiritual sense, for the movement of matter, which we had laid hold of and mastered, sufficed us, intoxicating us with its rapid motion. We did not notice that the spiritual part of our being was left passive, and that as a substitute we were intoxicating ourselves with the specific movements of sport. By this means also we alienated ourselves ever further from the spiritual impulse of movement.

We must retrace our steps with awakened consciousness; we must observe for ourselves the mighty forces of movement and whither they tend to lead us; then we shall perceive a gathering together of creative activity, the forces of which give form to the organs, and we shall gain the possibility of developing new spiritual organs in ourselves.

In this way we shall conquer the rigidity, the lifelessness, the barrenness, which to-day lead people even of the finest intelligence to the extremes of pessimism.

Once more chance has put a paper into my hand,—in Hanover, where I am writing the conclusion of this foreword. Here one may read: ‘Culture (Kultur), so long as it is strong and full of motive power, works unconsciously. We are compelled to absorb and cultivate a conscious civilization. Is not this from the very outset the signal of an incurable and sterile weakness? Is it not the destruction of that seed from which springs all creative force, so that at most one may only expect a feeble echo of that which may truly be called culture? Is the circle of real culture already completed, so that there only remains for us a civilized mechanism, with perhaps some romantic glimmer remaining from the fullness of light of better days,—which also may soon fade into nothingness?’ (from the Niedersachsenbuch, 1927).

In earlier times the inhabitants of Lower Saxony unconsciously followed a spiritual guidance, and they conquered the land of the Celtic Breton and the Gael.—As Englishmen theirs was the task of developing the consciousness soul, in so far as this is bound up with the actual personality and with physical, earthly surroundings. If the German people could raise the forces of consciousness up into the sphere of the divine ego in man, then they would have fulfilled the task of the German civilization. Then they would give to the world a new culture for which all humanity would render thanks,—whereas people turn from them when, untrue to their mission they imitate the mechanistic civilization, carrying this to its furthest extremes.

The greatest herald of the spirit of Germany proclaimed this to the German people with warning voice ever and again during the catastrophe of the world war, and he uttered these stirring words:

Der deutsche Geist hat nicht vollendet,
Was er im Weltenwerden schaffen soll
Er lebt in Zukunftssorgen hoffnungsvoll,
Er hofft auf Zukunftstaten lebensvoll.
In seines Wesenstiefen fuhlt er machtig
Verborgnes, das noch reifend wirken muss.
Wie darf in Feindesmacht verstandislos
Der Wunsch nach seinem Ende sich beleben,
So lang das Leben sich ibm offenbart
Das ihn in Wesenstiefen schaffend halt!

(The German Spirit has not completed
Its destined gift to World-Becoming.
Hope-filled, it lives in cares which fill the future,
Life-filled, it hopes for deeds on which the future must depend,
And in its deepest being feels
A hidden might which yet must work to ripeness.
Opposing powers, with lack of understanding,
Desire its end. Yet of this wish how shall there be fulfilment
So long as there is manifest that life
Which in the depths sustains creative power!)

This life must be grasped by the German. It does not, however, lie in ‘keeping the race pure’, as the slogan has it. It lies in the realization of his inherent ego forces, of his divine ego forces. But the path to this leads through the realm of consciousness. The consciousness of the personality, metamorphosed and raised up to the undying ‘I’ possesses creative forces; it conceals the spirit in itself and will produce, not the mere echo of past culture, but a virile culture of its own.

It may seem that I have strayed far from the subject of the book which I am introducing, and yet this path leads us back to the inner regions of the temple from which the ancient civilizations arose, at first in Word and in Art,—not unconsciously, but guided by the most exalted spirits. They will come to our aid also, at this epoch when it has become necessary for each individual Spirit-Consciousness to work towards the gradual transmutation of itself into a universal Human-Ego-Consciousness. If we allow ourselves to receive this aid, we shall be in a position to open ourselves to the spirit in every sphere of activity,—in that sphere also which this book illumines with spiritual revelation and human knowledge. Then we shall no longer need to stimulate our slackened nerves by means of decadent negro dances which are hammered into us by machinery, turning us into machines and gradually killing out our finest human qualities; but we shall gain an understanding for a noble art of movement, having its source in the spirit, an art of movement which is the reflection of the Dance of the Stars, and which makes the language of the stars sound visibly within us in purity and truth.

Marie Steiner.
November, 1927.

Report in the “News Sheet” (Nachrichtenblatt)

From June 24th—July 12th a course of lectures on speech eurythmy was held at the Goetheanum. It had as content a further presentation of much which had already been given in this domain and at the same time a deepening and widening of what was already known. The eurythmy artists, who both at the Goetheanum and going out from there to many places, are practicing eurythmy as an art, the eurythmy teachers, the teaching staff of the Stuttgart eurythmy school founded and directed by Marie Steiner, the eurythmy teachers of the Waldorf School and the Fortbildungsschule at the Goetheanum, the curative eurythmists, and a number of personalities who through their profession as artists or scientists in other spheres are interested in eurythmy, attended the course.

Eurythmy makes it possible to bring the artistic as such, in its essence and its sources, to visible beholding. This was specially borne in mind during the presentation of this course. He only can work as eurythmy artist who creatively unfolds a sense for art from an inner call, an inner enthusiasm.

In order to bring to manifestation the possibilities of form and movement inherent in the human organisation it is necessary that the soul be completely enfilled with art. This universal character of eurythmy underlay all that was presented.

Whoever wishes to do eurythmy must have penetrated into the being of speech-formation. He must, before all, have approached the mysteries of sound-creation. In every sound an expression for a soul experience is given; in the vowel-sounds for a thinking, feeling, willing self-revelation of the soul, in the consonant sounds for the way in which the soul represents an outer thing or a process. This expression of language remains for the most part quite subconscious in the case of ordinary speech; the eurythmist must learn to know it quite exactly, for he has to transform what becomes audible in speech into gestures which are quiescent or in movement. In this course, therefore, the inner structure of language was revealed. The sound-significance of the word, which everywhere underlies the meaning-significance, was made visible. By the eurythmy gestures themselves, some aspects of the inner laws of language—little recognised at the present time, when speaking is the expression of a strongly abstract attitude of soul—can be visibly manifested. That is what happened in this course. Thereby, it may be hoped, it will also have given to eurythmy teachers the guiding lines necessary for them.

The eurythmist must devote himself to the gesture down to its smallest detail, so that his performance really becomes the self-understood expression of the life of soul. He can only give form to the gesture in its fullness when the smallest detail comes first to consciousness, that it may later become the habitual expression of the soul-being.

A study was made of how the gesture as such reveals soul-experience and spirit-content, and also of how this revelation relates itself to the soul-expression which is manifested audibly in the language of sound. From eurythmy one can learn to value the technique of art; but from eurythmy one can indeed also become deeply imbued with the way in which the technical must put aside everything external and be completely taken hold of by the soul, if the truly artistic is to come to life. People who are active in any sphere of art often speak of how the soul must work behind the technique; the truth is that it is in the technique that the soul must work.

A special value was laid in these lectures upon showing that in the truly formed gestures the aesthetically sensitive human being perceives the soul-element directly in a quite unequivocal way. Examples were shown which demonstrated how a content in the soul-configuration can be made obvious in a certain gesture-formation.

It was also shown how the whole structure of language, which reveals itself in grammar, syntax, rhythm, in poetical figures of speech, in rhyme and verse-formation, also finds its corresponding realisation in eurythmy.

The audience attending this course was not only to be led into the knowledge of eurythmy but they should be brought to the experience of how all art must be sustained by love and enthusiasm. The eurythmist cannot separate himself from his artistic creation and objectively put it forward for aesthetic enjoyment as can the painter or sculptor, but he remains personally within his performance; one sees from him himself whether or no art lives within him as a divine world-content. In the immediate artistic present, art in its visible essence must be made manifest by the actual human being of the eurythmist. This demands a particularly inward and intimate relationship to art. To help the partakers towards this understanding was the aim of this course. It wished to show how, when beholding the gestures feeling, inner perception are enkindled in the soul, and how this inner perception then leads to the experience of the visible word. Much which can only be partially expressed in the audible word can be completely revealed through the movements of eurythmy. The audible word in recitation and declamation, in conjunction with the visible word, produces a total expression which can result in the most intensive artistic unity.

I. Eurythmy as Visible Speech

It is necessary for the eurythmist to be able to enter into eurythmy with his whole personality, with his whole being, so that this art may become an expression of life itself. When we wish to penetrate into the nature of eurythmy we have to do with a penetration into the being of man. Eurythmy must be a creation out of the spirit and must make use of human movement as its means of expression. Speech itself is not the imitation of anything, and eurythmy also must represent an original creation. ‘In the beginning was the Word.' Primeval humanity conceived ‘the Word' as comprising in itself the entire human being as etheric creation. This human etheric body is in continual movement, ever taking on new forms; these forms are only to be captured when the whole content of speech is uttered aloud and thus given shape. These sound-forms which issue from the larynx are inherent in the formation of the larynx and its neighbouring organs. When we utter a word we produce a definite form in the air. If we were able to utter the alphabet from a to z, in such a way that the whole could take shape in the air, we should have the form of the human etheric body. This etheric body contains within it the forces of growth, of nourishment and of memory; all this is imparted to the air when we speak. In this way words arise. The etheric man is the word which comprises the whole alphabet. That which comes into being through speech is the birth of the etheric man. In the sound of each individual word some part of the human being is contained. Everything in the world is a part of us. Nothing exists which may not find expression through the human being. In the creative larynx we have the etheric man as an air form in a state of becoming. Spoken words are always a partial birth of the etheric man. When we speak we have to do with an etheric creation of the human being. In speech we are faced with a creative activity welling up from the depths of universal life. Speech is bound up with the origin of the human being. Human knowledge begins with wonder, with a; in b we have the protecting sheath; every sound tells us something about man; when we arrive at the sound z we have a synthesis of human wisdom. Nearly the whole life of the soul, in its aspect of feeling, is expressed in i, o, a. These possibilities of movement when held fast give us the physical form of man. This perfected form arose out of movement, out of primeval forms which continually came into being and again dissolved. Movement does not arise out of that which is at rest; the form at rest arises out of movement. The human form is the result of a divine eurythmy. Every art may be traced back to a divine source; but because eurythmy makes use of the human being as its instrument it enables us to see most deeply into the connection between the human being and the universe.

II. The Character of the Individual Sounds

Consonants: an imitation of external happenings; vowels: an inner experience; h: midway between the consonants and the vowels in its relation to the breath; for the breath is partially an inward experience and in part streams outwards. Primeval language. The nature of the individual sounds.

III. The Gestures: How They are Formed and Experienced

The mood and feeling contained in the sounds: s, z, a, e, u, ei, b, c, d, f, 1, m, n, z. An explanation of the way in which, by means of eurythmy, the experiences underlying the gestures may be carried over into their actual form.

IV. The Individual Sounds and Their Combination into Words

The inner nature of the sounds was revealed in the ancient Mysteries. The different characteristics of language; for instance the German language is a sculptor, the Magyar language a hunter.—Eurythmy is a language which may be understood if approached without prejudice. The sounds are the essential basis of eurythmy; special attention must be paid to the transition from one sound to another. By means of eurythmy it is possible to enter into the living spirit of language and to experience the essential nature of words.—In the Russian language one is always following on the tracks of the word; in the French language the movement is always in advance of the word. One may pass over from the nature of individual words to the inner logic contained in language. In this logic the character of the different peoples is brought to expression.

V. The Mood and Feeling of a Poem

Transition from the actual sounds to the logical or emotional content of speech. Emphasis. The question mark, exclamation mark, merriment, cleverness, knowledge, self-assertion, frenzy, insatiability, inwardness, charm, the bringing of tidings, sadness, despair. By means of these gestures different moods of soul may be brought to plastic-eurythmic expression.

VI. Different Aspects of the Soul-Life. The Inner Nature of Colour.

Description of gestures which are drawn out of the whole human organization and which express some underlying mood. Devotion, solemnity. The three categories of the life of the soul: Thinking, Feeling, Willing. The more intimate nature of a poem is expressed by means of the treatment of language. The use of the e-sound by poets tending more towards thought, the epic; the use of the sounds a, e, u, when the tendency is towards feeling; the use of many consonants when will is predominant. Straight and curved lines.—Significance of sound when choosing colour of dress and veil. It is only possible to enter truly into the nature of a sound when the corresponding colours are experienced. Colour is the life of the soul transfixed in the outer world. Every human being has a fundamental colour.

VII. The Plastic Formation of Speech

The structure of language as such and the character of the separate sounds must be brought to visible form in eurythmy. The ‘air-gestures' which may be said to be present in language are imitated and made externally visible. The consonant sounds are adapted to a more plastic interpretation. The character of the breath sounds is a yielding to the outer world. In the consonants of force man confronts the outer world as master; these sounds are an assertion of the inner life. Movement as such is expressed in the vibrating and wave-like sounds. The diphthongs: it is here that one best learns to observe the transition from one sound to another; the first sound is arrested when half completed and led over into the last half of the movement for the second sound. We weld the component parts together when we do not allow either to be fully formed. The diphthong has no sharply defined outlines; a feeling of plurality is given when the diphthong is fundamental to the structure of the word. When an impression is indefinite the diphthong makes its appearance. It is possible for eurythmy to bring to express-ion the inner character of sound. I, e, u, radiate a Dionysian fire. A, o, have a quiet power of attraction, an Apollonian form-giving element.

VIII. The Word as Definition, and the Word in Its Context

In the realm of sound we may differentiate between that which descends more into the physical and that which is borne upwards by the word into the spiritual world. When a vowel sound becomes a diphthong, thus losing its sharply defined outline, we have an ascent into the spiritual. The diphthongs reveal something of a more essentially spiritual nature than do the vowel sounds of which they are composed. That element of language which radiates up towards the spiritual does not lie in the sharply emphasized sound, but in the transition from one sound to the other. The dual nature of words: on the one side external imitation; on the other side the depicting of something in its connection with the entire world order, the relationship of some thing or process to a common whole. Personal pronouns and their forms.

IX. Plastic Speech

Walking as the expression of an impulse of will. Three phases : the lifting, carrying and placing of the foot. When lifting the foot we have to do with a will impulse as such; when carrying the foot with the thought which comes to expression in this will-impulse; and when placing the foot with the deed, with the fulfilment of the will-impulse. Rhythmic walking; poetic and prose language. The true nature of speech lies midway between thought and feeling. Man at an earlier stage of evolution heard inwardly when experiencing feeling; he had an inner experience of words. His was no abstract thought but an inner resounding of words. There was no self-contained life of feeling such as we have to-day; the primitive soul life was closely bound up with the inner configuration of words and tones. At one time the development of speech, thought and feeling was deeply connected with an inner recitation. Later this differentiated itself into language retaining its artistic nature, and into a musical, wordless resounding of tones. Then thought as a third element also took on independent existence. Be-cause the prose element of abstract thought is closely bound up with materialism, there is to-day little feeling for an artistic treatment of language.

The eurythmist must be able to acquire this. In the first place there must be a feeling for the Iambic and Trochaic rhythms, for these impart a special character to walking: the Iambic measure expresses the will character, the Trochaic measure the realization of thought. In the Anapest we have a more intimate aspect of language, one more bound up with the feeling life; it is a spiritualization of language. When the Trochaic is developed further we get the Dactyl measure,—an announcement, a statement, an assertion, made visible in space and time. By means of these movements in space one can enter into the poetic element in language more easily than in the case of recitation or declamation. In the artistic formation of speech one must endeavour to cultivate imagination and fantasy, for the inner formation of language depends upon the possibility of making pictures. A sound as such is always the picture of what it describes; anyone feeling this will develop in himself a feeling for the use of the pictorial in poetic language. Metaphor. Synecdoche. Walking backwards: an ascent towards that which is more comprehensive; walking forwards: the entering into that which is less comprehensive. Walking sideways: a conversation, for conversation has a metaphor formation, inasmuch as it has to do with the relationship between two things.

X. Movements Arising Out of the Being of Man

Up to this point the character of the eurythmy gestures has arisen out of the sounds of speech; we will now take our start from the being of man and develop other possibilities of movement and gesture. Twelve gestures which in their totality represent the whole being of man. They comprise all the qualities which together make up the human being and weld them into one whole in the Zodiac. In these postures and gestures the human faculties are brought to expression. From these static postures we pass over to movements representing the possibilities of inner activity, movements which have their origin in the planets. In their sevenfold nature we have synthesized the animal element in man. The nineteen possibilities of sound: the consonants have their source in the Zodiac; the vowels in the dance of the planets. A cosmic activity may be brought to expression by means of human gesture and movement. The word of the heavens is really the being of man. By means of an imitation of the dance of the stars, discovered through spiritual knowledge, we have the possibility of renewing in eurythmy the temple dancing of the ancient Mysteries.

XI. How One May Enter into the nature of Gesture and Form

Looking at speech from a spiritual aspect we find that what is of the most importance lies between the sounds. The spirit is manifested at the point of transition from one sound to another. Hence the movements must always be carried out with a deep feeling and inwardness. The essential spirituality underlying certain postures and movements must be brought out in the way in which the sounds are formed. Exercises based on the moving circles of the Zodiac and Planets and their corresponding spiritual gestures. Such exercises bring the eurythmic movements and postures right down in to the organism.

XII. The Outpouring of the Human Soul into Form and Movement: The Curative Effect of this Upon the Moral and Psychic Nature and its Reaction upon the Whole Being of Man

In the numbers Twelve and Seven we have brought certain moral impulses before our souls and these find expression in gestures which are either static or mobile. That which streams out in this way works back on to the human being; this is the basis of the curative effect of eurythmy. The effect of such curative methods upon the moral and psychic life will be especially beneficial when certain eurythmic truths are brought to the human being in childhood. With this in view we choose exercises in which form and content have been developed out of certain conditions of soul, exercises which are then able to react curatively. ‘I and Thou' exercise: excellent for educational purposes. Peace Dance, Energy Dance. The spiral forms.

XIII. Moods of Soul Which Arise Out of Gestures of the Sounds

Special character of certain eurythmic exercises: Hallelujah, Evoe. Irony as revealed by the gesture itself. Eurythmy forms may be made the basis of poetic structure. In certain Mystery Centres poetry arose out of gesture and form. The movements and forms of eurythmy preceded the shaping of a poem. True poetry always has eurythmy within it; it is as though the poet first carried out the corresponding movements and gestures in his etheric body. Herein we find the intimate connection between eurythmy and language. The use of accelerated and retarded tempo.

XIV. The Structure of Words, The Inner Structure of Verse

In order to make the structure of language intelligible it is necessary to divide words into categories according to the train of thought. This also must be taken into account in eurythmy. We must differentiate between nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, etc., with their individual characteristics. Example of a form corresponding to a four-lined verse. The eurythmist can acquire a fine and delicate understanding for the secrets of the human organization by means of the meditation given in this lecture.

XV. In Eurythmy the Entire Body Must Become Soul

An inner strengthening by means of the g-sound. In the w-sound (English v) there lies the feeling of a moving shelter; this is the sound most naturally used in alliteration.—Difference between standing and walking: one imitates something when standing still; when walking one desires actually to be something. Poetry for the most part expresses what is living, the actual being of a thing, not what it signifies.—Connection of the human body with the whole cosmos; the feet are suited to the earth; hands and arms express the soul nature. It is the soul life especially which is brought to expression in eurythmy; this is why the most significant part of eurythmy is the movement of the arms and hands; the head expresses the spirit and, according to its organization, can be made use of in many ways.—The twelve movements connected with the Zodiac and the seven movements connected with the moving circle of the Planets may be variously applied. They may be used, for instance, to show the rhyme.—Harmonizing exercises: ‘Ich denke die Rede.'—The necessity of carefully analysing what is to be expressed in eurythmy; it is of more importance to study the sound-content than the sense-content. The eurythmist must first experience the formation and structure of the sounds of a poem and only later bring it to eurythmic expression. Movement, Feeling, Character. The soul must learn, as far as eurythmy is concerned, actually to live in the body. In eurythmy the whole body must become soul.

Introduction

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In 1923 Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures at a Summer School in Penmaenmawr, which have since been published under the title The Evolution of Consciousness. These lectures formed the main event of the School, but there were other activities as well. Steiner had brought with him a group of Eurythmists and a performance was arranged in spite of the inadequacy of the stage and its equipment. On the day before the performance he gave the introduction to this new art of movement, which appears in the following pages.

Eurythmy differs from other arts of movement in that it is an interpretation of speech as well as of music. Steiner here deals principally with the interpretation of speech, perhaps because he considered that his audience would be most interested in this aspect of Eurythmy. But he always regarded it as essential that in a performance there should be the interpretation of speech as well as of music.

The performance at Penmaenmawr was followed by others in London, and gradually sufficient interest was aroused to promote the building of a small theatre to be dedicated to the development of Eurythmy, the Rudolf Steiner Hall, in Park Road, Baker Street, now the location of the London School of Eurythmy.

Steiner would have been profoundly happy to see the development of this new art since his death. Performances at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, now include the interpretation of whole symphonies, in which different Eurythmists, or groups of Eurythmists, interpret the parts of the different instruments. On that great stage, with its superb lighting, Eurythmy can be seen in its highest development. But there are flourishing Schools of Eurythmy in other centres as well, and recently a Congress of Eurythmists held at the Goetheanum was attended by over six hundred Eurythmists from every part of the world. Eurythmy also plays a vital part in the Rudolf Steiner Schools and Curative Homes which have been established in nearly all European countries, as well as in the Americas and the Southern hemisphere. But Steiner always emphasised (as he does in the Introduction) that educational and curative Eurythmy cannot exist without the establishment of Eurythmy as an art in its own right, just as painting, sculpture and music exist as arts in their own right, although they may be used educationally in schools and institutions.

This Introduction anticipates some of the difficulties which the newcomer may experience with an art of movement based on new and profound considerations as to the nature of man. It gives a comprehensive picture of the whole field of Eurythmy and of the need for such an art in the modern world.

A. C. Harwood, 1967

Eurhythmy has grown up out of the soil of the Anthroposophical Movement, and the history of its origin makes it almost appear to be a gift of the forces of destiny. In the year 1912 the Anthroposophical Society lost one of its members, the father of a family, and as a result it was necessary for his daughter to choose a profession, a profession, however, which could be found within the field of Anthroposophical activity. After much thought it seemed possible to make this the opportunity for the inauguration of a new art of movement in space, different from anything which had arisen up to that time.

And thus, out of the teaching given to this young girl, there arose the very first principles and movements of Eurythmy.

Eurythmy must be accounted one of the many activities arising out of the Anthroposophical Movement, which have grown up in such a way that their first beginnings must be looked upon as the result of the workings of destiny. I spoke some days ago about the forms of the pillars of the Goetheanum, and mentioned how I had stood before these pillars, and realised that through artistic activity they had gained a life of their own, and had developed quite different qualities from those with which they had originally been endowed. The same may be said about the art of Eurythmy.

This is always the case when one draws upon the creative forces of nature, either in one's work as an artist or in any other form of human activity. Just as the creative forces of nature draw upon the inexhaustible source of the infinite, so that it is always possible to perceive in something which has come to fruition much more than was originally implanted in it, so is it also when artistic impulses unite themselves with the mighty creative forces of nature. In such a case the artist is not merely developing some more or less limited impulse, but he reaches the point when he makes of himself an instrument for the creative powers of the universe, so that very much more grows out of his activity than he could originally have intended or foreseen.

At the time of which I speak, Eurythmy was studied only by a very few people. At the beginning of the war, (the first world war) Frau Dr. Steiner undertook their further training, and from that time on Eurythmy became more and more widely known, and its artistic possibilities very much enriched. The art of Eurythmy, as we know it today, has developed out of the first principles which were given in the year 1912. The work since then has been carried on without interruption; but Eurythmy is still only in its first beginnings, and we are working unceasingly towards its further development and perfection.

I am, however, convinced that Eurythmy bears within it infinite possibilities, and that, in the future, when those who were responsible for its inauguration must long have left their work in other hands, Eurythmy will develop further until it is able to take its place as a younger art by the side of those other arts having an older tradition.

No art has ever risen out of human intention intellectually conceived, neither can the principle of imitating nature ever produce an art. On the contrary, true art has always been born out of human hearts able to open themselves to the impulses coming from the spiritual world, human hearts which felt compelled to realise these impulses and to embody them in some way in external matter.

It can be seen how, in the case of each separate art—architecture, for example, sculpture, painting or music—certain spiritual impulses were poured into humanity from higher worlds. These impulses were taken up by certain individuals specially fitted to receive them, and in this way, through human activity, pictures of the higher worlds were reflected in the physical world; and the various arts came into being.

It is true that the arts, in the course of their further development, have for the most part become naturalistic, and have lost their connection with the impulses which originally inspired them, a mere imitation of external nature taking their place. Such imitation, however, could never be the source of any true art.

To-day, when a sculptor or painter wishes to represent the human figure, he does so by studying and working from a model. It can, however, easily be shown that the art of sculpture, which reached its zenith during the civilisation of ancient Greece, did not arise through the artist working from a model, and in his way more or less imitating the external impressions of the senses, but at that time, when the plastic art of Greece was in full bloom, man was still to some extent aware of the etheric body—which contains within it the formative forces and the forces of growth. At the height of Greek civilisation man knew how to make use of the etheric body when bringing an arm or hand, for instance, into a certain attitude, and the position and arrangement of the muscles were an actual experience to him. He had an inner understanding of the possibilities of movement in the arm and hand, of the possibilities of muscular expansion and contraction. And he was able to bring this inner experience to physical expression, making use of physical materials.

Thus the Greek sculptor incorporated into matter a real, inward experience, not merely the external impression of the eye. He did not say to himself: the lines go in this or that direction, and then proceed to embody in plastic form the perceptions of his physical senses; but for him it was indeed an actual inward experience which he re-created out of the creative forces of nature, and entrusted to external physical matter.

This is true of every form of art. There have always been, and will always be, in the course of human evolution on the earth, epochs during which art is at its height, during which influences from the spiritual worlds penetrate more easily into the souls of men than at other times, urging them to turn their gaze towards the spiritual worlds and to carry down from thence living spiritual impulses. This is how every true art is brought to birth.

Such periods of civilisation are always followed by others of a more naturalistic tendency, in which certain arts often attain to a greater external perfection than they had possessed at an earlier stage; but this perfection bears within it traces of decadence, whereas in their beginnings, these arts were permeated with a more vital, a more powerful and enthusiastic spiritual impulse. At that earlier stage they had not yet lost their true reality; their technique was the outcome of man's whole being. It was not a merely external, traditional technique, but was based on the body, soul, and spirit of man.

The realisation of this fact of human evolution might well give one courage to develop ever further and further this art of Eurythmy, which has been borne on the wings of fate into the Anthroposophical Movement. For it is the task of the Anthroposophical Movement to reveal to our present age that spiritual impulse which is suited to it.

I speak in all humility when I say that within the Anthroposophical Movement there is a firm conviction that a spiritual impulse of this kind must now, at the present time, enter once more into human evolution. And this spiritual impulse must perforce, among its other means of expression, embody itself in a new form of art. It will increasingly be realised that this particular form of art has been given to the world in Eurythmy.

It is the task of Anthroposophy to bring a greater depth, a wider vision and a more living spirit into the other forms of art. But the art of Eurythmy could only grow up out of the soul of Anthroposophy; could only receive its inspiration through a purely Anthroposophical conception.

It is through speech that man is able to reveal his inner being outwardly to his fellow-men. Through speech he can most easily disclose his inmost nature.

At all periods of civilisation, in a form suited to the particular epoch, side by side with those arts which need for their expression either the external element of space or the external element of time, accompanying and completing these, we find that art which manifests itself through speech—the art of poetry.

The art of speech—I purposely use the expression ‘the art of speech,’ to describe poetry, and the justification for doing so will appear later—is more comprehensive and universal than the other arts, for it can embody other forms of art within its own form. It can be said that the art of poetry is an art of speech which in the case of one poet works more plastically, and in the case of another more musically. Indeed one can go so far as to say that painting itself can enter into the art of poetry.

Speech is a universal means of expression for the human soul. And one who is able to gaze with unprejudiced vision into the earliest times of human evolution on the earth, can see that in certain primeval languages a really fundamental artistic element entered into human evolution. Such primeval languages were, however, to a far greater degree than is the case with modern languages, drawn out of the whole human organisation.

When one investigates without prejudice the course of the evolution of man, one discovers certain ancient languages which might almost be likened to song. Such singing was, however, enhanced by accompanying movements of the legs and arms, so that a kind of dancing was added. Especially was this the case when a dignified form of expression was sought, the form of some ritual or cult.

In those primeval times of human evolution the accompanying of the word which issued forth from the larynx with gesture and movement was felt to be something absolutely natural. It is only possible to gain a true understanding of what lies behind these things, when one realises that what otherwise appears only as gesture accompanying speech can gain for itself independent life. It will then become apparent that movements which are carried out by the arms and hands, from the artistic point of view can be not merely equally expressive, but much more expressive than speech itself.

It must be admitted that such an unprejudiced attitude with regard to these things is not always to be found. One often observes a certain antipathy towards the accompanying of speech by gesture. Indeed, I myself have noticed that certain people even go so far as to consider it not in very good taste when a speaker accompanies his discourse with pronounced gesture. As a result of this the habit has grown up, and is by no means unusual at the present day, of putting one's hands in one's pockets when making a speech. I must say that I have always found this attitude most unsympathetic.

It is a fact that the inmost nature of the human being can be revealed most wonderfully through movements of the arms and hands. My fingers often itch to take up my pen and write an essay on the philosopher, Franz Brentano, a dear friend of mine who died some years ago. I have already written a good deal about him, but I should much like to write yet another essay, based on what I shall now relate.

When Franz Brentano mounted the platform and took his place at the lecturer's desk he was himself the embodiment of his entire philosophy, the spiritual content of which called forth such deep admiration when clothed in philosophical terms and concepts.

Brentano's philosophy, in itself, was far more beautiful than his own description of it. All that he could say in words was revealed through the way in which he moved his arms and hands while speaking, through the way in which he held out the piece of paper containing the notes of his lecture. It was a very remarkable type of movement, and its most striking characteristic was, that by means of this piece of paper, and, indeed, by his whole attitude, he gave the impression of imparting something of great significance, while at the same time preserving an appearance of unconcern. So that in the course of one of his lectures one could see his entire philosophy expressed in these gestures, which were of the most manifold variety.

What is especially interesting about Franz Brentano is the fact that he founded a psychology in which he departs from the theories of all other psychologists, Spencer, Stuart Mill and others, by refusing to include the will among the psychological categories. I am acquainted with all that Franz Brentano brought forward to substantiate this theory of his, but I found nothing so convincing as the way in which he held his piece of paper. The instant he began to make gestures with his hands and arms, all trace of will disappeared from his whole bearing as a philosopher, while feeling and idea revealed themselves in the most remarkable manner. This preponderance of idea and feeling, and the disappearance of will, underlay every movement which he made with his hands. So that one day I shall really find myself compelled to write an essay: The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, as revealed through his Gesture and Bearing. For it seems to me that much more was expressed in these gestures than in any philosophical discourse on the subject.

Those who enter deeply and without prejudice into this matter will gradually realise that the breath which we expel from our lungs, our organs of speech and song, when vocalised and given form by means of the lips, teeth and palate, is really nothing else than gesture in the air. Only in this case these air-gestures are projected into space in such a way that they conjure up sounds which can be heard by the ear.

If one succeeds, with true sensible-super-sensible vision, in penetrating into the nature of these air gestures, into all that the human being actually does when he utters a vowel or consonant sound, when he forms sentences, uses rhyme and rhythm, the Iambic, for instance, or the Trochee—when one penetrates into these gestures of the air, the thought arises; alas, the languages of modern civilisation have indeed made terrible concessions to convention. They have become simply a means of expression for scientific knowledge, a means of communicating the things of everyday life. They have lost their primeval spirituality.

Civilised language bears out what has been so beautifully expressed by the poet: “Spricht die Seele, so spricht ach schon die Seele nicht mehr.” (“Alas, when the soul speaks, in reality it speaks no more.”)

Now all that can be perceived by super-sensible vision, all that can thus be learned about the nature of these forms and gestures of the air, can be carried into movements of the arms and hands, into movements of the whole human being. There then arises in visible form the actual counterpart of speech. One can use the entire human body in such a way that it really carries out those movements which are otherwise carried out by the organs connected with speech and music. Thus there arises visible speech, visible music—in other words, the art of Eurythmy.

When one brings artistic feeling to the study of the nature of speech, one finds that the individual sounds form themselves, as it were, into imaginative pictures. It is necessary, however, entirely to free oneself from the abstract character which language has taken during the so-called advanced civilisation of the present day. For it is an undeniable fact that modern man, when speaking, in no way brings his whole human being into activity.

True speech, however, is born from the whole human being. Let us take any one of the vowels. A vowel sound is always the expression of some aspect of the feeling life of the soul. The human being wishes to express what lives in his soul as wonder—Ah. Or the holding himself upright against opposition—A; or the assertion of self, the consciousness of ego-existence in the world—E. Or again he wishes to express wonder, but now with a more intimate, caressing shade of feeling—I.

The character of the sounds is of course slightly different in the different languages, because each individual language proceeds from a differently constituted soul-life. But every vowel sound does in its essence express some shade of the feeling-life of the soul; and this feeling only has to unite itself with thought, with the head system, in order to pass over into speech.

What I have said about the vowel sounds of speech can be applied equally to the tones of music. The various sounds of speech, the use of idiom, the construction of phrases and sentences—all these things are the expression of the feeling-life of the soul.

In singing also the soul life expresses itself through tone.

Let us now consider the consonants. The consonants are the imitation of what we find around us in external nature. The vowel is born out of man's inmost being; it is the channel through which this inner content of the soul streams outwards. The consonant is born out of the comprehension of external nature; the way in which we seize upon external things, even the way in which we perceive them with the eyes, all this is built into the form of the consonants. The consonant represents, paints, as it were, the things of the external world. In earlier times the consonants did actually contain within themselves a kind of imaginative, painting of what exists in external nature.

Such things are, certainly, dealt with by many students of the science of language, but always in a one-sided manner. For instance, there exist two well-known theories with regard to the origin of language—the Ding-Dong theory and the Bow-Wow theory—which have been set forth by investigators who are, as a matter of fact, absolutely lacking in any real understanding of their subject, but belong to that type of person who is constantly originating all sorts of scientific theories. The Ding-Dong theory is based upon the assumption that, as in the case of the bell—to take an extreme example—so within every external object there lies some sort of a sound, which is then imitated by the human being. Everything is included in this theory of imitation; and it has been named the Ding-Dong theory after the sound made by the bell, which is perhaps its most striking example. The idea is, that when one says the word “wave,” one is imitating the actual movement of the waves—which is, indeed, perfectly true in this instance.

The other theory, the Bow-Wow theory, which could equally well be called the Moo-Moo theory, is one which assumes that speech in the first place arose from the transformation and development of the sounds of animals. And because one of the most striking of these sounds is “Bow-Wow,” this theory has been called the Bow-Wow theory.

Now all these theories do actually contain a certain element of truth. Scientific theories are never without some foundation. What is remarkable about them is that they do always contain say, a quarter, or an eighth, or a sixteenth, or a hundredth part of the truth; and it is this fraction of the truth, put forward as it is in a very clever and suggestive manner which deceives people. The real truth is that the vowel arises from the soul-life, and the consonant out of the perception and imitation of the external object. The human being imitates the external object through the way in which he holds back the stream of the breath with his lips, or gives it shape and form by means of the teeth, tongue and palate. While the consonants are formed in this way, by the fashioning of gestures in the air, the vowel sounds are the channel through which the inner soul-life of the human being streams outwards.

The consonants give plastic form to what is to be expressed.

And in the same way as the single sounds are formed, the single letters, so are sentences also formed, and poetic language becomes actual gesture in the air. Modern poetry, however, shows very clearly how the poet has to struggle against the abstract element in language.

As I have already said, our soul-life does not in any way flow into the words which we speak; we do not enter into the sounds of speech with our inner being. How few of us really experience wonder, amazement, perplexity, or the feeling of self-defence simply in the vowel sounds themselves. How few of us experience the soft, rounded surface of certain objects, the thrusting hammering nature of others, their angular or undulating, their velvety or prickly qualities, as these are expressed by the different consonants. And yet all these things are contained in speech.

If we follow the successive sounds as they occur in a single word, entering into the real nature of this word as it originally arose out of the whole being of man, then we can experience all possible shades of feeling, the ecstasy of joy, the depths of despair; we can experience the ascending and descending of the whole scale of the human emotions, the whole scale of the perception of external things.

All that I have been describing can be conjured up in imaginations, in the same way as speech itself once came forth from the world of imagination. One who has this imaginative vision perceives how the E sound (as in me). always calls up in the soul a certain picture, a picture which expresses the assertion of self and shows how this self-assertion must be expressed through the stretching of the muscles, in the arm for example. Should anyone be able to use his nose in a skilful manner, he could also make an E with his nose! An E can also be shown by the direction of the glance of the eye; but because the arms and hands are the most expressive part of the human body, it is more natural to make an E with the arms and it has a more beautiful effect. But the essential thing is that the stretched, penetrating feeling should really come to expression in E.

If we utter the sound A, (as in mate) and take this out-going stream of the breath as the prototype for the Eurythmic movement, we find that this breath stream reveals itself to our imagination as flowing in two crossed currents. This is how the Eurythmic movement for A is derived. All these movements are just as little arbitrary in their nature as are the sounds of speech, or the tones of music.

There are many people who are inclined to say that they have no wish for anything so hard and fast, that there should be more ways than one of expressing any particular sound in movement. They feel that the movements should arise quite spontaneously out of the human being. If, however, one desires such absolute spontaneity, one should carry this desire into the realm of speech itself, and declare that there should be no German, French, or English language to interfere with the freedom of the human being, but that each individual should feel himself at liberty to express himself by means of other sounds if he should so choose. It would be just as rational to say that the freedom of the human being is hindered through the fact that he must perforce speak English, or some other language.

But the existence of the different languages in no way interferes with human freedom. On the contrary, man could not express beauty in language, if language were not already there to be used by him as an instrument, and in the same way beauty can only be expressed in the movements of Eurythmy through the fact that Eurythmy actually exists. Eurythmy in no way infringes upon human freedom. Such objections really arise from lack of insight.

Thus Eurythmy has come into being as a visible language, using as its instrument the arms and hands, which are undeniably the most expressive part of the whole human organism.

To-day it would really be possible to come to an understanding of these things by purely scientific means. Science, however, although on the right path with regard to much of the knowledge it has acquired, knows about as much of this matter as someone with a veal cutlet on his plate knows about a calf—namely, the most insignificant fraction! Scientists know that the centre of speech lies in the left region of the brain, and that this is connected with what the child acquires for himself by means of movement of the right arm. In the case of left-handed people the centre of speech is situated in the right side of the brain.

One might almost say that the scientist has no knowledge of the calf in its entirety, but is only acquainted with the veal cutlet! Thus he is aware only of the merest fraction of the whole connection between the life-processes in one or other arm and the origin of speech.

The truth is that speech itself arises out of those movements of the human limb system which are held back, and do not come to full expression. There could be no such thing as speech were it not for the fact that, during the natural course of his early development, the child has inherent within him the instinct to move his arms and hands. These movements are held back and become concentrated in the organs of speech; and these organs of speech are in themselves an image of that which seeks outlet in movements of the arms and hands, and in the accompanying movements of the other limbs.

The etheric body—I can, after what you have heard in the morning lectures, (published as The Evolution of Consciousness.) speak to you quite freely about the etheric body—the etheric body never uses the mouth as the vehicle of speech, but invariably makes use of the limb-system. And it is those movements made by the etheric body during speech which are transferred into the physical body. Of course you can, if you choose, speak quite without gesture, even going so far as to stand rigidly still with your hands in your pockets; but in that case your etheric body will gesticulate all the more vigorously, sheerly out of protest!

Thus you can see how, in very truth, Eurythmy is drawn out of the human organisation in just as natural a way as speech itself.

The poet has to fight against the conventionality of speech in order to be able to draw from speech that element which could make of it a way leading to the super-sensible worlds. Thus the poet—if he is a true artist, which cannot be said of most of those people whose business it is to manufacture poems—does not over-emphasise the importance of the prose content of the words he uses. This prose content only provides him with the opportunity for expressing in words his true artistic impulse. Just as his material—the clay or the marble—is not the chief concern of the sculptor, but rather the inspiration which he is striving to embody in form, so, the chief concern of the poet is the embodiment of his poetic inspiration in sounds which are imaginative, plastic and musical.

And it is this artistic element which must be brought out in recitation and declamation.

In our somewhat inartistic age, it is customary in recitation and declamation to lay the chief stress on the prose content of a poem. Indeed, in these days, the mere fact of being able to speak at all is looked upon as sufficient ground for becoming a reciter. But the art of recitation and declamation should rank as highly as the other arts; for in recitation and declamation there is the possibility of treating speech in such a way that the hidden Eurythmy lying within it, the imaginative, plastic, coloured use of words, their music, rhythm and melody, are all brought to expression. When Goethe was rehearsing his rhythmic dramas, he made use of a baton just as if he were the conductor of an orchestra; for he was not so much concerned with the merely prosaic content of the words, but with the bringing out of all that lay, like a hidden Eurythmy, in their construction and use.

Schiller, when writing his most famous poems, paid little heed to the actual sense of the words. For instance he wrote, “Das Lied von der Glocke” (The Song of the Bell), but, as far as the prose content of the words is concerned, he might just as well have written a completely different poem. Schiller first experienced in his soul something which might be described as a vague musical motif, a sort of melody, and into this melody he wove his words, like threaded pearls.

Language is truly poetic only in so far as it is used musically, plastically, or only in so far as it is filled with colour.

Frau Dr. Steiner has given many years to the development of this special side of the art of recitation and declamation. It is her work which has made it possible to bind together into one artistic whole, much in the same way as the various instruments of an orchestra, the picture presented on the stage by the “visible speech” of Eurythmy and with what is expressed through a truly Eurythmic treatment of speech, a truly Eurythmic recitation and declamation. So that, on the one hand, we have the visible speech of Eurythmy, and, on the other hand, that hidden Eurythmy which lies, not in tone-production alone, but in the whole way in which speech and language are treated. As far as the artistic element of poetry is concerned, the point is not that we say: “The bird sings,” but that, paying due regard to what has gone before and to what is to come, we say with enthusiasm, for instance: “The bird sings,” or, again, in a more subdued tone of voice, at a quite different tempo: “The bird sings.” [The reader must imagine the difference of tone which Rudolf Steiner gave to these repetitions of Der Vogel singt.] Everything depends on giving due form and shape to the words and sentences. And it is just this which can be carried over into Eurythmy, into our whole conception and treatment of Eurythmy.

For this reason we must put before ourselves as an ideal this orchestral ensemble, this interplay between the visible art of Eurythmy and the art of recitation and declamation.

Eurythmy cannot be accompanied by the ordinary conventional recitation, which is so well liked to-day. It would be impossible to do Eurythmy to such an accompaniment, because it is the soul-qualities of the human being which must be given expression here, both audibly through speech, and visibly through Eurythmy.

Eurythmy can be accompanied, not only by recitation and declamation, but also by instrumental music. But here it must always be borne in mind that Eurythmy is music translated into movement, and is not dancing in any sense of the word. There is a fundamental difference between Eurythmy and dancing. People, however, often fail to make this distinction when seeing Eurythmy on the stage, owing to the fact that Eurythmy uses as its instrument the human body in motion. I myself know of a journalist—I am not personally acquainted with him, but his articles have been brought to my notice—who, writing on Eurythmy, says: “It cannot be denied that, when one witnesses a demonstration of Eurythmy, the performers on the stage are continually in motion. Eurythmy must, therefore, be looked upon as dancing, and must be judged accordingly.” Now I think it will be admitted that what we have seen here of Tone-Eurythmy, of this visible singing, accompanied as it is by instrumental music, is clearly to be distinguished from ordinary dancing. Tone-Eurythmy is essentially not dancing, but is a singing in movement, movement which can be carried out either by a single performer, or by many together.

Although the movements of the arms and hands may be accompanied and amplified by movements of the other parts of the organism—the legs, for instance, or the head, the nose, ears, what you will—nevertheless these movements should only be used to strengthen the movement of the hands and arms in much the same way that we find means of emphasising and strengthening the spoken word. If we wish to admonish a child we naturally put our reproof into words, but at the same time we assume an expression suitable to the occasion! To do this electively, however, a certain amount of discretion is required, or we run the risk of appearing ridiculous. It is the same with regard to Eurythmy. Movements of a type approaching dancing or mime, when they are added to the essentially Eurythmic movements, are in danger of appearing grotesque; and, if made use of in an exaggerated manner, given an appearance of crudity, even of vulgarity. On the other hand purely Eurythmic movements are the truest means of giving outward and visible expression to all that is contained in the human soul.

That is the essential point—that Eurythmy is visible speech, visible music. One can go even further and maintain that the movements of Eurythmy do actually proceed out of the inner organisation of man. Anyone who says: “As far as I am concerned, speech and music are all-sufficient; there can surely be no need to extend the sphere of art; I, for my part, have not the slightest wish for Eurythmy”;—such a man is, of course, perfectly right from his particular point of view. There is always a certain justification for any opinion, however conventional or pedantic. Why should one not hold such opinions? There is certainly no reason why one should not—none at all; but it cannot be said that such a standpoint shows any really deep artistic feeling and understanding. A truly artistic nature welcomes everything that could possibly serve to widen and enrich the whole field of art.

The materials used in sculpture—the bronze, clay and marble—already exist in nature, and yield themselves up to the sculptor as the medium of his artistic expression; this is also true of colour in the case of the painter. When, however, in addition to all this, the movements of Eurythmy, drawn forth as they have been from the very fount of nature and developed according to her laws—when such movements arise as a means of artistic expression, then enthusiasm burns in the soul of the true artist at the prospect of the whole sphere of art being thus widened and enriched.

From a study of the Eurythmy models or wooden figures, very much can be learned about the individual movements. [Rudolf Steiner here refers to a series of coloured wooden figures illustrating the fundamental Eurythmy gestures.] Here it is only possible to give some indication of what underlies these wooden figures, and of all that can be revealed by them with regard to the nature and character of the various movements. These models are intended to represent the fundamental laws of Eurythmy which are carried over into the actual movements themselves. Every Eurythmic movement may be looked upon as being of a threefold nature; and it is this threefold aspect which is embodied in the models. In the first place there is the movement as such; then there is the feeling which lies within the movement; and lastly there is the character which flows out of the soul-life, and streams into the movement.

It must, however, be understood that these wooden models have been designed in a quite unusual manner. They are in no way intended to be plastic representations of the human form. This comes more within the sphere of the sculptor and the painter. The models are intended to portray the laws of Eurythmy, as these are expressed through the human body. In designing them the point was not in any way to reproduce the human figure in beautiful, plastic form. And, in witnessing a Eurythmy demonstration, anyone who would regard beauty of face as an essential attribute of an Eurythmist, is labouring under a delusion as to the nature of Eurythmy. Whether the Eurythmist is beautiful or not beautiful, young or old, is a matter of no consequence. The whole point is whether the inmost nature of the Eurythmist is carried over into, and expressed through, the plastic form of the movements.

Now if we look at the Eurythmy model for H, for instance, the question might naturally arise: “In what direction is the face turned? Do the eyes look upwards or straight ahead?” But that is not the first thing to be considered. In the first place we have, embodied in the model as a whole, the movement as such, that is to say, the arm movements or the movements of the legs. Secondly, in the draping of the veil, in the way the veil is held, drawn close to the body, or thrown into the air, or allowed to fall again or to fly out in waves—all this gives the opportunity for adding to the more intellectual expression of the soul-life, as this is shown through the movement, another quality of the soul-life, that of feeling.

At the back of the models there is always an indication of what the different colours are intended to represent. In the case of all the models certain places are marked with a third colour, and this is intended to show where the Eurythmist, in carrying out the particular movement, should feel a definite tension of the muscles. This tension can be shown in any part of the body. It may have to be felt in the forehead, for instance, or in the nape of the neck, while in other places the muscles should be left in a state of complete relaxation. The Eurythmist experiences the movements quite differently according to whether they are carried out with relaxed muscles or with the muscles in a state of tension; whether the arm is stretched out more or less passively, or whether there is a conscious tension in the muscles of the arm and hand; whether, when bending, the muscles which are brought into play are stretched and tense, or whether the bending movement leaves the muscles comparatively inactive. Through this consciously experienced tension of the muscles, character is brought into the movement.

In other words: there lies in the whole way in which the movement, as such, is formed, something which might be described as being the expression of the human soul, as manifested through visible speech. The actual spoken words, however, also have nuances of their own, their own special shades of feeling; for instance, fear may be expressed in a sentence, or joy, or delight; all these things can be shown by the Eurythmist in the way in which he or she carries out the movements. The manipulation of the veil—the way in which it floats, the way in which it is allowed to fall—all this provides a means whereby these feelings can be brought to expression in Eurythmy. So we see how the movement, when accompanied by the use of the veil, becomes permeated with feeling, and how, when there is added a conscious tension of the muscles, the movement acquires character as well as feeling. If the Eurythmist is able to experience this tension or relaxation of the muscles in the right way, a corresponding experience will be transmitted to the onlooker, who will himself feel all that lies in the visible speech of Eurythmy as character, feeling and movement.

The whole artistic conception of these models, both as regards their carving and their colouring, is based on the idea of separating the purely Eurythmic element in the human being from those elements which are not so definitely connected with Eurythmy. The moment a Eurythmist becomes conscious of possessing a charming face, in that moment something is introduced into Eurythmy which is completely foreign to its nature; on the other hand, the knowledge of how to make conscious use of the muscles of the face does form an essential part of Eurythmy. For this reason, the fact that many people prefer to see a beautiful Eurythmist on the stage, rather than one who is less beautiful, shows a lack of true artistic judgment. The outward appearance of a human being when not engaged in Eurythmy should not in any way be taken into consideration.

These models, then, have been designed in such a way that they portray the human being only in so far as he reveals himself through the movements of Eurythmy.

It would indeed be well if, in the whole development of art, this principle were to be more generally adopted—I mean the principle of putting on one side everything which does not definitely belong to the sphere of the art in question, everything which cannot be expressed through the medium of this art and which does not strictly come within the range of its possibilities. A distinction should always be made, particularly when dealing with an art such as Eurythmy, which reveals so directly, so truly and so sincerely, the life of the human being in its threefold aspect of body, soul and spirit—a distinction should always be made between what can legitimately be revealed through the medium of any particular art and what does not lie within its true scope.

Whenever I have been asked: “Up to what age can one do Eurythmy?”—my answer has always been: There is no age limit. Eurythmy can be started at the age of three and can be continued up to the age of ninety. The personality can find expression through Eurythmy at each and every period of life, and through Eurythmy the beauty of both youth and age can be revealed.

All that I have said up to this point has reference to Eurythmy purely as an art, and, indeed, it was along purely artistic lines that Eurythmy was developed in the first instance. When Eurythmy was inaugurated in 1912 there was no thought of its developing along any but artistic lines, no thought of bringing it before the world in any other form.

But some little time after the founding of the Waldorf School, it was discovered that Eurythmy can serve as a very important means of education; and we are now in a position to recognise the full significance of Eurythmy from the educational point of view. In the Waldorf School, (The original Waldorf School in Stuttgart of which Steiner was educational director.) Eurythmy has been made a compulsory subject both for boys and girls, right through the school, from the lowest to the highest class; and it has become apparent that what is thus brought to the children as visible speech and music is accepted and absorbed by them in just as natural a way as they absorb spoken language or song in their very early years. The child feels his way quite naturally into the movements of Eurythmy. And, indeed, in comparison with Eurythmy, the other forms of gymnastics have shown themselves to be of a somewhat one-sided nature. For these other kinds of gymnastics bear within them to some extent the materialistic attitude of mind so prevalent in our day. And for this reason they take as their starting point the physical body. Eurythmy takes the physical body into consideration also; but, in the case of Eurythmy, body, soul and spirit work harmoniously together, so that here one has to do with an ensouled and spiritualised form of gymnastics. The child feels this. He feels that each movement that he makes does not arise merely in response to a physical necessity, but that every one of his movements is permeated with a soul and spiritual element, which streams through the arms, and, indeed, through the whole body. The child absorbs Eurythmy into the very depths of his being. The Waldorf School has already been in existence for some years, and the experience lying behind us justified us in saying that in this school unusual attention is paid to the cultivation of initiative, of will—qualities sorely needed by humanity in the present day. This initiative of the will is developed quite remarkably through Eurythmy, when, as in the Waldorf School, it is used as a means of education. One thing, however, must be made perfectly clear, and that is, that the greatest possible misunderstanding would arise, if for one moment it were to be imagined that Eurythmy could be taught in the schools and looked upon as a valuable asset in education, if, at the same time, as an art it were to be neglected and underestimated. Eurythmy must in the first place be looked upon as an art, and in this it differs in no respect from the other arts. And in the same way that the other arts are taught in the schools, but have an independent artistic existence of their own in the world, so Eurythmy also can only be taught in the schools when it is fully recognised as an art and given its proper place within our modern civilisation.

Shortly after the founding of the Waldorf School, a number of doctors having found their way into the Anthroposophical Movement, there arose the practice of medicine from the Anthroposophical point of view. These doctors expressed the urgent wish that the movements of Eurythmy, drawn as they are out of the healthy nature of the human being, and offering to the human being a means of expression suited to his whole organisation—that these movements should be adapted where necessary, and placed at the service of the art of healing. Eurythmy, from its very nature, is ever seeking for outlet through the human being. Anyone who understands the hand, for example, must be aware that it was not formed merely to lie still and be looked upon. The fingers are quite meaningless when they are inactive. They only acquire significance when they seize at things, grasp them, when their passivity is transformed into movement. Their very form reveals the movement inherent within them. The same may be said of the human being as a whole. What we know under the name of Eurythmy is nothing else than the means whereby the human organism can find healthy outlet through movement. So that certain of the movements of Eurythmy, though naturally differing somewhat from the movements which we use in Eurythmy as an art, and having undergone a certain metamorphosis, can be made use of and developed into a Curative Eurythmy. This Curative Eurythmy can be of extreme value in the treatment of illness, and can be applied in those cases where one knows the way in which a certain movement will react upon a certain organ with beneficial results.

In this domain also we have had good results among the children of the Waldorf School. But it is of course necessary that one should possess a true insight into the nature of the child. For instance, a child may have certain weaknesses and be generally in a delicate state of health. Such a child is then given those particular movements likely to assist in the re-establishment of his health. And along these lines we have indeed had the most brilliant results. But this, as also the educational side of Eurythmy, is entirely dependent on the successful development of Eurythmy as an art.

It must frankly be admitted that Eurythmy is still at a very early stage of its development; a beginning, however, has certainly been made, and we are striving to make it ever more and more perfect. There was a time, for instance, when we had not as yet introduced the silent, unaccompanied movement of the Eurythmist at the beginning and end of a poem. Such movement is intended to convey in the first instance an introductory impression, and, in the second, an impression reminiscent of the content of the poem. At that time also there were no effects of light. The lighting in varied tones and colours has not been introduced with a view to illustrating or intensifying any particular situation, but is in itself actually of a Eurythmic nature. The point is not that certain effects of light should correspond with what is taking place on the stage at a given moment, but the whole system of lighting, as this has been developed in Eurythmy, consists of the interplay between one lighting effect and another. Thus there arises a complete system of Eurythmic lighting which bears within it the same character and the same shades of feeling as are being simultaneously expressed on the stage in another way through the movements of the Eurythmists, or the Eurythmist, as the case may be.

And so, as Eurythmy develops and attains to ever greater perfection, very much more will have to be added to the whole picture of Eurythmy as this is presented on the stage, very much will have to be added to all that we can now see when witnessing a Eurythmy demonstration.

I could indeed speak about Eurythmy the whole night through, carrying on this lecture without a break into the lecture of tomorrow morning. I am afraid, however, that my audience would hardly benefit by such a proceeding, and the same certainly applies to any Eurythmists who may be present! The great thing is that all I have said to-day in this introductory lecture will be practically realised for you tomorrow, when you witness the performance; for a practical demonstration is, after all, where art is concerned, of more value than any lecture.

In our time together here I would like to put before you, at least in outline, certain matters relating to the art of recitation and declamation. We will begin by adopting the standpoint of recitation and declamation itself: so that we have, on the one hand the practice, and on the other, considerations of this practice. Our starting-point today will provide us with a foundation for the considerations to occupy us later. We will begin with the Seventh Scene from my first Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation. This scene takes place, we might say, in the spiritual world. Basically, it presents to us that view on the interconnection of the spiritual, the psychic and the physical world which is revealed by anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. In a certain sense, the Seventh Scene takes place in the spiritual world, but the persons represented there belong as such to the physical world, and are not meant to be symbolic or allegorical figures. They are intended to stand before us in living reality. The four characters – Maria, Philia, Astrid, Luna – represent personalities belonging to the physical world. Yet, as will manifest itself from several points of view in my coming lectures, the consciousness of personalities in the physical world may take such a form that the human being as he is through his ordinary sense-consciousness of objects (the sort of consciousness with which he stands in the physical world) may also stand, with a more highly-awakened consciousness, in the spiritual world.

Human life in its depths is able to bring forth from itself not only the forces of instinct or common intelligence, but also those forces that are inwardly impelled from the soul- and spirit-worlds. And when you aim at a drama that does not just present man one-sidedly as a sense-being, but depicts his full nature, where he demonstrates himself a being who is animated by impulses springing from the world of soul and spirit, you are constrained to add things to the course of the action as played out in the physical world – things which lift the whole action from the physical into the spiritual world. What is portrayed inthe Seventh Scene of my Mystery Play must thus be looked upon absolutely as a representation of spiritual impulses working through the physical human beings. If you present such things, not out of any kind of fantastic or nebulous mysticism, or symbolically, or allegorically, or some similar way, but from genuine experiences of the spiritual world, you have to resort to representations quite different to those you would otherwise have applied in the physical world. In physical life those representations that have to do with the ethical and religious life, possessing a more formless character, an abstract, unrepresentational character, stand apart from those which relate to nature. These other representations have a visual character which gives them clearly-defined contours, etc. If, when you listen, you feel how the contoured word stands out against the more formless, more musically-felt word, you will everywhere notice the transition from the inwardly plastic to the inwardly musical word.

If, however, you need to lead the action up into the spiritual world, you must achieve some degree of synthesis. You must find a way of dissolving the plasticity of the word – yet not so as to lose its plastic qualities; you must bring it so far that at the same time there arises a musical quality. A “plastically-musical” mode of speech must arise. For here the ethical and religious are not divorced from the natural and physical: rather, you have to do with a series of constituents which coincide in a synthesis. And you will hear in this scene, now to be recited, that the presentation derives from a life of inner representation completely different from the one of everyday life or conventional drama. It will be spoken and presented from a life of representation which holds in one both the elemental powers of nature and that which (through the elemental nature-forces) simultaneously possesses a moral, ethical significance. The physical becomes at the same time ethical; and the ethical is brought down into physical pictoriality. In this sphere we cannot differentiate between what takes place physically and what takes place ethically. The ethical takes place in the sphere of physical form, and the physical event takes place in the moral domain. And this requires a very special treatment of speech. In any artistic representation such as this the handling of speech must not derive in the least – and this cannot he otherwise – from thought.

Perhaps I may refer to my own experience in fashioning my Mystery Play. I can say that no thought lives in it; everything you will now hear recited and declaimed was heard, albeit spiritually, exactly as it sounds here. It is not a matter of grasping a thought and then putting it into words, but of beholding what will now be presented to you – and of beholding it in the way it is presented, as inwardly sounding and taking form. In the delineation of such a scene one has nothing to do but write down externally what one has experienced inwardly as a perception.

Thereby results a very special approach to characterising the shaping of the various roles, and you will observe how the four figures, Maria, Philia, Astrid and Luna, differ from one another. The names of the respective characters should not be appended only to show that the contents are to be recited by them. Something quite unique can be heard in what found expression, for example, in Maria, who felt herself in higher perception and an exalted consciousness to be in the midst of ethically-acting forces of nature: and through her feeling of these ethically-acting forces of nature, she was inspired to express this in the way she speaks. It is something which represents an all-awareness of nature, so to speak, insofar as it is ethical – and of ethics insofar as it is already nature.

In Philia we have a personality which, in a certain sense, is irradiated by the powers of love – and yet as a completely human figure. She shows herself a human character, quite simply in that if one is alive to it, one feels pulsating within her all that a personality pervaded by love would say and do when confronted with the feelings, representations, phenomena and images that are realized through Maria. And again: Astrid represents a personality filled with what we might call inner human wisdom – in such a way that inner human wisdom unites itself through inwardness of vision with cosmic activity. And Luna represents what is manifested in a steadfast consciousness as efficacy of will.

These three personalities are not presented as symbols or allegories, any more than Nero is a symbolic representation of cruelty. These three personalities are human beings of flesh and blood, and differ from one another just as human beings in real life differ, for instance, according to their temperaments. They differ so that one personality is wholly vibrant with love, another wholly with wisdom, and another wholly with firmness. And through what reveals itself in the collaboration of the plastic and musical, where a feeling of the ethical-natural and the natural-ethical harmonizes with the human personality, borne by love, illuminated by wisdom and warmed by steadfast strength, there comes into being what can here be presented as a true picture of the spiritual world. Perhaps we may begin with this scene, because in that way it can be shown how, when one creates out of the element of recitation and declamation rather than out of thought, an art of declamation results in a quite direct and elemental kind of way.¹ In this way poetry becomes at once declamation and recitation. And an art of recitation and declamation comes into being through inner perception which one can equally believe to be poetry. This is what we shall consider further when we enter into declamation and recitation.

Frau Dr. Steiner will now recite the Seventh Scene from The Portal of Initiation:

MARIA:
Ihr, meine Schwestern, die ihr
So oft mir Helferinnen wart,
Seid mir es auch in dieser Stunde,
Dass ich den Weltenäther
In sich erbeben lasse.
Er soll harmonisch klingen
Und klingend eine Seele
Durchdringen mit Erkenntnis.
Ich kann die Zeichen schauen,
Die uns zur Arbeit lenken.
Es soll sich euer Werk
Mit meinem Werke einen.
Johannes, der Strebende,
Er soll durch unser Schaffen
Zum wahren Sein erhoben werden.
Die Brüder in dem Tempel,
Sie hielten Rat,
Wie sie ihn aus den Tiefen
In lichte Höhen führen sollen.
Von uns erwarten sie,
Dass wir in seiner Seele heben
Die Kraft zum Höhenfluge.
Du, meine Philia, so sauge
Des Lichtes klares Wesen
Aus Raumesweiten,
Erfülle dich mit Klangesreiz
Aus schaffender Seelenmacht,
Dass du mir reichen kannst
Die Gaben, die du sammelst
Aus Geistesgründen.
Ich kann sie weben dann
In den erregenden Sphärenreigen.
Und du auch, Astrid, meines Geistes
Geliebtes Spiegelbild,
Erzeuge Dunkelkraft
Im fliessenden Licht,
Dass es in Farben scheine,
Und gliedre Klangeswesenheit,
Dass webender Weltenstoff
Ertönend lebe.
So kann ich Geistesfühlen
Vertrauen suchendem Menschensinn.
Und du, o starke Luna,
Die du gefestigt im Innern bist,
Dem Lebensmarke gleich,
Das in des Baumes Mitte wächst,
Vereine mit der Schwestern Gaben
Das Abbild deiner Eigenheit,
Dass Wissens Sicherheit
Dem Seelensucher werde.

PHILIA:
Ich will erfüllen mich
Mit klarstem Lichtessein
Aus Weltenweiten,
Ich will eratmen mir
Belebenden Klangesstoff
Aus Ätherfernen,
Dass dir, geliebte Schwester,
Das Werk gelingen kann.

ASTRID:
Ich will verweben
Erstrahlend Licht
Mit dämpfender Finsternis,
Ich will verdichten
Das Klangesleben.
Es soll erglitzernd klingen,
Es soll erklingend glitzern,
Dass du, geliebte Schwester,
Die Seelenstrahlen lenken kannst.

LUNA:
Ich will erwärmen Seelenstoff
Und will erhärten Lebensäther.
Sie sollen sich verdichten,
Sie sollen sich erfühlen,
Und in sich selber seiend
Sich schaffend halten,
Dass du, geliebte Schwester,
Der suchenden Menschenseele
Des Wissens Sicherheit erzeugen kannst.

MARIA:
Aus Philias Bereichen
Soll strömen Freudesinn;
Und Nixen Wechselkräfte
Sie mögen öffnen
Der Seele Reizbarkeit,
Dass der Erweckte
Erleben kann
Der Welten Lust,
Der Welten Weh,–
Aus Astrids Weben
Soll werden Liebelust;
Der Sylphen wehend Leben,
Es soll erregen
Der Seele Opfertrieb,
Dass der Geweihte
Erquicken kann
Die Leidbeladenen,
Die Glück Erflehenden.–
Aus Lunas Kraft
Soll strömen Festigkeit.
Der Feuerwesen Macht,
Sie kann erschaffen
Der Seele Sicherheit;
Auf dass der Wissende
Sich finden kann
Im Seelenweben,
Im Weltenleben.

PHILIA:
Ich will erbitten von Weltengeistern,
Dass ihres Wesens Licht
Entzücke Seelensinn,
Und ihrer Worte Klang
Beglücke Geistgehör;
Auf dass sich hebe
Der zu Erweckende
Auf Seelenwegen
In Himmelshöhen.

ASTRID:
Ich will die Liebesströme,
Die Welt erwarmenden,
Zu Herzen leiten
Dem Geweihten;
Auf dass er bringen kann
Des Himmels Güte
Dem Erdenwirken
Und Weihestimmung
Den Menschenkindern.

LUNA:
Ich will von Urgewalten
Erflehen Mut und Kraft
Und sie dem Suchenden
In Herzenstiefen legen;
Auf dass Vertrauen
Zum eignen Selbst
Ihn durch das Leben
Geleiten kann.
Er soll sich sicher
In sich dann selber fühlen.
Er soll von Augenblicken
Die reifen Früchte pflücken
Und Saaten ihnen entlocken
Für Ewigkeiten.

MARIA:
Mit euch, ihr Schwestern,
Vereint zu edlem Werk,
Wird mir gelingen,
Was ich ersehne.
Es dringt der Ruf
Des schwer Geprüften
In unsre Lichteswelt.

From The Portal of Initiation, Scene 7:

MARIA:
Now, my sisters, at this hour

come once more to me

So have you often done. –

Then I may bid the cosmic ether stir

and ring within itself,

harmoniously resounding,

and sounding, all his soul

pervade and pierce with knowing.

I can discern the signs:

they urge us to our task.

Then let your work

make one with mine:

Johannes – as he strives

shall our creating lift him up

to Being’s truth.

bThe Brethren of the Temple

have conferred

how they might raise him up

from his abyss to light-filled eminence:

and they demand of us

to rouse his laboring soul

to strength and soaring flight.

Ah then, my Philia, come inhale

translucent essences of light from sprawling space:

Be filled with all-alluring sound

from shaping-powers of soul:

Reach to me

the gifts you cull

from the deep spirit’s ground!

And I shall weave them in

amid the stirring dancing of the spheres.

You, Astrid, too –

loved image of my spirit!

you must beget dark’s power

within light’s hurrying flux

till it blaze bright with colour;

articulate sound’s essences

till all the weaving substance of the World

lives to resound.

Then can I trust to groping human sense

the spirit’s felt perception.

You, ah steadfast Luna: you

who rooted far within stand firm

as does the vital tract

hid deep and growing in the tree

conjoin now with your sisters’ gifts

your imprint, your incomparable mark, –

let knowing’s certitude

spring up within this questing soul!

PHILIA: I will be filled with light’s

clear-bright essentiality

from wide world-space;

I will inhale

Sound-substances’ vitality,

ethereally remote:

that you, beloved sister,

may realize the task.

ASTRID: I will be weaving

the rays of light

with dampening, muting dark;

I will thicken

the living sound,

till glistering, how shall it ring,

and ringing, how shall it glister!

that you, beloved sister,

the rays of soul may direct.

LUNA: I will warm the stuff of souls,

the vital-ether densify.

Themselves they shall coagulate,

themselves they shall experience,

and in themselves abiding

guard their shaping-power:

that you, beloved sister,

within man’s questing soul

may foster knowing’s certitude.

MARIA: Philia’s broad horizons

shall brim with joyfulness;

and nymphs’ shape-shifting powers

shall stir the soul

to fluid sensitivity –

so may the sleeper

wake to feel

the world’s rapture,

the world’s recoil.

From Astrid’s weft

shall issue joys of love;

the sighing life of sylphs

shall rouse the soul

to make self-sacrifice –

so may the hallowed

bring to life

all those whom sorrows burden,

all those who joy implore.

Luna’s strength

shall pour out steadfastness;

and fiery nature’s might

shall forge the soul’s

hard certainty –

so may the knower

find himself

in weavings intricate of soul,

in world-depths of the living Whole.

PHILIA: I will beseech the gods of the worlds

to shine their natures’ light

on his enchanted soul,

and with resounding voice

enthrall his spirit’s ear –

so may he scale

(the awakening one)

the steep soul-road

to heaven-heights.

ASTRID: I will channel streams of love

that wash the world in warmth

and them impart

to his hallowed heart

so may he bring

of heaven’s good

to earthly works,

and hallowed mood

to mortal men.

LUNA: I will beg from Primal Powers

fortitude and strength,

and in the seeker’s boundless heart

I shall inlay them deep –

so may a trust

in his own self

throughout his life

attend him.

He within himself shall feel

his true self held secure,

and pluck each swelling moment, ripe

with seeds for all

futurity.

MARIA: Sisters, thus united

to achieve a noble work,

it shall be done

as I desire –

there! comes the cry

from his ordeals,

piercing our world of light.

Trans. A.J.W. [Note 2]

As a second example, we will present the first monologue from Goethe’s Iphigeneia in two forms. For there are two versions of Goethe’s Iphigeneia. During his first period of residence in Weimar, Goethe gave – out of his initial enthusiasm and first understanding – a dramatic form to the myth of Iphigeneia. This form he gave to his Iphigeneia was born out of the artistic disposition and perception that were his in Weimar, before he started out on his Roman journey; we may call it, therefore, the Weimar Iphigeneia. And then, during his stay in Rome, he saturated himself in all that came to him from Greek art, insofar as he was able to observe it in the Italian works and in the scanty remnants of Greek art that were still available. Then, in Rome, inspired by these impulses (which had now transformed his whole attitude to art, his entire aesthetic perception and understanding) he rewrote his Iphigeneia; so it is that we have this second version of Goethe’s Iphigeneia, which we may call the Roman Iphigeneia from the point of view of their artistic – their inner artistic – formation, and to see how these two forms flow into the declamatory and into the recitative.

Looking at the German, the Weimar Iphigeneia, it is borne one might say, out of the same period in Goethe’s artistic creativity as the wonderful prose hymn “To Nature”: that powerful nature-poem which begins “Nature, we are surrounded by her ...”, and contains such powerful lines as “She carries along with her, until we tire and fall from her arm ...” etc. This mighty picture of nature which, with its unusual rhythm, moves along so powerfully, is especially characteristic of that period in which Goethe’s poetic works of art were created under the tremendous artistic influence exerted on him by Strasbourg Cathedral, and the whole of Gothic culture. Thus the German, Weimar Iphigeneia arises from an artistic perception that is pervasively a Gothic-German one. Goethe handles the language in such a way that one feels: everything in the speech-formation tends to create something (if I may so express myself) that is both curved yet at the same time pointed – like the pointed arches of the Gothic Cathedral. We follow the interweaving of the rhythms with our inner being: they curve like arches, and weld themselves together, just as the pointed arches of the Gothic Cathedral weld themselves into a whole. This element of plasticity which infiltrates Goethe’s poetry – and Goethe’s poetry is always plastic – is, of course, in no way a conscious imitation of the Gothic style, but rather a poetic interpretation of what he felt when he stood, for instance, before the mighty Strasbourg Cathedral – and in particular whenever he encountered something essentially German. And in order to bring these free rhythms to expression, in a way made possible by the unrestricted Gothic style, he conceived his Weimar Iphigeneia. We see here something gnarled, rugged, something which in its plastic contours stands there like some of the figures on the Cathedral of Strasbourg, and elsewhere. [Note 3]

And then, Goethe goes to Italy, and his Iphigeneia, amongst other things, stands once more before his soul. She looks different to him now, for he is living under the Italian sky, which arches over him in southern loveliness rather than the coldness of the north. Here, through the influence of external nature itself, Goethe experiences the necessity of transforming his feelings. What he had brought with him to Rome as the Weimar Iphigeneia, he now feels to be something Nordic, rugged, gnarled, something almost barbaric. He feels it especially when he compares the line, the poetically felt line of his Germanic Weimar Iphigeneia, with the poetic line he experiences when something of the nature of Raphael’s work affects him. The sight of Raphael’s work smoothed and rounded that gnarled ruggedness which was still present in Goethe’s Iphigeneia from the Weimar period. And so Goethe feels the necessity of completely rewriting the Iphigeneia; in place of the free Gothic rhythms there arises a strict, calm verse-measure. Hence one can see that such a man as Goethe, an artist through and through, can live in this rounded, calm verse-measure only when he has above him the blue sky of Italy, and where in the museums he visits Raphael’s Madonnas and Saint Cecelia confront him. This symbiotic relation to all that he experienced in Greek art, as he reconstructed it from Italian works, this transformation of his perception is indeed tremendously characteristic of Goethe. It was this inner transformation which brought him to feel the necessity of recasting his entire Iphigeneiain another form. We can, then, clearly differentiate between Goethe’s conception and experience of art as expressed and revealed in the Iphigeneia of Weimar, and what is revealed in the Roman Iphigeneia.

Now something of this must naturally find its way into recitation and declamation. In the Weimar Iphigeneia we are dealing with an art that is more in the nature of declamation, an art that must especially elicit the inner tone-element, the fullness of tone, and pour it out into words and sentences. In the Roman Iphigeneia, we have to do with an art which is more recitative, which must bring out the metre and its even-measured flow.

In order to see empirically, as one might say, how declamation on the one hand, and recitation on the other, reveal themselves, we will now present the first monologue from the German Iphigeneia: this discloses in particular the element of declamation which corresponds to a certain period of Goethe’s poetic practice. And we shall then present the first monologue from the Roman Iphigeneia, which discloses especially the element of recitation characteristic of a southern, or even oriental-sounding, poetry. Fundamentally, the same motif is presented in both versions, and to a coarse sensibility, perhaps, the distinction between them may not be apparent. But for a sensitive perception they differ quite radically. Hence, employing just this example, will demonstrate to you how recitation and declamation are to be compared with one another in the art of speech as we understand it here – as declamation in the broader sense.

Frau Dr. Steiner will now read the monologue from the German Iphigeneia, and from the Roman Iphigeneia.

Iphigeneia (Weimar version), Act I, Scene 1:

Heraus in eure Schatten, ewig rege Wipfel des heiligen Hains, wie in das Heiligtum der Göttin, der ich diene, tret’ ich mit immer neuem Schauer, und meine Seele gewöhnt sich nicht hierher: So manche Jahre wohn’ ich hier unter euch verborgen, und immer bin ich wie im ersten fremd. Denn mein Verlangen steht hinüber nach dem schönen Lande der Griechen, und immer möcht’ ich übers Meer hinüber, das Schicksal meiner Vielgeliebten teilen. Weh dem, der fern von Eltern und Geschwistern ein einsam Leben führt ihn lässt der Gram des schönsten Glückes nicht geniessen; ihm schwärmen abwärts immer die Gedanken nach seines Vaters Wohnung, an jene Stellen, wo die goldne Sonne zum erstenmal den Himmel vor ihm aufschloss, wo die Spiele der Mitgebornen die sanften, liebsten Erdenbande knüpften. – Der Frauen Zustand ist der schlimmste vor allen Menschen. Will dem Mann das Glück, so herrscht er und erficht im Felde Ruhm; und haben ihm die Götter Unglück zubereitet, fällt er, der Erstling von den Seinen, in den schönen Tod. Allein des Weibes Glück ist eng gebunden: sie dankt ihr Wohl stets andern, öfters Fremden, und wenn Zerstörung ihr Haus ergreift, führt sie aus rauchenden Trümmern, durchs Blut erschlagener Liebsten, ein Überwinder fort. – Auch hier an dieser heiligen Stätte hält Thoas mich in ehrenvoller Sklavereis. Wie schwer wird mir’s, dir wider Willen dienen, ewig reine Göttin! Retterin: Dir sollte mein Leben zu ewigem Dienste geweiht sein. Auch hab’ich stets auf dich gehofft und hoffe noch, Diana, die du mich verstossne Tochter des grössten Königs in deinen heiligen, sanften Arm genommen! Ja, Tochter Jovis, hast du den Mann, dessen Tochter du fordertest, hast du den göttergleichen Agamemnon, der dir sein Liebstes zum Altare brachte, hast du vom Felde der umgewandten Troja ihn glücklich und mit Ruhm nach seinem Vaterlande zurückbegleite hast du meine Geschwister, Elektren und Oresten, den Knaben, und unsere Mutter, ihm zu Hause, den schönen Schatz, bewahrt, so rette mich, die du vom Tod gerettet, auch von dem Leben hier, dem zweiten Tod.

Iphigeneia (Roman version), Act I, Scene 1:

Heraus in eure Schatten, rege Wipfel

Des alten, heil’gen, dichtbelaubten Haines,

Wie in der Göttin stilles Heiligtum,

Tret’ ich noch jetzt mit schauderndem Gefühl,

Als wenn ich sie zum ersten Mal beträte,

Und es gewöhnt sich nicht mein Geist hierher.

So manches Jahr bewahrt mich hier verborgen

Ein hoher Wille, dem ich mich ergebe;

Doch immer bin ich, wie im ersten, fremd.

Denn ach! mich trennt das Meer von den Geliebten,

Und an dem Ufer steh’ ich lange Tage,

Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchend;

Und gegen meine Seufzer bringt die Welle

Nur dumpfe Töne brausend mir herüber.

Weh dem, der fern von Eltern und Geschwistern

Ein einsam Leben führt! Ihm zehrt der Gram

Das nächste Glück vor seinen Lippen weg.

Ihm schwärmen abwärts immer die Gedanken

Nach seines Vaters Hallen, wo die Sonne

Zuerst den Himmel vor ihm aufschloss, wo

Sich Mitgeborne spielend fest und fester

Mit sanften Banden an einander knüpften.

Ich rechte mit den Göttern nicht; allein

Der Frauen Zustand is beklagenswert.

Zu Haus und in dem Kriege herrscht der Mann,

Und in der Fremde weiss er sich zu helfen.

Ihn freuet der Besitz; ihn krönt der Sieg;

Ein ehrenvoller Tod ist ihm bereitet.

Wie enggebunden ist des Weibes Glück!

Schon einem rauhen Gatten zu gehorchen,

Ist Pflicht und Trost; wie elend, wenn sie gar

Ein feindlich Schicksal in die Ferne treibt!

So hält mich Thoas hier, ein edler Mann,

In ernsten, heil’gen Sklavenbanden fest.

O, wie beschämt gesteh’ ich, dass ich dir

Mit stillem Widerwillen diene, Göttin,

Dir meiner Retterin! Mein Leben sollte

Zu freiem Dienste dir gewidmet sein.

Auch hab’ ich stets auf dich gehofft und hoffe

Noch jetzt auf dich, Diana, die du mich,

Des grössten Königes verstossne Tochter,

In deinen heil’gen, sanften Arm genommen.

Ja, Tochter Zeus’, wenn du den hohen Mann,

Den du, die Tochter fordernd, ängstigtest,

Wenn du den göttergleichen Agamemnon,

Der dir sein Liebstes zum Altare brachte,

Von Troja’s umgewandten Mauern rühmlich

Nach seinem Vaterland zurückbegleitet,

Die Gattin ihm, Elektren und den Sohn,

Die schönen Schätze, wohl erhalten hast:

So gib auch mich den Meinen endlich wieder,

Und rette mich, die du vom Tod errettet,

Auch von dem Leben hier, dem zweiten Tode!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

Iphigeneia (Weimar version), Act I, Scene 1:

Beneath your leafy gloom, ye ever-waving boughs, even as in the goddess’ holy temple where I serve, in this deep, consecrated grove do I step forth, and ever I shudder still anew – nor doth my restless soul ever feel here at home. Long hath a mighty power detained me here, beneath your shade, concealed, yet ever I feel myself a stranger as at first. For still my yearning is turned toward the beautiful land of Greece, and ever would I cross the seas to share the fate of those I love. Alas for the man who, friendless, far from his parents, far from his brethren, dwells in his loneliness; him grief doth cheat of the fairest joys; his thoughts, with longing, forever flock to his father’s distant halls, where first he beheld the golden sun unclose the gates of heaven, where day by day, leagued in sweet pastimes, brothers and sisters would twine each other about in the tenderest bonds of love. But woman’s lot is worse than all. A man, as fortune bids, at home and in the field alike doth rule and glory; or, if by the gods’ decree dark fate awaits him, still he falls in the foremost ranks of his countrymen, and dies a glorious death. But woman’s fortune is so circumscribed: she must ever be thankful to others, and often to strangers, for her welfare; and if ruin seizes on her house, she is led forth, out of the smoking wreckage and the blood of her slaughtered loved ones, by her vanquisher. – Thus Thoas holds me in this holy place, in honourable slavery! How hard it goes with me, eternal virgin goddess, to serve thee with a rebellious will! Thou, my protectress! To thee should I dedicate my life: for in thee I have ever put my hopes, Diana, and still do I hope in thee, who didst fold the outcast daughter of the mighty king in your gentle, holy arms! O, daughter of Jove, hast thou led home the man from whom thou didst demand his daughter’s life;

Trans. A.J.W.

Iphigeneia (Roman version), Act I, Scene 1:

Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs

Of this old, shady, consecrated grove,

As in the goddess’ silent sanctuary,

With the same shudd’ring feeling forth I step,

As when I trod it first, nor ever here

Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home.

Long as the mighty will, to which I bow,

Hath kept me here conceal’d, still, as at first,

I feel myself a stranger. For the sea

Doth sever me, alas! from those I love,

And day by day upon the shore I stand,

My soul still seeking for the land of Greece.

But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding waves

Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply.

Alas for him! who friendless and alone,

Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;

From him grief snatches every coming joy

Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts

Revert for ever to his father’s halls,

Where first to him the radiant sun unclos’d

The gates of heav’n; where closer, day by day,

Brothers and sisters, leagu’d in pastime sweet,

Around each other twin’d the bonds of love.

1 will not judge the counsel of the gods;

Yet truly, woman’s lot doth merit pity.

Man rules alike at home and in the field,

Nor is in foreign climes without resource;

Possession gladdens him, him conquest crowns

And him an honourable death awaits.

How circumscrib’d is woman’s destiny!

Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord,

Her duty, and her comfort; sad her fate,

Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote:

Thus I by noble Thoas am detain’d,

Bound with a heavy, though a sacred chain.

O with what shame, Diana, I confess

That with repugnance I perform these rites

For thee, divine protectress! unto whom

I would in freedom dedicate my life.

In thee, Diana, I have always hop’d,

And still I hope in thee, who didst infold

Within the holy shelter of thine arm

The outcast daughter of the mighty king.

Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruin’d Troy

Led back in triumph to his native land

The mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict,

His daughter’s life in sacrifice demanding, –

Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon,

Who to thine altar led his darling child,

Preserv’d his wife, Electra, and his son,

His dearest treasures? – then at length restore

Thy suppliant also to her friends and home,

And save her, as thou once from death didst save,

So now, from living here, a second death.

Trans. A. Swanwick.

You have heard the Weimar and the Roman Iphigeneia, and will perhaps have been able to see that here an entirely artistic personality has rewritten a poem, not out of any necessity of ideal, but solely from an artistic feeling for style. Goethe’s feeling for style was so strong that the whole perception, the whole conception of art expressed in the Roman Iphigeneia is entirely different to that which comes to expression in the German-Gothic Iphigeneia. From these two works which are, in fact, one and the same – you will be able to see that they differ only in regard to their purely aesthetic impulses. For to an inartistic perception the distinctions between them are simply non-existent. For artistic perception, however, the Roman Iphigeneia is quite another work to the Weimar Iphigeneia. One can see, too, how small a part is played in the true art of poetry by the mere content of the poem: fundamentally, the content is only a ladder by which true poetry – living poetry – is able to ascend. This must be taken as a basis if recitation and declamation is to be regarded as a real art-form. For everything which is here looked on as the actual life, so to speak, of recitation and declamation, rests upon such intimacies as the difference between the Roman and the Germanic Iphigeneia. It is with such artistic intimacies that we shall have to deal when, after further practical work, we resume our study of declamation and recitation.

---

• 1. For some details with regard to the speech-formation of this scene, see Creative Speech (London 1978), pp. 118f.

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.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

[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

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Naturally, it will only be possible to lay down certain guidelines in our presentation of the real nature of the art of declamation, as an exhaustive discussion would require us to penetrate into a fair number of the intimacies and inner aspects of man's physical, psychic and spiritual life. Last time, we were able to see the remarkable way in which blood-circulation, pulse-beat and breathing-rhythm interpenetrate each other in the human organism something of which the poet in his act of creation already has some apprehension, and all of which sounds forth again in the poem, as indeed it should whenever this is realized through either declamation or recitation. Recitation stands midway between singing and mere speech. In speech, everything that in singing is still bound up with numerical relations is transformed into something of inner intensity: when we pronounce a word, it is as though the elements which live in song were compressed from spatiality into something two-dimensional yet through its intensive force, the two-dimensional plane still gives expression, albeit of a different kind, to what was present in the singing. And between these, between singing and spoken prose, lie recitation and declamation. It may be said that recitation and declamation are a kind of singing on the way to becoming mere words, but held back, and arrested midway along this path: it is this “midway” character which makes the essential nature of recitation so extraordinarily difficult to grasp. Here again, it is the task of an intimate psychosomatic observation to seize on those elements, through which the arts of declamation and of recitation are sharply distinguished. For it is deeply founded in the very nature of poetry that, in one case, a poem is recited, and in another declaimed.

Deeply founded in the nature of poetry is the way in which all those things that in music and singing, in pitch, harmony and so on, take on a kind of independent, external existence, are here turned inward – in poetry they are so far turned inward that nothing external remains except time, which finds expression in the metre, in the long and short syllables. Now, although we look in recitation mainly for the metrical element, where pitch, and even tone-colour, and that which produces harmony, etc., is laid aside, yet the element of differentiation still makes itself felt. We have not yet proceeded as far as the mere word, where the element of differentiation in the actual substance of the word is removed and is no longer apparent.

When it comes to reciting, the physical processes involved take the following course. [Note 6] Essentially, recitation depends upon what takes place when inhaled air penetrates into our body, and through the breathing-rhythm, into the movements of the cerebral fluid which also fills the spinal cord right into the nervous-sensory apparatus of the brain. [Note 7] The breathing-rhythm presses, so to speak, against the organs of mental representation, and along this path is brought to a kind of stasis: this path ultimately becomes the inhaling-process, which is then followed by that of exhalation, as in this case the rhythm is always twofold. When this process is carried to its farthest limit, prose-representations arise. If, however, it is consciously checked before its ultimate stage, and the metre deriving from the breathing-rhythm is not destroyed, there arises what lives in recitation. Hence we can say: it is a striving from world observation to mental representation that should manifest itself in recitation; and this is why recitation is in essence the representative art appropriate to epic and narrative verse.

At the other extreme stands declamation. This is bound up with the very opposite process, in which the soul-life is not linked with the representational element, but with that of volition. Now, when we will something, when we pass over into a will-impulse – what actually is it that is overcome? (This happens unconsciously, of course, for many people but consciously for those who exercise self-observation.) Here, in fact, one must always overcome a world of harmony, a world of inner consonances and dissonances. It is from harmony, from an inner experience closely resembling what hovers behind music, that the will-impulse is ultimately formed: when the breath-stream strikes up into the brain and flows back again, descends through the canal of the spinal cord, and strikes into the whole metabolic process – and this again strikes into the pulse-beat of the blood-circulation. With this passage from above downwards is thrust into our will-nature, mainly bound up as it is with exhalation, all that lives in man in the way of vanquished or allayed harmonies, inner discords, consonances, and so on. Thus the very opposite element is brought to expression and mediated through the word, when the word is made the bearer of an impulse of will.

And when, in a poem, we let sound forth what lives within us not merely as an external narrative, but sending forth what lives in us as we exhale our breath – then, indeed, we enter the sphere of the dramatic. But this can, or rather should be described only as the last step: for the dramatic also evolves out of the epic, when this has been developed through some folk-disposition, for instance. Those who, working in this way out of a folk-disposition, give poetic form to the epic, have a grasp of man’s inner nature to which they give outward expression in the external representations. Thus, where we find such a folk-disposition, a dramatic element sounds into the epic. Recitation becomes declamation.

Today we hope to make clear to you how this comes about, by the recitation of the beginning of Goethe’s “Achilleis”. Here Goethe transposed himself completely into the epic feeling, the epic metre of the Greeks, into the entirely metrical hexameter: so that inwardly, the conscious grasping of the in-breathing process which tends toward representation is predominant. Secondly, and by way of contrast, we shall take an epic of the Nordic world, from an earlier age – part of the magnificent Finnish Folk-epic, the Kalevala. Here you will see how the dramatic element arises in the epic itself, and consequently how recitation in epic metre quite naturally becomes declamation – how, therefore, epic recitation subtly results in dramatic declamation.

With this, then, we will begin our practical demonstration. Frau Dr. Steiner will give a reading from Goethe’s “Achilleis”.

Hoch zu Flammen entbrannte die mächtige Lohe noch einmal

Strebend gegen den Himmel, und Ilios’ Mauern erschienen

Rot durch die finstere Nacht; der aufgeschichteten Waldung

Ungeheures Gerüst, zusammenstürzend, erregte

Mächtige Glut zuletzt. Da senkten sich Hektors Gebeine

Nieder, und Asche lag der edelste Troer am Boden.

Nun erhob sich Achilleus vom Sitz vor seinem Gezelte,

Wo er die Stunden durchwachte, die nächtlichen, schaute der Flammen

Fernes, schreckliches Spiel und des wechselnden Feuers Bewegung,

Ohne die Augen zu wenden von Pergamos’ rötlicher Feste.

Tief im Herzen empfand er den Hass noch gegen den Toten,

Der ihm den Freund erschlug, und der nun bestattet dahinsank.

Aber als nun die Wut nachliess des fressenden Feuers

Allgemach, und zugleich mit Rosenfingern die Göttin

Schmückete Land und Meer, dass der Flammen Schrecknisse bleichten,

Wandte sich, tief bewegt und sanft, der grosse Pelide

Gegen Antilochos hin und sprach die gewichtigen Worte:

‘So wird kommen der Tag, da bald von Ilios’ Trümmern

Rauch und Qualm sich erhebt, von thrakischen Lüften getrieben,

Idas langes Gebirg und Gargaros’ Höhe verdunkelt:

Aber ich werd’ ihn nicht sehen. Die Völkerweckerin Eos

Fand mich, Patroklos’ Gebein zusammenlesend; sie findet

Hektors Brüder anjetzt in gleichem frommen Geschäfte:

Und dich mag sie auch bald, mein trauter Antilochos, finden,

Dass du den leichten Rest des Freundes jammernd bestattest.

Soll dies also nun sein, wie mir es die Götter entbieten,

Sei es! Gedenken wir nur des Nötigen, was noch zu tun ist.

Denn mich soll, vereint mit meinem Freunde Patroklos,

Ehren ein herrlicher Hügel, am hohen Gestade des Meeres

Aufgerichtet, den Völkern und künftigen Zeiten ein Denkmal.

Fleissig haben mir schon die rüstigen Myrmidonen

Rings umgraben den Raum, die Erde warfen sie einwärts,

Gleichsam schützenden Wall aufführend gegen des Feindes

Andrang. Also umgrenzten den weiten Raum sie geschäftig.

Aber wachsen soll mir das Werk! Ich eile, die Scharen

Aufzurufen, die mir noch Erde mit Erde zu häufen

Willig sind, und so vielleicht befördr’ ich die Hälfte.

Euer sei die Vollendung, wenn bald mich die Urne gefasst hat!’

Also sprach er und ging und schritt durch die Reihe der Zelte,

Winkend jenem und diesem und rufend andre zusammen.

Alle sogleich nun erregt, ergriffen das starke Geräte,

Schaufel und Hacke, mit Lust, dass der Klang des Erzes ertönte,

Auch den gewaltigen Pfahl, den steinbewegenden Hebel.

Und so zogen sie fort, gedrängt aus dem Lager ergossen,

Aufwärts den sanften Pfad, und schweigend eilte die Menge.

Wie wenn, zum Überfall gerüstet, nächtlich die Auswahl

Stille ziehet des Heers, mit leisen Tritten die Reihe

Wandelt und jeder die Schritte misst und jeder den Atem

Anhält, in feindliche Stadt, die schlechtbewachte, zu dringen:

Also zogen auch sie, und aller tätige Stille

Ehrte das ernste Geschäft und ihres Königes Schmerzen.

Als sie aber den Rücken des wellenbespületen Hügels

Bald erreichten und nun des Meeres Weite sich auftat,

Blickte freundlich Eos sie an aus der heiligen Frühe

Fernem Nebelgewölk und jedem erquickte das Herz sie.

Alle stürzten sogleich dem Graben zu, gierig der Arbeit,

Rissen in Schollen auf den lange betretenen Boden,

Warfen schaufelnd ihn fort; ihn trugen andre mit Körben

Aufwarts; in Helm und Schild einfüllen sah man die einen,

Und der Zipfel des Kleids war anderen statt des Gefässes.

Jetzt eröffneten heftig des Himmels Pforte die Horen,

Und das wilde Gespann des Helios, brausend erhub sich’s.

Rasch erleuchtet’ er gleich die frommen Äthiopen,

Welche die äussersten wohnen von allen Völkern der Erde.

Schüttelnd bald die glühenden Locken, entstieg er des Ida

Wäldern, um klagenden Troern, um rüst’gen Achaiern zu leuchten.

Aber die Horen indes, zum Äther strebend erreichten

Zeus Kronions heiliges Haus, das sie ewig begrüssen.

Und sie traten hinein; da begegnete ihnen Hephaistos,

Eilig hinkend, und sprach auffordernde Worte zu ihnen:

‘Trügliche, Glücklichen Schnelle, den Harrenden Langsame, hört mich!

Diesen Saal erbaut’ ich, dem Willen des Vaters gehorsam,

Nach dem göttlichen Mass des herrlichsten Musengesanges;

Sparte nicht Gold und Silber, noch Erz, und bleiches Metall nicht.

Und so wie ich’s vollendet, vollkommen stehet das Werk noch,

Ungekränkt von der Zeit; denn hier ergreift es der Rost nicht,

Noch erreicht es der Staub, des irdischen Wandrers Gefährte.

Alles hab’ ich getan, was irgend schaffende Kunst kann.

Unerschütterlich ruht die hohe Decke des Hauses,

Und zum Schritte ladet der glatte Boden den Fuss ein.

Jedem Herrscher folget sein Thron, wohin er gebietet,

Wie dem Jager der Hund, und goldene wandelnde Knaben

Schuf ich, welche Kronion, den Kommenden, unterstützen,

Wie ich mir eherne Mädchen erschuf. Doch alles ist leblos!

Euch allein ist gegeben, den Charitinnen und euch nur,

Über das tote Gebild des Lebens Reize zu streuen.

Auf denn! sparet mir nichts und giesst aus dem heiligen Salbhorn

Liebreiz herrlich umher, damit ich mich freue des Werkes,

Und die Götter entzückt so fort mich preisen wie anfangs.’

Und sie lächelten sanft, die beweglichen, nickten dem Alten

Freundlich und gossen umher verschwenderisch Leben und Licht aus,

Dass kein Mensch es ertrüg’ und dass es die Götter entzückte...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

[Sidney is one of the few English poets to transpose himself into the classical feeling for hexameter verse with even qualified success; in his case furthermore it is the pastoral, emblematic aspects of this representational, recitative mode which emerge, rather than its narrative possibilities. The following passage is an extract from the “First Eclogues” in Book I of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

DORUS:

Then do I thinke in deed, that better it is to be private

In sorrows torments, then, tyed to the pompes of a pallace,

Nurse inwarde maladyes, which have not scope to be breath’d out,

But perforce disgest, all bitter juices of horror

In silence, from a man’s owne selfe with company robbed.

Better yet do I live, that though by my thoughts I be plunged

Into my live’s bondage, yet may disburden a passion

(Opprest with ruinouse conceites) by the helpe of an outcrye:

Not limited to a whispringe note, the Lament of a Courtier,

But sometimes to the woods, sometimes to the heavens do decyphire,

With bolde clamor unheard, unmarckt, what I seeke what I suffer:

And when I meete these trees, in the earth’s faire lyvery clothed,

Ease I do feele (such ease as falls to one wholy diseased)

For that I finde in them parte of my estate represented.

Lawrell shews what I seeke, by the Mirre is show’d how I seeke it,

Olive paintes me the peace that I must aspire to by conquest:

Mirtle makes my request, my request is crown’d with a willowe.

Cyprus promiseth helpe, but a helpe where comes no recomforte.

Sweete Juniper saith this, thoh I burne, yet I burne in a sweete fire.

Ewe doth make me be thinke what kind of bow the boy holdeth

Which shootes strongly with out any noyse and deadly without smarte.

Firr trees great and greene, fixt on a hye hill but a barrein,

Lyke to my noble thoughtes, still new, well plac’d, to me fruteles.

Figge that yeeldes most pleasante frute, his shaddow is hurtefull,

Thus be her giftes most sweet, thus more danger to be neere her,

But in a palme when I marke, how he doth rise under a burden,

And may I not (say I then) gett up though griefs be so weightie?

Pine is a maste to a shippe, to my shippe shall hope for a maste serve?

Pine is hye, hope is as hie, sharpe leav’d, sharpe yet be my hope’s budds.

Elme embraste by a vine, embracing fancy reviveth.

Popler changeth his hew from a rising sunne to a setting:

Thus to my sonne do I yeeld, such lookes her beames do aforde me.

Olde aged oke cutt downe, of newe works serves to the building:

So my desires by my feare, cutt downe, be the frames of her honour.

Ashe makes speares which shieldes do resist, her force no repulse takes:

Palmes do rejoyce to be joynd by the match of a male to a female,

And shall sensive things be so sencelesse as to resist sence?

Thus be my thoughts disperst, thus thinking nurseth a thinking,

Thus both trees and each thing ells, be the bookes of a fancy.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586).] [Note 8]

Now a passage from the Kalevala: and we will try, despite the exigency of a translation, still to read this in such a way as to show all the things I have discussed.

From the Kalevala: Rune XIV (Conclusion)

Then the reckless Lemminkainen,

Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,

Braved the third test of the hero,

Started out to hunt the wild-swan,

Hunt the long-necked, graceful swimmer,

In Tuoni’s coal-black river,

In Manala’s lower regions.

Quick the daring hunter journeyed,

Hastened off with fearless footsteps,

To the river of Tuoni,

To the sacred stream and whirlpool,

With his bow upon his shoulder,

With his quiver and one arrow.

Nasshut, blind and crippled shepherd,

Wretched shepherd of Pohyola,

Stood beside the death-land river,

Near the sacred stream and whirlpool,

Guarding Tuonela’s waters,

Waiting there for Lemminkainen,

Listening there for Kaukomieli,

Waiting long the hero’s coming.

Finally he hears the footsteps

Of the hero on his journey,

Hears the tread of Lemminkainen,

As he journeys nearer, nearer,

To the river of Tuoni,

To the cataract of death-land,

To the sacred stream and whirlpool.

Quick the wretched shepherd, Nasshut,

From the death-stream sends a serpent,

Like an arrow from a cross-bow,

To the heart of Lemminkainen,

Through the vitals of the hero.

Lemminkainen, little conscious,

Hardly knew that he was injured,

Spake these measures as he perished:

‘Ah! unworthy is my conduct,

Ah! unwisely have I acted,

That I did not heed my mother,

Did not take her goodly counsel,

Did not learn her words of magic.

Oh! for three words with my mother,

How to live, and how to suffer,

In this time of dire misfortune,

How to bear the stings of serpents,

Tortures of the reed of waters,

From the stream of Tuonela!

‘Ancient mother who hast borne me,

Who hast trained me from my childhood,

Learn, I pray thee, where I linger,

Where, alas! thy son is lying

Where thy reckless hero suffers.

Come, I pray thee, faithful mother,

Come thou quickly, thou art needed,

Come deliver me from torture,

From the death-jaws of Tuoni,

From the sacred stream and whirlpool.’

Northland’s old and wretched Shepherd,

Nasshut, the despised protector

Of the flocks of Sariola,

Throws the dying Lemminkainen,

Throws the hero of the islands,

Into Tuonela’s river,

To the blackest stream of death-land,

To the worst of fatal whirlpools.

Lemminkainen, wild and daring,

Helpless falls upon the waters,

Floating down the coal-black current,

Through the cataracts and rapids

To the tombs of Tuonela.

There the blood-stained son of death-land,

There Tuoni’s son and hero,

Cuts in pieces Lemminkainen,

Chops him with his mighty hatchet,

Till the sharpened axe strikes flint-sparks

From the rocks within his chamber,

Chops the hero into fragments.

Into five unequal portions,

Throws each portion to Tuoni,

In Manala’s lowest kingdom,

Speaks these words when he has ended:

‘Swim thou there, wild Lemminkainen,

Flow thou onward in this river,

Hunt forever in these waters,

With thy cross-bow and thine arrow,

Shoot the swan within this empire,

Shoot our water-birds in welcome!

Thus the hero, Lemminkainen,

Thus the handsome Kaukomieli,

The untiring suitor, dieth

In the river of Tuoni,

In the death-realm of Manala.

Trans. J. M. Crawford.

I think that from these two examples, Goethe’s “Achilleis” and the Kalevala, you will be able to see how on the one hand in the “Achilleis” you have something experienced as a perception – as breathed-in, I might say, and on the way to being transformed into a placid mental representation. But one does not let it arrive there: it is held back so that what should terminate in representation does not quite become a purely conceptual representation; it is arrested on the way there, and becomes what we might call an ‘enjoyed’ representation. Thus, halted on the way from perception to a concept, it is not conceptually grasped, but enjoyed. This expresses itself best in metre, in a quiet verse-measure. When, however, the will-element wells up from the human being, bearing on its waves the will-impulse as a representation – then, the force which would become the will to an act, would become an external deed, is held back; and just there, where the will-impulse still lives within man and moves him to speak, it becomes vocal, and the voice is so formed that the will lives in the waves of vocal expression. Here the transition is the very reverse of the previous one: there, we had to do with a transition from the activity of perception to the repose of mental representation; now we have the opposite – from the repose of representation to volition. But the will element is held back where it would transform itself into external movement, into life in the outer world. Just this outward movement is held back and, instead of plunging into action, it lives on the stream of the words.

All that I have here indicated takes place in recitation and declamation respectively. And we can study psychosomatically, through observation of man himself, both these forms as I have just described them – something which was actually practised in former times in a more instinctive way. In earlier methods of declamation and recitation, it was possible to differentiate very clearly between the epic and the dramatic, and also to discern, within the epic, the dramatic element; and also their interweaving in the lyric, where again both interpenetrate in the rhythm. At the present time, we must raise what used to be present more spontaneously and instinctively in methods of recitation, although with the more prosaic modes of recitation it hasbeen for some time forgotten – this must now be raised into consciousness. It must not, of course, live in the reciting just as I have presented it, when I described the more corporeal processes: this connection with the artistic formation of the breath as I have presented it must rather become a feeling, an inner perception. It is along this path that an art of recitation will be found. One must be able to study the paths taken by human consciousness.

If once more we observe the path along which the predominant inbreathing-process tends toward mental representation, our consciousness then lays hold of what is en route to becoming representation. And here we can experience two paths: either we enter into abstract prose-representation, in which case we arrive at the formation of a concept; or we do not grasp these abstract prose-representations, but enter into a movement which, before the fact comes to be represented, places us in the inbreathed air and all that it does in our body – thus our consciousness floats, as it were, on the inbreathed air, and we arrive, because the psycho-spiritual frees itself from the bonds of the body, at a sort of unconscious condition. It is not allowed to reach this state, however. It is arrested: it is held up in the region of the vowels; instead of allowing it to issue in the formation of a concept or entering an unconscious state, we move in the region of the vowels – a movement of “enjoyment”. This is what is done by these poets who revel in assonance. In this experience of the breathing-process which has not quite arrived at representation, we have consciousness moving on the waves of assonance, the repetition of the vowels (which is in fact also present, in weaker form, in terminal rhyme). This is what takes place here. When, on the other hand, the will is active, what is within strives outward: and instead of checking consciousness before it leads to purely conceptual representations, we arrest it where the will streams outward, and hold the impulse back, keeping it under control, so to speak. We then bring into this life of volition something which has entered that poetry in which the element of will in particular streams out from man’s inner being – that part of man’s nature with which the Nordic races were especially endowed, and which they brought to expression when they gave themselves over to the creation of poetry. When they were unable to live themselves out in external deeds, these Nordic-Germanic peoples arrested the impulse, the urge and impetus to external deeds, and expressed the movement poetically on the waves of the out-flowing impulses of will. This lives in the incessantly repeated consonants of alliteration: in this the will, which streams through the breath and the whole body, has life. In the movement of alliteration it is just this will element that is active, just as in assonance, in the repetition of the vowels, there is laid into the innermost nature of the words that inhaled breath which fails to become representation, and expresses itself, wave-like, in the movement of assonance.

We would like to demonstrate assonance with a second example, the “Chor der Urtriebe” by Fercher von Steinwand. And then the element of alliteration, illustrated by a reading from Jordan’s Nibelunge. Now it was Jordan’s particular endeavour to bring out once more the real nature of alliteration. Of course it is natural that the modern German language did not quite achieve this: for this reason, a faint breath of coquetry hovers over Jordan’s poetry. This, however, is not important. It is better, for our purposes, to make use of a revival of alliteration, rather than trying to revive the old and far too difficult alliteration, which in fact no longer appeals to the modern soul.

From “Chor der Urtriebe”:

 Ist’s ein Schwellen, ist’s ein Wogen, 

 Was aus allen Gürteln bricht? 

 Wo wir liebend eingezogen, 

 Dort ist Richtung, dort Gewicht. 

 Hätt’ uns Will’ und Wunsch betrogen? 

 Sind wir Mächte, sind wir’s nicht? 

 Was es sei, wir heischen Licht – 

 Und es kommt in schönen Bogen! 

 Jeglichem Streite 

 Licht zum Geleite! 

 Schleunigen Schwingungen 

 Zarter Erregung, 

 Weiten Verschlingungen 

 Tiefer Bewegung 

 Muß es gelingen, 

 Bald durch die hangenden, 

 Schmerzlich befangenden 

 Nächte zu dringen. 

 Über den Gründen, 

 Über den milden 

 Schwebegebilden 

 Muß sich’s verkünden, 

 Geister entzünden, 

 Herzen entwilden. 

 Hat es getroffen, 

 Find’ es euch offen! 

 Seht ihr die erste 

 Welle der Helle? 

 Grüßt sie die hehrste, 

 Heiligste Quelle! 

 Schnelle, nur schnelle! 

 Hellen Gesichtes 

 Huldigt dem Scheine, 

 Hütet das makellos ewiglich-eine 

 Wesen des Lichtes! 

 Mag es, sein wechselndes Streben zu feiern, 

 Farben entschleiern! 

 Wecken wir lieblichen Krieg, daß sich trunken 

 Lösen die Funken! 

 Laßt uns die Tiefen, die schaffend erschäumen, 

 Laßt uns das Edle, was streitend gesunken, 

 Laßt und die Kreise, die Fruchtendes träumen, 

 Strahlend besäumen! 

 Fercher von Steinwand (1828-1902) 

[Two examples may help clarify the characteristic effects of assonance in English poetry. The first is a passage from Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse – Prelude: Tristram and Iseult”.

These are the signs wherethrough the year sees move,
Full of the sun, the sun-god which is love,
A fiery body blood-red from the heart
Outward, with fire-white wings made wide apart,
That close not and unclose not, but upright
Steered without wind by their own light and might
Sweep through the flameless fire of air that rings
From heaven to heaven with thunder of wheels and wings
And antiphones of motion-moulded rhyme
Through spaces out of space and timeless time.
So shine above dead chance and conquered change
The spherèd signs, and leave without their range
Doubt and desire, and hope with fear for wife,
Pale pains, and pleasures long worn out of life.
Yea, even the shadows of them spiritless,
Through the dim door of sleep that seem to press,
Forms without form, a piteous people and blind,
Men and no men, whose lamentable kind
The shadow of death and shadow of life compel
Through semblances of heaven and false-faced hell,
Through dreams of light and dreams of darkness tost
On waves innavigable, are these so lost?
Shapes that wax pale and shift in swift strange wise,
Void faces with unspeculative eyes,
Dim things that gaze and glare, dead mouths that move,
Featureless heads discrowned of hate and love,
Mockeries and masks of motion and mute breath,
Leavings of life, the superflux of death—
If these things and no more than these things be

Left when man ends or changes, who can see?

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

And secondly:

THE WINDHOVER
To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

¤ ¤

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).] [Note 9]

From Die Nibelunge: Sigfrid-Sage, Canto 20:

Als die sinkende Sonne den Strom der Sage,

Den smaragdenen Rhein, errötend im Scheiden,

Mit Geschmeiden umgoss von geschmolzenem Golde,

Da glitten bei Worms durch die glänzenden Wellen

Hinauf und hinabwärts zahlreiche Nachen

Und führten das Volk vom Festspiel heimwärts.

Dem geregelten Rauschen und Pochen der Ruder

Am Borde der Boote melodisch verbunden,

Erklangen im Takt auch die klaren Töne

Menschlicher Kehlen: in mehreren Kähnen,

Die nah aneinander hinunter schwammen,

Sangen die Leute das Lied von der Sehnsucht,

Die hinunter ins Nachtreich auch Nanna getrieben,

Als die Mistel gemordet ihren Gemahl.

Lauschend im Fenster des Fürstenpalastes

Lag Krimhilde und harrte des Gatten.

In banger Befürchtung bittersten Vorwurfs

Verlangte nun doch nach dem fernen Geliebten

Ihre sorgende Seele voll Sehnsucht und Schmerz.

Sie fühlte sich schuldig und ahnte des Schicksals

Nahenden Schritt. So vernahm sie, erschrocken

Und trüben Sinnes, den Trauergesang.

Während der Wohllaut der uralten Weise

Vom Rhein heraufklang, regten sich leise

Ihre Lippen und liessen die Worte des Liedes,

Welche sie kannte seit frühester Kindheit,

Also hören ihr eigenes Ohr:

‘O Balder, mein Buhle,

Wo bist du verborgen?

Vernimm doch, wie Nanna

Sich namenlos bangt.

Erscheine, du Schöner,

Und neige zu Nanna,

Liebkosend und küssend,

Den minnigen Mund.’

Da klingen von Klage

Die flammenden Fluren,

Von seufzenden Stimmen

Und Sterbegesang:

Die Blume verblühet,

Erblassend, enblättert;

Der Sommer entseelt sie

Mit sengendem Strahl.

Beim Leichenbegängnis

Des göttlichen Lenzes

Zerfallt sie und folgt ihm

In feurigen Tod.

‘O Balder, mein Buhle,

Verlangende Liebe,

Unsägliche Sehnsucht

Verbrennt mir die Brust.’

Da tönt aus der Tiefe

Der Laut des Geliebten:

‘Die Lichtwelt verliess ich,

Du suchst mich umsonst.’

‘O Balder, mein Buhle,

Wo bist du verborgen?

Gib Nachricht, wie Nanna

Dich liebend erlöst?’

‘Nicht rufst du zurück mich

Aus Tiefen des Todes.

Was du liebst, musst du lassen,

Und das Leid nur ist lang.’

‘O Balder, mein Buhle,

Dich deckt nun das Dunkel;

So nimm denn auch Nanna

Hinab in die Nacht.’

Wilhelm Jordan (1819-1904).

[A revival of alliteration seems never to have appealed to English poets in modern times. There are, however, a number of good translations of the Old English alliterative poem Beowulf; part of it is translated in this example:

Sorrowful sat in the Hall of the Hart, the Dane King Hrodgar

Mourning the brave one fallen, the dear friend dead.

Bowed was the hoary head and his heart was heavy,

Speechless a while, Then speedily sent he and bade them bring

Beowulf hither, the Grendel slayer, Agatheon’s son,

Straightway the Aethling answered his summons, strode thro’ the Hall,

First mid his followers all and the flooring strained at their feet,

Came to the King. With kindly custom he greeted him,

Questioning courteous if quiet the night.

Then answer made Hrodgar, strength of the skylding

Ask not of rest nor of night! renewed is the anguish

Doomed to the Danesmen. Aeskere is dead –

Aeskere, Irmenlow’s brother, of Aethlings the best.

Trusty in council was he and of comrades truest.

Foremost still at my side in the stress of the battle,

When man came breast against man and the boar tusks meet.

Here in the Hall of the Hart is he felly murdered

By a fiend most foul – which one I wot not.

Some there be of my fellows who warden the marshlands

Tell how twain there be such at times in the twilight

Ghostly figures haunting the homestead and vastly tall.

One was in woman’s shape and what stalked beside her

With menacing mien man’s form wore.

Yet huger them thinketh than human fashion.

Grendel they term him, the old ground tillers

Since times of yore – and his sire none guesseth

Nor knoweth none if brethren he boasteth

Nor kindred claimeth ’mongst grimly ghosts.

Bleak their abode and barren; holes where the wolf howls.

Trans. E. Bowen-Wedgwood.]

We see how in the first poem with its assonances, there lives the representational element, checked on the way to becoming a concept and held fast in enjoyment; and how in the second, which is built up on alliteration, on the repetition of consonants, there lives the element of will, checked on its way outwards and realizing itself in inner movement on the waves of the words, on the waves of a will-impulse that has been grasped conceptually.

You will see that in bringing the impulse of spiritual science to bear on aesthetic considerations there is no temptation to introduce those abstractions which so easily find their way into intellectually-derived studies of art. It will be evident from such studies as we have pursued here, even though we have only been able to indicate certain guidelines – how an understanding is brought to art, yet an understanding that is also a perceptive power, and which thus becomes a knowledge of things. Art and knowledge are gradually interwoven into a living spiritual perception, which makes itself felt and demands to be put to the test in that very sphere where man himself becomes an instrument of artistic expression. Knowledge such as this does not observe art from without, but is gained from an inner participation in art – and knowledge such as this can become the bridge that leads to the practice of art.

Especially when learning the art of recitation, you will find in such knowledge a support quite different from anything deriving from all those techniques of respiration based on external, materialistic and mechanistic observation of the human body, which result in voice-production that is purely external and mechanical. An inner awareness in the learning of an artform becomes possible. And now, in conclusion, I will just draw attention to a few instances of things which have to be learnt in recitation. What is at stake, for instance, is not how the voice or the tone can be sustained by some kind of external method of manipulating the breath, or placing the voice, in the way taught by some bad singing-teachers. The essential thing is that what should stay in the unconscious must still remain there when we are learning a subject such as this – a man should not just be wrenched out of everything unconscious through clumsy treatment of the body. Rather, through proper artistic formation and artistic treatment we can train our breathing so that the whole process remains in a certain sphere of the unconscious, and yet is drawn up into the soul-element which gives it artistic expression. We can then, for instance, develop a sustained tone by practising this where it is particularly preponderant: in the recitation of something of a sublime and exalted nature. If we try, when reciting such noble verse, to develop the sustained tone on a foundation of actual feeling, the poise of the voice and the breathing will develop of themselves, out of a true feeling for what is actually being recited.

We can develop correct intonation, and bring out the tone, by reciting examples of the ridiculous or comical; the required strengthening of the tone that we need in the rise and fall of speech for declamation or recitation we can achieve by practising the tragic; and we can learn to attenuate and mollify the tone by practising the joyful. We discover how it is really the soul-element which we grasp, and which must come to expression in recitation and declamation, and how, when we grasp it rightly, we draw the physical and corporeal after. We do not first adjust the physical with clumsy techniques that will rein our handling of these matters and lead, not to the development of a real art, but to mere routine. We enter upon a quite genuine, and yet straightforward practise and study of art. But this will only be obtained if there is in our knowledge so much of aesthetic sensibility, that with it we can approach art; and only if, on the other hand, our perception of man is so far evolved that in those arts which make use of man as an instrument, we can see man himself revealed – a revelation of art pierced through by the pulsating, pervading spirit of man.

Through these few guiding principles, scanty as they are, I hope to have shown you at least the direction in which an art-form as subtle and intimate as recitation and declamation leads: but this path can only be followed when the attempt is earnestly made to find the bridge between art and science. When I drew attention to this as one aspect, at the outset of the course, it was no mere empty phrase. The intention was to show you, taking the art of recitation and declamation as an example, that we do not merely set before ourselves the abstract ideal of unifying religion, art and science; but in pursuing true spiritual perception, leading to real spiritual knowledge, we do actually achieve something in the way of bringing knowledge to art and illumining artistic creation through knowledge. Thus will man be able to enter more and more consciously into art, and will be able to bring forth more and more consciously what he needs from art in the course of his evolution towards an absolutely free and truly human consciousness.

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

Ach, was soll der Mensch verlangen?

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,

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Today, seeing that from a living grasp of the anthroposophical world-conception there results something for the whole human being, for man in his totality, we would like to put forward something taken from the art of recitation. As I have mentioned already, there is a certain fear in artistic circles, especially among poets, reciters and so on, that everything approaching the conceptual, everything which takes a “scientific” form, is really foreign to art – and actually inimical to the original and vital in it, choking instinctive and intuitive art. And as regards that intellectuality which has arisen in the course of recent centuries of human development this is absolutely the case. Yet this very intellectuality is also connected with an inclination toward what is present in external, physical reality: our very languages have gradually adopted a certain form – what might be called a tendency towards materialism. In our words and their meaning lies something which points directly to the external sense-world. Hence this intellectuality, which possesses only picture-being and is all the more authentic the less it contains of life and reality from man’s inner nature – this intellectuality will indeed have little in common with the primordial vitality that must lie at the root of all art. But the reinvigoration of spiritual life to which Anthroposophy aspires means precisely the reimmersing of intellect in the primordial forces of man’s soul life. The artistic will not then appear in the so-much-dreaded gloom of intellectual pallor; imagination will not be drawn down through Anthroposophy into logic and materialism, but will on the contrary be made to bear fruit. From living together with the spiritual it will be nourished and bear fruit. An enhancement of art is to be hoped for just through its being pervaded by Anthroposophy and the anthroposophical way of thinking – the whole bearing and demeanour of Anthroposophy.

What applies to the arts as a whole we will show today with reference to recitation and declamation. Over the last decades recitation and declamation have been steered more and more into a predilection for endowing with form the meaning-content of the words. A stress on the word-for-word content has become increasingly conspicuous. Our times have little understanding for such a treatment of the spoken word as was characteristic of Goethe, who used to rehearse the actors in his plays with special regard for the formation of speech, standing in front of them like a musical conductor with his baton. The speech-formation, the element of form that underlies the word-for-word content – it is really this which inspires the true poet as an artist. The point must be emphasized: Schiller, when he felt drawn by inner necessity to compose a poem, to begin with had something in the way of an indeterminate melody, something of a melodic nature as the content of his soul; something musical floated through his soul and only afterwards came the word-for-word content, which had really only to receive what was for the poet, as an artist, the essential thing – the musical element of his soul. So we have on the one hand something musical, which as such would remain pure music; and on the other, the pictorial, painterly element to which in declamatory-recitative art we must return. To say something merely as an expression of the prose-content – it is not for this that true poetry exists. But to mould the prose-content, to re-cast it into measure and rhythm into unfolding melody – into what really lies behind the prose-content – for all this the art of poetry exists. We would surely not be favoured with such a mixed bag of poetry if we did not live in unartistic times when in neither painting nor sculpture, nor poetry nor its recitative-declamatory rendering, is true artistry to be found.

If we look at the means by which poetry is brought to expression, which in our case is recitation and declamation, then we must naturally refer to speech. Now speech bears within it a thought- and a will-element. The thought tends toward the prosaic. It comes to express a conviction; it comes to express what is demanded within the framework of conventions of a social community. And with the progress of civilization language comes to be permeated more and more with expressions of conviction, with conventional social expression and to that extent becomes less and less poetic and artistic. The poet will therefore first have to struggle with the language to give it an artistic form, to make it into sornething which is really speech-formation.

In my anthroposophical writings I have drawn attention to the character of the vowels in language. This character man experiences in the main through his inner being: what we live through inwardly from our experience in the outer world finds expression in the vowel-sounds. Occurrences that we portray objectively, the essential forms of the external world, come to expression in the consonants of a language. Naturally, the vocalic and consonantal nature of language varies from language to language. Indeed from the way in which a language deploys its consonants and vowels can be seen the extent to which it has developed into a more or less artistic language. Some modern languages, in the course of their development, have gradually acquired an inartistic character and are falling into decadence. When a poet sets out to give form to such a language, he is called upon to repeat at a higher level the original speech-creative process. [Note 17] In the construction his verses, in the treatment of rhyme and alliteration (we shall hear and discuss examples of these later) he touches upon something related to the speech-creative process. Where it is a matter of bringing inner being to expression, the poet will be drawn, by virtue of his intuitive and instinctive ability, to the vowels. The result will be an accumulation of vowels. And when the poet needs to give form to outward things or events, he will be drawn to the consonants. One or the other will be accumulated, depending an whether something inward or something external is being expressed. The reciter or declaimer must take this up, for he will then be able to re-establish the rhythm between inner being and the outer world. On this kind of speech-formation, on the bringing out of what lies within the artistic handling of speech, the formation of a new recitative and declamatory art-form will largely depend.

We will now introduce a few shorter poems to show how recitation and declamation must be guided by speech-formation.

MÄCHTIGES ÜBERRASCHEN

Ein Strom entrauscht umwölktem Felsensaale,
Dem Ozean sich eilig zu verbinden:
Was auch sich spiegeln mag von Grund zu Gründen,
Er wandelt unaufhaltsam fort zu Tale.

Dämonisch aber stürzt mit einem Male –
Ihr folgten Berg und Wald in Wirbelwinden –
Sich Oreas, Behagen dort zu finden,
Und hemmt den Lauf, begrenzt die weite Schale.

Die Welle sprüht und staunt zurück und weichet
Und schwillt bergan, sich immer selbst zu trinken:
Gehemmt ist nun zum Vater hin das Streben.

Sie schwankt und ruht, zum See zurückgedeichet;
Gestirne, spiegelnd sich, beschaun das Blinken
Des Wellenschlags am Fels, ein neues Leben.

—A Sonnet by Goethe.

[We encounter a similar movement and transition in style in the course of this English sonnet:

Devouring time blunt thou the Lyons pawes,
And make the earth devoure her owne sweet brood,
Plucke the keeneteeth from the fierce Tygers jawes,
And burne the long liv’d Phoenix in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do what ere thou wilt swift-footed time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most hainous crime,
O carve not with thy howers my loves faire brow,
Nor draw noe lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted doe allow,
For beauties patterne to succeding men.
Yet doe thy worst ould Time dispight thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

—William Shakespeare (1564-1616).]

Das Tier, die Pflanze, diese Wesen hatten
noch die un-menschliche Geduld der Erde;
da war ein Jahr, was heut nur noch Sekunde.

Jetzt geht ihr nichts mehr rasch genug von statten.
Der Mensch begann sein ungeduldig Werde.
Sie spürt: ‘Jetzt endlich kam die grosse Stunde:

auf die ich mich gezüchtet Jahrmillionen!
Jetzt brauch ich meinen Leib nicht mehr zu schonen,
jetzt häng ich bald als Geist an Gottes Munde.’

—A Ritornello by Christian Morgenstern.

[A series of three-line stanzas with recurring rhymes is a comparatively simple representative of a poetic form that is capable of being extended almost indefinitely. Our first poem is a relatively uncomplicated example; a second shows something of what can be achieved by a poet working within very strict limitations.

THE COVENANT

The covenant of god and animal,
The frieze of fabulous creatures winged and crowned,
And in the midst the woman and the man –

Lost long ago in fields beyond the Fall –
Keep faith in sleep-walled night and there are found
On our long journey back where we began.

Then the heraldic crest or nature lost
Shines out again until the weariless wave
Roofs with its sliding horror all that realm.

What jealousy, what rage could overwhelm
The golden lion and lamb and vault a grave
For innocence, innocence past defence or cost?

—Edwin Muir (1887-1959).

The highly-developed, courtly poetry of the late Middle Ages provides many examples of this type of elaborate and difficult structure. This Balade is a moderately ambitious and very beautiful instance:

TO ROSEMOUNDE

Madame, ye ben of al beaute shryne
As fer as bercled is the mappemounde;
For as the cristal glorious ye shyne,
And lyke ruby ben your chekes rounde.
Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde,
That at a revel whan that I see you daunce,
It is an oynement unto my wounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

For thogh I wepe of teres ful a tyne,
Yet may that wo myn herte nat confounde;
Your seemly voys that ye so smal outtwyne
Maketh my thoght in joye and blis habounde.
So curteisly I go, with love bounde,
That to my-self I sey, in my penaunce,
Suffyseth me to love you, Rosemounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

Nas never pyk walwed in galauntyne
As I in love am walwed and y-wounde;
For which ful ofte I of my-self divyne
That I am trewe Tristam the secounde.
My love may not refreyd be nor afounde;
I brenne ay in an amorous plesaunce.
Do what you list, I wil your thral be founde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

—Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400).]

WELTENSEELENGEISTER

Im Lichte wir schalten,
Im Schauen wir walten,
Im Sinnen wir weben.

Aus Herzen wir heben
Das Geistesringen
Durch Seelenschwingen.

Dem Menschen wir singen
Das Göttererleben
Im Weltengestalten.

—Poem in form of a Rondeau by Rudolf Steiner.

A scene will next be presented from my first Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation. What we have here is a representation of experiences connected with the spiritual world. One might be tempted to look upon something like this as contrived by the intellect, as though we were going after some sort of “symbolic” art – but that would not really be art at all. What will be spoken here, despite the psychic-spiritual nature of the events, was actually seen, in concrete form. Everything was there, down to the very sound of the words. Nothing had to be manufactured, or put together, or elaborated allegorically: it was simply there. We have attempted to give form to man’s manifold experiences in relation to the spiritual worlds; we have tried simply to give form to soul-forces, to what man can experience inwardly as differentiated soul-forces. Something results from this quite spontaneously, that is not shaped by any intellectual activity. As it is here a matter of purely spiritual contents, it is especially important to realize that it is not a matter of giving information or the prosaic word-for-word content, but of giving form to the actual spiritual contents. On the one hand a musical element will be perceptible – at the very point where one might suspect an intellectualising tendency – and on the other we will have a pictorial element, which must be particularly brought out whenever we are giving form to some kind of event. [Note 18]

From The Portal of Initiation, Scene 7.

MARIA: You, my sisters, at this hour
be once again my helpers,
as you have often been before, –
that I may make world-ether
resound within itself.
It shall ring out in harmony
and, ringing, permeate
a soul with knowledge.
I can behold the signs
that lead us to our task.
So shall your work
unite itself with mine.
Johannes, in his striving,
shall through creative deeds of ours
be raised to true existence.
The brothers in the temple
held council
how they could lead him
out of the depths to light-filled heights.
And they expect of us
that we arouse within his soul
the strength for soaring flight.
And so, my Philia, breathe in
clean essence of the light
from wide-flung spaces;
be filled with tones, enticing,
from souls’ creative power,
that you can hand to me
the gifts you gather
from spirit grounds.
Then I can weave them
into the stirring dances of the spheres.
And you, too, Astrid,
beloved mirror-image of my spirit,
create the power of darkness
in streaming light,
that colours may shine forth.
Bring harmony to tonal being
so that world-substance, weaving,
can live and sound.
I can entrust then spirit feeling
to seeking human senses.
And you, O sturdy Luna,
you are as firm within
as is the living heart
that grows within the tree;
join with your sisters’ gifts
the image of your own uniqueness,
that certainty of knowledge
be granted to the seeker.

PHILIA: I will imbue myself
with clearest essence of the light
from worldwide spaces.
I will breathe in sound-substance,
life-bestowing,
from far ethereal regions,
that you, beloved sister, with your work
may reach your goal.

ASTRID: And I will weave
into the radiant light
the clouding darkness.
I will condense
the life of sound,
that glistening it may ring
and ringing it may glisten,
that you, beloved sister,
may guide the rays of soul.

LUNA: I will enwarm soul-substance
and will make firm life-ether.
They shall condense themselves,
they shall perceive themselves,
and in themselves residing
guard their creative forces,
that you, beloved sister,
within the seeking soul
may quicken certainty of knowledge.

MARIA: From Philia’s horizons
shall stream forth joyfulness.
The undines’ power
of ever-changefulness shall rouse
a sensitivity of soul,
that the awakened one
can then experience
the world’s delight,
the world’s despair.
From Astrid’s weaving
shall spring forth love’s desire.
The airy life of sylphs
shall stir up in the soul
the urge for sacrifice,
that he, the consecrated one,
revive and quicken
those who are sorrow-laden,
those who are joy-entreating.
From Luna’s strength
shall stream forth firmness;
the power of fire-beings
can actively create
soul-certainty,
so that the knowing one
can find himself
in soul-life-weaving,
in world-life-breathing.

PHILIA: I will entreat the spirits of the worlds
that they, with light of being,
enchant soul feeling,
that they, with tone of words,
charm spirit hearing,
that he whom we must waken
may rise
upon soul paths
to heavenly heights.

ASTRID: I will guide streams of love,
that fill the world with warmth,
into the heart
of him, the consecrated one,
that he can bring
the grace of heaven
to earthly work
and mood of consecration
to sons of men.

LUNA: I will from primal powers
beseech both strength and courage,
and will imbed them deep
within the seeker’s heart,
that confidence
in his own self
may be with him
throughout his life.
He shall then feel himself
secure within himself.
And he shall pluck
each moment’s ripened fruit,
to draw from them their seeds
for all eternity.

MARIA: With you, my sisters,
united for this earnest work,
I shall succeed
in what I long to do.
There penetrates the cry
of him, who’s been so sorely tested,
into our world of light.
Trans. Ruth and Hans Pusch.

When we come to the sonnet it is, of course, to be taken for granted that a sonnet does not arise from the intention to compose a sonnet, but by necessity from the working out of inner experiences. It is evident that the sonnet tends toward something visual or pictorial that lives in the language – we have an experience which is in some way twofold. Such an experience presents itself, and we wish to give it a form, such as appears in the first two strophes. But we are then thrown into a contradiction of inner experience. The second strophe confronts the first wave, so to speak, like a counter-wave. And in the last two strophes we feel the contradictions that govern the universe. The human heart and the human mind strive for a unison, a harmonious association, so that they may resolve in harmony what found expression in discord and overcome the material dissonance through the spirituality of harmony. This is manifested even in the rhyme-scheme of the first two strophes and in the linked rhymes of the concluding strophes. In as far as there is not such a necessity of inner experience, a sonnet cannot arise; for it must manifest itself even down to the rhyme-scheme as a picture-form. And now, the musical element infiltrates this pictorial form: a musicality that depends principally on vowel sounds, and on what enters the vowel from the consonant – for every consonant has its vowel-element. This gives what one might call musical substance to the primarily pictorial form taken by the sonnet. What is present within the sonnet, shaping it, is metrical and, in the art of speaking, metre is brought to expression specifically through recitation: something the Greeks managed to bring to a certain eminence. The Greeks lived in the metre; that is to say, in the plastic element of the language. If, on the other hand, we look at what comes to us from the Nordic or Central European, Germanic tradition, we see how into the plasticity of speech there enters something musical from within. Here we have something which streams out more from the will, more from the personality whereas with the Greeks everything flows from metrical clarity of vision. With the Greeks it was primarily the art of recitation that attained a certain peak, whereas among the Germanic peoples it was declamatory art, drawing on the musical principle and flowing into themes and rhythms and cadences, which stirred into activity. And whereas in recitation we have to do with something in speech that in one sound broadens, in another makes ‘pointed’, forming it pictorially – in musicality we have what endows language with a melodic quality. It is in fact something like this that we can see in the sonnet and its treatment in the several regions of Europe. We can see how the declamatory united with the recitative, how the Germanic later united with the Greek feeling for measure. [Note 19] It is of some importance for us to realise the musical as well as the plastic quality inherent in speech-formation, for us to learn to introduce into declamation and recitation something which essentially leads us from what has significance for the senses to what is moved by the spirit. For this, it is once again necessary to have a feeling for poetic form as such – the form of a ritornello or a rondeau, for instance. This does not in truth make for a poetry wanting in thought; it simply expresses thought, not through abstractions, but through its productive creativity. If it is to adapt itself to forms created in this way, the art of speaking must be restored to a life in the actual waves of speech – the recitative with its pure formation; and the high or low intonations, the melodic forms of declamation. And if a dramatic touch has to be added, as in the scene you have just heard, which dealt with purely spiritual experiences, the intellectual significance or literal meaning must be completely overcome, completely transformed from a literal communication of prose fact into actual speech-formation. We thus have in immediate presentation the same experience as when in a prose piece we pass from prosaic understanding to a vision of what is represented in the prosaic. The pleasure of the prosaic is indirect: we must first understand, and through understanding we are then led to visualisation. This entails from the first something inartistic, for the aesthetic quality lies in immediacy. The art of speech-formation must have direct expression. What is actually presented (and not an intellectual imitation of it) must show itself and be given form. In our times we often see so-called poets working up intellectual imitations, rather than those immediate responses which make themselvesfelt in speech-formation. Goethe, who expresses so beautifully a living apprehension of tranquillity – a tranquillity preceding that of sleep – gives it utterance in these lines:

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh;
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

Compare Shelley, “Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.”

The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the grey air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,
And evening’s breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is complete accord between the feeling for the summits and the tree-tops and what goes on in our own heart. A harmony lies in the sounds, in the very word-formation, so that what is mediated to us through the outer world sounds again – especially if we really listen to the poem – in the word- and speech-formation. All our experience of the outer world has passed over into the speech-formation itself. That would be the ideal of true poetry: to be able to present an experience received from outside in the very treatment of the language. The mere repetition of external experience, simply trying to express external experience in words – this is not poetry. The art of poetry only arises when something experienced in the outer world is reconstituted out of the life of the human soul in terms of pure speech-formation. [Note 20]

We can observe this in a truly artistic poet like Goethe, when he feels the need to recreate an identical prose-content out of a different mood and feeling. From living with the Gothic and the mood it transmitted to him, from the feeling let us say for the pointed arches striving upwards, which he felt most deeply in his appreciation of Strasbourg Cathedral, Goethe had gained at the beginning of his time in Weimar a sensibility which, when given poetic form, became something like inner declamation. Thought and feeling took such a form in him that we can experience directly in speech-formation something also to be found in contemplating a Gothic cathedral. We can see something striving upwards, something unfinished, in a Gothic cathedral; and this was Goethe’s mood in Weimar when he conceived his Iphigeneia. Driven by a deep longing for the fulfilment of his poetic disposition, Goethe set out, but in the course of his journey south he was gradually overcome by another mood – by a longing for measure. Faced with the Italian art that confronted him there, he felt a kind of echo of Greek art. He writes to his Weimar friends: “I suspect that the Greeks created their works of art in accordance with the very laws by which nature proceeds.” Looking at the Saint Cecilia, at Raphael’s works, the essence of metre became clear to him; and this became an inner recitation. He no longer felt the form of his first Iphigeneia to be a personal truth: he forged his play anew, so that we now have a Nordic and a southern Iphigeneia. Any consideration of the Nordic Iphigeneia must treat of it in terms of declamatory art, where it is preeminently the vowels that hold sway and that give form in the sounding of speech. In the Roman Iphigeneia recitation must predominate: what is relevant here is the plastically formed presentation of experience in a speech-formation comparable to the presentation in Raphael’s work. In two short passages we shall now compare the two versions of Iphigeneia and have before us what goes on in a poet when he really lives in aesthetic form and has to recreate his artistic forms out of inner necessity. Recitation and declamation must strive to follow poetry such as this.

In the first instance, therefore, we will present the Gothic-German Iphigeneia as Goethe originally conceived it – the Weimar Iphigeneia. [Note 21]

[Blake’s earlier poetry was strongly influenced by Romantic interest in northern “Bardic” verse, and something of its powerful declamatory nature can still be felt in this “Introduction” to Songs of Experience:

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk’d among the ancient trees,

Calling the lapsed Soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might controll
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

‘O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The wat’ry shore,
Is giv’n thee till the break of day.’

—William Blake (1757-1827.]

And now Goethe wished to introduce into these verses something fundamentally alien to the north. These verses express what I have just claimed as emerging straight from the whole mood living in Goethe. It can be said, of course, that anyone who does not enter into the genuinely aesthetic will lack the deep sense of necessity that Goethe felt in Italyof forging his favourite subject, Iphigeneia, anew. Not only was he subject in Italyto impressions of what he regarded as Greek art, but the sun there has a different effect. A differently coloured heaven arches over us, and the plants struggle up from the earth in a different way. All this made its mark on Goethe, and we can trace how in every line he is again compelled to rewrite and adapt the substance of his Iphigeneia to a quite different mood. It was Hermann Grimm who first showed a really sensitive understanding for these matters. In his lectures on Goethe he stressed the radical difference between the German and the Roman Iphigeneia, demonstrating how Goethe transformed what at first lived in the dimension of depth, so to speak – where there is a tendency to make the tone too full, too bright, or too dull, in order to achieve a spiritual expression of the literal prose content; he showed how Goethe transformed this into something that lives in the plane of speech, as it were, in the metre, and how he tried to introduce into his Iphigeneia the symmetry he believed himself to have found in Greek art.

In order to characterise what Goethe experienced in artistic speech, therefore, it becomes necessary to work from the declamatory into the recitative when producing his Roman Iphigeneia – the recitative which, as we have said, the Greeks brought to perfection. [Note 22]

[To a much greater extent than Goethe, Blake consistently reworked his poetry into ever different forms as he matured and changed as a poet. By the time he came to write “Night the Ninth” of The Four Zoas he had extended his range to include a classically derived pastoral verse with a much more recitative quality. The visionary scene from the earlier “Introduction” appears again there – though after a more thorough metamorphosis than was the case with Goethe’s play. This is The Four Zoas ix, 386-409:

And thus their ancient golden age renew’d; for Luvah spoke
With voice mild from his golden Cloud upon the breath of morning:

‘Come forth, O Vala, from the grass & from the silent dew,
Rise from the dews of death, for the Eternal Man is Risen.’

She rises among flowers & looks toward the Eastern clearness,
She walks yea runs, her feet are wing’d, on the tops of the bending grass,
Her garments rejoice in the vocal wind & her hair glistens with dew.

She answer’d thus: ‘Whose voice is this, in the voice of the nourishing air,
In the spirit of the morning, awaking the Soul from its grassy bed?
Where dost thou dwell? for it is thee I seek, & but for thee
I must have slept Eternally, nor have felt the dew of thy morning.
Look how the opening dawn advances with vocal harmony!
Look how the beams foreshew the rising of some glorious power!

The sun is thine, he goeth forth in his majestic brightness.
O thou creating voice that callest! & who shall answer thee?’

‘Where dost thou flee, O fair one? where doth thou seek thy happy place?’

‘To yonder brightness, there I haste, for sure I came from thence
Or I must have slept eternally, nor have felt the dew of morning.’

‘Eternally thou must have slept, not have felt the morning dew,
But for yon nourishing sun; ’tis that by which thou art arisen.
The birds adore the sun: the beasts rise up & play in his beams
And every flower & every leaf rejoices in his light.
Then, O thou fair one, sit thee down, for thou art as the grass,
Thou risest in the dew of morning & at night art folded up.’

—William Blake.

It may be that in the case of an artist like Goethe, we shall find what it is that flows over into form only if we can understand with full intensity how, when he himself spoke his Iphigeneia, tears would roll down his cheeks. Goethe found his way from the Dionysian – to use the Nietzschean expression – into the Apollonian, into metrical form. Because the Greeks in their soul-life stirred the will to this metrical formation, they achieved something in this Apollonian realm, and of this Nietzsche felt that here art is exalted above outer sense-reality. He felt that art could elevate us above the pessimism of a humanity confronting the tragic in the immediate reality of physical perception. What holds sway here as the inner, the essentially human – though conforming to measure and the Apollonian principle – this was what particularly attracted Goethe once he had entered this element, and induced him to attempt the creation of something in Greek metre, in an inwardly recitative-declamatory style rather than his former purely declamatory one.

We will now give an example, from Goethe’s “Achilleis”, of the aesthetic form that Goethe conceived after he had sunk himself in the metrical, inwardly recitative style of the Greeks. [Note 23]

[In their attempts to recapture the feeling of the original Greek some translators have been driven to adopt a hexameter verse, as in this rendering of Odyssey VI, 85ff:

Now when at last they arrived at the beautiful stream of the river,
Here the perennial basins they found where waters abundant
Welled up brightly enough for the cleansing of dirtiest raiment.
So their mules they unloosened from under the yoke of the waggon,
Letting them wander at will on the bank of the eddying river,
Browsing on clover as sweet as the honey, and then from the carriage
Bearing within their arms to the deep dark water the garments
Cast them in trenches and trod them in rivalry one with another.
So, when the raiment was washed and was thoroughly cleansed of the dirt-stains,
All on the shore of the ocean in order they spread on the shingle
Where it is washed by the tides of the sea as they sweep to the dry land.
There did they bathe and anointing themselves with the oil of the olive
Set them adown to the midday meal on the bank of the river,
Leaving the garments to dry on the beach in the glare of the sunlight,
Now when in food they had fully delighted, both she and her maidensj
Casting aside their scarfs with a ball they betook them to playing,
White-armed Nausicaa with the choral melody leading.
E’en as descending a height moves Artemis, darter of arrows,
Either on Taygetus long-ridged or on huge Erymanthus,
Taking delight in the chase of the boar and of timorous roe-deer,
Whilst all around her the daughters of Zeus, who beareth the aegis,
Nymphs of the woodland, play – and Leto sees it rejoicing;
Even as over the rest uplifting her brows and her forehead
Easily known in her beauty she stands, though fair be the others,
Thus shone forth in her beauty the maiden amidst her attendants.
Now when at last it was come to the moment of homeward returning,
After the mules were yoked and folded the beautiful garments,
Other was then the device of the grey-eyed goddess Athene,
E’en that Odysseus awaking and seeing the fair-faced maiden
Her might follow as guide and reach Phaeacia’s city.
Seizing the Ball, at the maiden among her attendants the princess
Flung it, but missing the maiden it fell in a bottomless eddy.
Piercingly all of them shrieked; and godlike Odysseus, awakened,
Sat straight up and pondered thereon in his heart and his spirit:
‘Ah me! what is the folk whose country I now am arrived at?
Dwell here savages wanton and wild, despisers of justice?
Have they a love for the stranger and hearts that revere the immortals?
Lo, how piercing a cry as of maidens ringeth around me,
Nymphs peradventure that dwell on precipitous summits of mountains,
Or by the fountain springs of the rivers and leas of the lowlands;
Else, maybe, I am near to a folk of articulate language.
Nay, go to, I will test for myself this matter and view it.’

Trans. H.B. Cotterill.

With such poetry Goethe tried to find his way back to Hellenism. He believed himself, as he felt at a certain period of his life, nearer to the original source of poetry than he could ever have been had he not gone back to the Greeks. We have to look at Goethe’s instinctive artistic life, when he sought Greek metre and what the Greeks had formed plastically in inner recitation. As with the other art-forms, true poetry was to be sought where the fountain-head of art sprang more abundantly – in primitive humanity, in unaccommodated man and his inner experience, not yet shrouded by the thick veil of materialistic civilisation. In Greek, we can observe the measured flow of the hexameter; we observe how the dactyls are formed. What do we really have in this verse-measure? Now we must remember, speaking more theoretically, how something lives in man which strives inwardly toward a certain rhythm or harmony of rhythms.

Let us take, on the one hand, the breathing-rhythm: in a normal person of average age, about 18 breaths per minute; while in the same space of time we have 72 pulse-beats, four beats coinciding with each breath. This is an inner harmonising of rhythms in human nature. Let us picture the four pulse-beats taking place in each breath and consider their ratio, their harmony with the breath. Let us bring the first two pulse-beats together into one long syllable, and the remaining two pulsebeats into two short syllables. We then have the verse-measure underlying the hexameter. We can also produce the hexameter for ourselves by examining the harmony of the four and the one: the first three feet and, as the fourth, the caesura – all being related to the one breath. What is formed in this way we derive from man’s own being: we create out of man’s being, embodying in speech an expression of human rhythms. Now the fourfold rhythm of the blood can, of course, struggle with the unitary breathing-rhythm, separating and reuniting as they strive toward harmony. They separate in this or that direction, and then flow together again. In this way are revealed the several forms of verse and prosody. But each time it is an overflowing of what lives in man himself into speech. In the formation of Greek metres man unfolds his own being; something of man’s most intimate morphology comes to his lips and forms itself into speech. Here then lies the mystery: the Greeks strove for vocal expression of the most intimate, even organic life of man’s rhythmic system.

Goethe felt this. The Greeks by their very nature (and let us not misunderstand this) were striving after thought. Not for mere abstract thought, but something that led them away, through thought, into concrete speech-formation – the pictorial that is active in man. For what occurs in man through the confluence of the blood- and breathing-rhythms is transmitted to the brain and transformed into thought-content. The process is even vaguely recognisable in prose. This is really thought that has been stripped of everything that lay hidden in Greek recitative metre. The Greeks spoke of the music of Apollo’s lyre, meaning man himself as a work of art: a rhythmic being in the harmony of his breathing- and blood-rhythms. Here are uttered unfathomable cosmic mysteries which tell us more than any prose language can.

Into all this sounds the will. As we turn to the north we meet once more with the declamatory. The general inclination of Nordic language, Nordic speech-formation, is to make the will predominant. It is mainly breathing which lives in Greek rhythm (being closer to thought than the blood-circulation), but the experience of blood-circulation was rightly regarded by ancient spiritual researchers as the immediate expression of human personality, the human ego. And this is what lives in the Nordic treatment of speech. Here we see how the blood-rhythm strikes in and the breathing rhythm recedes. We see in addition how the blood-rhythm is connected with the mobility of the entire man. Looking back, we see how in the Nibelungenlied Nordic man could sense the wave-beat of his blood, instigated by a will-impulse and then subsiding into thought: in this way alliteration comes into being. We begin with a will-impulse, which then strikes up against the form, like a wave building up and then subsiding again into the repose of rhythm. This was felt as something constituting the whole man. Whereas the Greeks wanted to penetrate inwards into the breathing-system, Nordic man was inclined towards depth of personality and the life of the blood-rhythm. Nordic-Germanic poetry is spiritualised human blood. Here the will lives and gives itself form. We must imagine the will-working of Wotan, moving on waves of air or welling up in man as blood and forming the human personality. [Note 24]

The primal element of will, the human being as a whole, finds expression in Nordic-Germanic poetry. We can see this welling-up and surging in the epic Nibelungenlied. And even in more recent times, Wilhelm Jordan has tried to imitate the alliterative style, such as lived in Nordic declamation, and has tried in the speech-formation of his own epic to restore to life the things I have described. What lives in Jordan’s Nibelunge, therefore, we must not simply declaim by extracting and stressing the prose content. Rather, there must sound forth that wave-motion drawn from the inner nature of man. In Wilhelm Jordan’s alliteration, these Wotan-waves must sound forth as they did when he himself recited them. This he actually did; those who were still able to hear him will know how he tried, through a declamatory verse-technique, to draw out what is latent in alliteration.

We shall conclude by giving an example from the beginning of the Nibelungenlied, where the Nordic element (as opposed to Greek metre) is in evidence. This will strike a contrast to what Goethe, particularly in his later years, received from Greek culture. From there he derived the finest quality that lived in him, while yet wishing to unite it, together with the Nordic, into a single whole.

And finally, a short passage of alliterative verse from Wilhelm Jordan’s Nibelunge – his attempt at a re-creation of ancient German poetry.

From The Nibelungenlied.

I. Äventiurde

Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit
von heleden lobebaeren, von grôzer arebeit;
von freude und hôchgezîten, von weinen unde klagen,
von küener recken strîten möget ir nu wunder hoeren sagen

Ëz wuohs in Buregonden ein vil edel magedîn,
daz in allen Landen niht schoeners mohte sîn,
Kriemhilt geheizen, diu wart ein schoene wîp;
dar umbe muosen dëgene vil verliesen dën lîp

Der minneclîchen meide trüejen wol gezam:
ir moutten küene recken, niemen was ir gram.
âne mâzen schoene sô was ir edel lîp:
der juncfrouwen tugende zierten anderiu wîp.

Ir pflâgen drî künige edel unde rîch,
Gunther unde Gêrnôt die recken lobelîch,
unt Gîselher dër junge, ein waetlîcher dëgen;
diu frouwe was ir swëster, die helden hetens in ir pflëgen.

Ein rîchiu küneginne frou Uote ir muoter hiez;
ir vater dër hiez Dancrât, dër in diu erbe liez
sît nâch sîme lëbene, ein ellens rîcher man,
dër ouch in sîner jugende grôzer êren vil gewan.

Die hërren wâren milte, von arde hôhe erborn,
mit kraft unmâzen küene die recken ûzerkorn.
dâ zën Burgonden sô was ir lant genannt.
si frümten starkiu wunder sît in Etzelen lant.

Ze Wormze bî dëm Rîne si wonten mit ir kraft;
in dienten von ir landen vil stolziu ritterschaft
mit lobelîchen êren unz an ir endes zît.
si sturben jaemerlîche sît von zweier frouwen nît.

Die drî künige wâren, als ich gesaget hân,
von vil hôhem ellen; in wâren undertân
ouch die besten recken, von dën man hât gesaget,
starc unt viel küene, in scharpfen strîten unverzaget.

Daz was von Tronege Hagene, unt ouch dër bruoder sîn
Dancwart dër snëlle, von Metzen Ortwîn,
Die zwêne marcgrâven, Gêre unt Eckewart,
Volkêr von Alzeie, mit ganzem ellen wol bewart,

Rûmolt dër küchenmeister, ein ûzerwelter dëgen,
Sindolt unde Hûnolt; dise hërren muosen pflëgen
dës hoves unt dër êren, dër drîer künige man.
si heten noch manigen recken, dës ich genennen nienen kan.

Dancwart dër was marschalc; dô was dër nëve sîn
truhsetze dës küniniges von Metzen Ortwîn.
Sindolt dër was schenke, ein waetlîcher dëgen;
Hûnolt was kameraere: si kunden, hôher êren pflëgen

Von dës hoves êre unt von ir wîten kraft,
von ir vil hôhen wërdekeit unt von ir ritterschaft,
dër die hërren pflâgen mit freuden al ir lëben,
dësn künde iu ze wâre niemen gar ein ende gëben.

In disen hôhen êren troumte Kriemhilde,
wie si züge einen valken starc, schoene unt wilde,
dën ir zwên’ arn erkrummen; daz sie daz muoste sëhen,
irn kunde in dirre wërlde leider nimmer geschëhen.

Dën troum si dô sagete ir muoter Uoten.
sine kundes niht bescheiden baz dër guoten
‘dër valke, den du ziuhest, daz ist ein edel man;
in enwëlle got behüeten, du muost in schiere vloren hân.’

‘Waz saget ir mir von manne, vil liebiu muoter mîn?
âne recken minne sô wil ich immer sîn;
sus schoene ich wil belîben unz an mînen tôt,
daz ich von recken minn sol gewinnen nimmer nôt.’

‘Nune versprich ëz niht ze sêre,’ sprach ir muoter dô.
‘soltu immer hërzenlîche zër wërlde wërden vrô,
daz kümt von mannes minne; du wirst ein schoene wîp,
ob dir got gefüeget eins rëhte guoten ritters lîp.’

‘Die rede lât belîben, vil liebiu frouwe mîn;
ëz ist an manigen wîben vil dicke worden schîn,
wie liebe mit leide ze jungest lônen kan;
ich sol sie mîden beide, sone kan mir nimmer missegân.’

Kriemhilt in ir muote sich minne gar bewac.
sît lëbete diu vil guote vil manigen lieben tac,
daz sine wësse niemen, dën minnen wolde ir lîp
sît wart si mit êren eins vil wërden recken wîp.

Dër was dër sëlbe valke, dën si in ir troume sach,
dën ir beschiet ir muoter. wie sêre siu daz rach
An ir naehsten mâgen, die in sluogen, sint!
durch sîn eines stërben starp vil maniger muoter kint.

[Langland’s Piers Plowman is among the masterpieces of the English “Alliterative Revival” of the fourteenth century. This extract is from the C-text version, Passus IX, 152-191:

A Brytonere com braggynge a-bosted Peers al-so;
‘Wolle thow, ne wolle thow we wolleth habbe oure wil,
Bothe thy flour and thy flessh fecchen when ous lyketh,
And make ous myrye ther-myd maugre ho bygruccheth!’
Peers the plouhman tho pleynede to the knyght,
To kepe hym and hus catel as covenent was bytwyne hem:
‘Awreke me of these wastours that maken thys worlde dere;
Thei counte nat of cursing ne holy kirke dreden;
Ther worth no plente,’ quath Peers ‘and the plouh ligge.’
Curtesliche the knyght then as hus kynde wolde,
Warned Wastour and wissed hym betere,
‘Other ich shal bete thy by the lawe and brynge the in stockes.’
‘Ich was nat woned to wirche,’ quath Wastour and ich wolle nat now bygynne,’
And let lyght of the lawe and lasse of the knyght,
And sette Peers at a pese pleyne hym wher he wolde.
‘Now, by Crist,’ quath Peers ‘y shal apeyre yow alle!’
And hopede after Hunger that herde him at the ferste.
‘Ich praye the,’ quath Peers tho ‘pur charite, sire Honger,
Awreke me of these wastours for the knyght wol nat.’
Honger hente in haste Wastour by the mawe,
And wrang hum by the wombe that al waterede hus eyen.
He buffated the Brutener a-boute the chekes,
That he loked lyk a lanterne al hus lyf after.
He bet hem so bothe be barst neih hure guttes,
Ne hadde Peers with a peese-lof prayede hym by-leve.
Honger, have mercy of hem,’ quath Peers and let me yeve hem benes;
And that was bake for bayarde may be here bote.’
Tho were faitours a-fered and flowen to Peersses bernes,
And flapten on with flailes fro morwe til evene,
That Honger was nat hardy on hem for to loke,
For a potful of potage that Peersses wyf made.
An hep of eremites henten hem spades,
Spitten and spradde donge in despit of Hunger.
Thei corven here copes and courtepies hem made,
And wenten as workmen to weden and mowen;
Al for drede of here deth such dyntes yaf Hunger.
Blynd and brokeleggede he botnede a thousande,
And lame men he lechede with longen of bestes.
Preestes and other peple to Peers thei drowen,
And freres of alle fyve orders al for fere of Hunger.

William Langland (c.1331- ?).

From Die Nibelungen.
“Hildebrand’s Homecoming”, Canto 17:

Schon drängten sich draussen mit dröhnenden Tritten Zu jedem der Tore der Krieger tausend; Schon hob sein Hifthorn der Hunnenkönig, Um Sturm zu blasen. Doch stumm noch blieb es. Ob sein Herz auch zermalmt war, er musste horchen, Und gramvoll beseufzte die grosse Seele Verloren Grund begrabener Hoffnung In des stolzen Germanen Sterbegesang:

‘Erwacht! In den Wolken
Ist Waffengerassel.
Erwacht, es gewittert,
‘Als wieherten Rosse.
Walkürien kommen
Zum Kampf geflogen
In glänzenden Brünnen,
Von Brautlust glühend.
Sie lenken herunter
Die luftigen Renner,
Um Tapfer zu kiesen
Mit tötendem Kuss.

Erwachet! Es warten
Die Wodanswölfe,
Es rufen die Raben
Ihr Mahl zu rüsten.
Um der Seele die Pforte
Zum Sonnenpfade
Weit aufzuschliessen,

Ist Eisen geschliffen.
Das Leben ist Schlaf nur,
Erlösung der Schlachttod.
Erwachet zum Sterben,
Und Sterbend erwacht.

Erwachet! Es winken
Von Walhalls Schwelle
Die erkorenen Gäste
Des Götterkönigs.
Da lebt ihr in Leibern
Aus Licht gewoben;
Da ist Kampf nur Kurzweil
Und Wunde Wollust.
Da labt das Gedenken
Erduldeter Leiden,
Da schildert ihr scherzend
Der Niblunge Not.’

Wilhelm Jordan

[In the absence of any modern English attempt to restore alliteration in its full-blooded form, there may be a certain interest here in the following piece. The chiming effect of the alliterations serves in this instance rather to embellish and lend spice to the recitative flow of the verse, not aspiring to become the ordering principle of the poem:

EUROPA AND THE BULL

Naked they came, a niggling core of girls
Maggoting gaily in the curling wool
Of morning mist, and careless as the lark
That gargled overhead. They were the root
Of all that writhing air, the frothing rock
Of that grey sea in whose vacuity
Footless they stood, nor knew if it or they
Were moving now. Yet, even as they gazed,
Cave after cave of light calved out of gloom,
As on they glided through the muddling veils
Roof rose on roof, laugh laddered into laugh
Into the motionless meadow, clear as stone,
Interminably domed.
Nothing supernal here; only cow-parsley:
Any place was convenient velvet,
And everwhere was peace, pin-drizzled by
Bird-song; the bay bare lake a gong
Unbruised. Easy at the sea’s edge the rocks
Breathed up and down.
The Inland hills stood still
Like hoardings to be stared at. Happy place!
And happy happy day! How giddily then
They sleeked along the sand with smoking heels.
Some frayed off with fountain-fling of arms
To play and plunge, staccatoing the water
And some more slowly followed, picking the deep flowers
Out of the fume and underdrone of bees: green-kneed
They rose and fell in waves delightedly: new sights
Consumed them; new mites and motes of smell
Held and incensed them: crumbs of booty glowed
In every foot-dent, eiderdowntrodden.
And all among them moved the moon-like cows
Grazing light tracks across the long night-grass.

But look! the Bull! indubitably bull,
Elbowing slowly through the obeisant herd,
Blazing and bellowing. His massy head,
Laden like a dahlia, dallied and swung,
And his vast eye slid to and fro as sharp
And glaucous as sea-holly, salting all
Their thoughts with suddenness. They hardly knew
What most to admire; but most his hub of power
And circumambience of gentleness
Delighted them. Arms curved and craved to stroke
His milky sides, insidiously veined
With watery blues and bloody ivyings.
But how describe him? words can only add
To lightning the thunder’s redundancy.
He was most godlike and most temperate.

Slow, slow, slow, with bubble-pause and slide
He paced before Europa there, and she
As if with shivering drew her shoulders now
Shyly about her, yet she shivered still.
Never did shadow so shimmer with midges
As she with switherings. Should she go?
Or no? Body and soul see-sawed in her.
As slowly the swan comes forward, in advance
Bearing its bellying tray of effusive plumes,
Yet backward rears its head and huffs its glance
As if it fended off its offering that presumes:
Swollen with slowness and undertowed by longing
It grows on the water, close, thundery, and thronging,
Till suddenly beside us, without fuss,
Immense it blossoms like a cumulus –
So slowly rose Europa, slowly she
Opened her fan-like self and mounted him
And spread her valances.
O how his reticence reined and trounced him then,
Lifting his feet into flounces of flight
And ratchet-edges of agitation,
Chawing each gentle step. To have and to hold –
How he would love to have but feared to hold
Her who as srnooth as metal sat and smiled.
And how his silver slaverings flowed, and now
His chattering hooves danced under him like stones....