The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Artists don't like it when people talk about their art who are not themselves active in the field of this art. An important musician once said to me: only the musician should talk about music. I replied that in that case nobody but the plant should talk about the nature of the plant and that we would therefore never get to hear anything about the nature of plants, given their well-known inability to speak. The composer replied to me with the consistency of judgment that is always characteristic of important people: who can claim that we know anything at all about the nature of the plant? It is quite true that only the plant itself could enlighten us about its essence. But since it cannot speak, it is not possible to learn anything about this essence.

It is easy to refute such a view. What we humans call the essence of the plant could never be expressed by the plant itself. We call the "essence of the plant" what we feel and think when we allow the plant to have an effect on us. What the plant feels and thinks and recognizes as its essence in feelings and thoughts is of no use to us. We are only concerned with what we experience when the plant has an effect on us. And we express what we experience there and call it the essence of the plant. How we express what we feel through the impression of the plant depends on which means of expression we can use according to our talent. The lyricist sings of the plant; the philosopher forms the idea of the plant in his mind. Just as the lyricist cannot demand that the plant make a poem about itself, the philosopher will not demand that the plant express its own idea.

So it is with art. I don't believe that the artist should talk about his own art. But of course that is not necessarily true. Because the individual human abilities cannot be completely separated from one another. The plant will never have the ability to talk about itself. The lyricist may have the ability to talk about the lyricist. But the ability to talk about the lyricist is not at all linked to the ability to produce Iyric poems. And the ability to be a lyricist is not linked to the ability to talk about poetry. And so it is in all the arts. Artists can sometimes talk about their art, but often they should remain silent. When they demand of others who are not active in the field of their art that they should not talk about their art, they are speaking like plants, who demand of people that they should not talk about plants, because only plants are called upon to say something about themselves.

Today we have to resort to paradoxical statements if we want to communicate. I have done so in the lines above to show how ridiculous it is for artists to demand that people should not talk about an art in which they themselves are not active.

But now I would also like to reverse the paradox. The lyricist who sings about the plant, the philosopher who expresses the idea of the plant in words, should not be expected to produce a real plant.

There are certainly people who can write dramas of excellent value, even though they are capable of expressing excellent ideas about drama. They are always interesting personalities. They are also happy personalities. For they need not impose any constraints on themselves. Those who can express themselves about art in words and at the same time are able to cultivate an art that corresponds to their words are certainly happy. Those who cannot, however, have the noble virtue of resignation. He is content to talk about art as if it were a plant, and renounces producing a work of art as he renounces producing a plant.

This renunciation expresses the nobility of the aesthete. If he does not renounce, but nevertheless undertakes to create something that belongs to the field he is talking about, he shows that he does not deserve to be taken seriously. An aesthetician who talks about drama and then creates a miserable dramatic work of art is like a poet who sings about the autumn crocus and then forms such a plant miserably out of papier-mâché. We then no longer believe in the sincerity of his feelings. We believe that he felt no more about the real autumn crocus than he did about the papier-mâché one.

What I have written here went through my mind when I came out of the "Neues Theater" (Berlin) on August 16, 1898. The director Siegmund Lautenburg, Austrian and Knight of the Order of Franz Joseph, had the patriotic festival play "Habsburg" performed to celebrate the anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph the First. I refrain from saying anything against the director Lautenburg from the outset. He is an Austrian and it is nice of him to make sacrifices to his Austrian patriotism. Judging by the poor attendance, the performance, which was excellent, must have really cost Mr. Lautenburg something. But what can you do when you are Austrian, a Knight of the Order of Franz Joseph and also have a theater in Berlin at your disposal! The director also appeared in the interim files with all his medals - that was good again. I mean that quite seriously. Because an author with high decorations should also have appeared.

I don't know what medals Baron Alfred von Berger, the author of the play "Habsburg" I'm talking about, has. He appeared without a medal when he was summoned. But his play is a change to the highest Austrian medals there are - sorry, shouldn't medals be for higher than poetic merit?

I went to the performance on August 16 with curiosity.

When I was still in Vienna - ten years ago now - Alfred von Berger was a personality that people talked about. He was - as people said - the right candidate for the Burgtheater directorship. He cut off the discussion as to whether he should be appointed or not by marrying Stella Hohenfels, the incomparable actress of the Burgtheater. A house law of the Burgtheater forbids the director to be married to an artist of the institute. So the supporters of the "Berger Directorate" have it good. They say that he would of course be the best Burgtheater director. There is no doubt that he would have been appointed long ago, but he cannot be appointed because he is married to the irreplaceable Stella Hohenfels. Either Stella Hohenfels must leave or Baron Berger cannot become director. The former is impossible, so...

Another theater is now unavailable to Baron von Berger, which is why he is still without a position as theater director. During his incessant candidate period, he is now busy talking about the theater and about art. There are people who think something of his speeches about art. And he really has said some quite good things. In his "Dramaturgical Lectures" there are all kinds of splendid remarks about dramatic art.

After his speeches on art, you might have thought Alfred von Berger was a fine connoisseur of art. But I always believed that there wasn't much behind his speeches. And with his festival play "Habsburg", Mr. von Berger has taken away all my faith. Anyone who is capable of producing such a miserable work of art for patriotic purposes as this festival play is has no right to talk about art. This is a papier-mâché plant that is being passed off as a real plant, while the author is constantly trying to tell us about the nature of real plants in his speeches.

I was mystified when the most boring, banal patriotic phrases rained down on me from the stage on August 16.

I would not have said a word about the festival play, which makes a mockery of all stagecraft, if it had not been a symptom for me of the unfree, servile attitude that can exist even among those who are at the height of contemporary education. Berger, as an aesthetician, is at the height of contemporary education, and he is able to deny his knowledge, his education, everything, just to produce a miserable, bumbling festival play that would be worthy of having the next best scenery ripper as its author. Yes, when the best aesthetes who can talk beautifully write such plays, then the artists may say: stay away from us with your talk about art.

It was certainly a great task for anyone who wanted to undertake an exhaustive description of the power of the catchphrase. For there will be few things in the world that are as suggestive as the catchphrase, and whose effects are so mysterious. The main thing is that the catchword is on everyone's lips, that everyone pronounces it meaningfully without thinking anything about it, and that everyone listens to it just as meaningfully, again without thinking the slightest thing about it. Both the speaker and the listener must be convinced that something meaningful is meant. At the same time, anyone who attempts to inquire into the meaning of the catchword must be considered foolish. For such a person would destroy the effect of the catchword. He must destroy it. For the catchword naturally has a meaning. Simply because every word has a meaning in the mouth of the person who first uses it in a certain context. But the effect is not based on this meaning. It is based on something that has nothing to do with the meaning.

A sensible politician uses a word. It has its good sense and its full justification within the context of the version he gives. Now it happens that for a certain time we encounter this word in every political omission in the country to which the politician belongs. When the first sensible politician used it, it had the effect of a spark, because the meaning of the other statements illuminated it. But the countless others who use it do not think of this meaning at all. Bismarck makes a remarkable speech. A speech that is a political act. In this speech he says: “We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world.” These words have a meaning within his speech. But they continue to have an effect as a catchphrase. You can now hear them in countless speeches. But you can also put a price on a reasonable interpretation of the words in these countless speeches. Nevertheless, most of these speeches will owe their effect to the fact that the speaker has used the words.

You can safely say that a word must first lose its meaning if it is to become a catchphrase. For the great multitude loves nothing so much as words; and for nothing is it so little to be had as for understanding the meaning of words. People's linguistic tools are animated by a tremendous urge to be active; the tools of thought are the most powerful organs an organism possesses. People want to say a lot and think very little. That is why there should be as many buzzwords and phrases as possible that have a rigid effect without having anything to think about.

If you know how to observe people's facial expressions, you will often see the following: Two people are talking. They try to communicate in a meaningful way. This goes on for a while. Suddenly, one of them becomes bored with communicating. He comes up with a catchphrase with which he can bring the conversation to an end. Both their faces express the satisfaction they feel at not having to talk about the matter any more. The catchphrase, which has no meaning, brings a long, perhaps not at all pointless conversation to an end.

A distant similarity to the tendency to use buzzwords is the addiction to using quotes to support assertions. In most cases, the quotes will lose all meaning in the context in which they are used because they are torn from their original context.

We come across quotes everywhere. On flags, on monuments, above entrance gates of houses, in genealogical books, in editorials, on pipe bowls, walking sticks and so on. Each time we see such a quotation, we are prompted to forget the meaning it originally had.

But I don't want to say anything against catchphrases and the use of quotations. For the wittiest turns of phrase in speeches are sometimes achieved by using a quotation in a way that contradicts its original meaning. However, a collection of observations on how catchwords work would be instructive. Writing this chapter of folk psychology would kill two birds with one stone. For one would also have written a good part of another chapter of the theory of the soul, which is called: "The thoughtlessness of the crowd". How the crowd tries to avoid thinking is best seen in the use of the catchphrase.

There are journalists who base their entire existence on this characteristic of the crowd. They write - let's say every week - an article containing some word that is suitable to be repeated for eight days. Then, for eight days, readers have a means of talking about something without occupying their thoughts. For a week, they bring up the latest quote from journalist X. at every opportunity. Some journalists can only achieve great success because they have the art of coining words which, in addition to their meaning, also have something through which they have a suggestive effect; through which they have an effect when they discard their meaning. The psychologist of the phrase will have to investigate what this "something" is that remains when the meaning has been distilled out of a word, and which then has the magic power to elevate the meaningless word to a power that rules over people.

An important contribution to herd psychology will be this psychology of the phrase.

The last issue of this journal contained some remarks on "tragic guilt". These will be followed here by a few others which seem suitable for shedding light on the psychological origins of this now obsolete term.

The term has its origins in the basic moral feelings of human beings. The philosopher Herbart traced the basic moral feelings back to five original forms. He believes that such a feeling arises in our soul when we see one desire or will enter into a relationship with another. The first relationship that comes into consideration is that between the human being's volition and the judgment of this volition. If we perceive a correspondence between volition and judgment, we have the sensation of pleasure; if there is a contrast between the two, we have the sensation of displeasure. This gives rise to the moral idea of freedom. It can be expressed as follows: harmony between will and moral judgment pleases; disharmony displeases. Secondly, the relationship between two will-powers of different strength comes into question. The basic moral feeling resulting from this can be expressed thus: the stronger will pleases next to the weaker, the weaker displeases next to the stronger. Hence it is that a strong will will always have our sympathy next to an impotent one, even if we cannot agree with the content of the will. An evil-doer with great energy evokes a favor in us. The third relation arises when the intentions of two men enter into such a relationship that either one will is directed to the same thing as the other, the former thus promoting the latter, regarding the other's will as his own, so to speak - or that one will is opposed to the other. We are dealing with the moral idea of benevolence or ill-will. The fourth relationship arises when two wills are directed towards the same object and cannot both reach their goal because they contradict each other. This gives rise to the conflict of wills, which under all circumstances causes moral displeasure. This gives rise to the moral idea of right, which is intended to prevent conflict. The third relation differs from the fourth in that the former relates directly to the two wills, the latter only indirectly. Ill-will is the disharmony of two wills in such a way that one is directly directed towards something other than the other. The other sees that the other wants something specific, and that is enough to determine that he wants something else. In the fourth relationship, the back does not care about the will of the front. He may want whatever he wants. But the hunter wants to shoot a hare, and the hunter wants to shoot the same hare. The object of the will brings them into conflict. To arrange the relations in the world in such a way that no quarrel arises: that is what law is for. The fifth relationship arises from the fact that evil will progresses to evil action. And since a moral displeasure is attached to the latter, which persists as long as nothing is done to counteract the wrongdoing, thereby eliminating it from the world, punishment is necessary. It corresponds to the fifth moral idea, the idea of retribution or equity. This fifth moral idea must be the starting point if the concept of tragic guilt is to be understood. He who disturbs the harmony of the will-powers and thereby evokes in us the feeling that punishment must occur to compensate for the disturbed harmony is guilty.

Now, as we know, there is a definition of art which reads: art should evoke pleasure; its goal should be satisfaction. Whoever makes such a demand of art will have to demand of drama that it portray a context of actions that is morally satisfying. For in drama we are dealing with the will of man and the consequences of this will. Whoever demands of art that its works should please must therefore demand of the drama that it should satisfy moral ideas in such a way that a pleasure arises from the relations of the will-powers in question. The fifth ethical idea, however, says that an evil act can only be pleasing if it is followed by retribution. Or, conversely, since retribution is an evil deed, it presupposes that it was preceded by another evil deed, for the moral compensation of which it serves. Guilt is founded in this wrongdoing.

As long as one remains on the ground where people are merely among themselves and only that which they inflict on themselves happens, one could only think of dramas in which people avenge wrongdoing according to their views and institutions. On such a basis, philistine dramas would be created, but ones that correspond to the actual circumstances. In the first part of such a drama, we would see how a person offends against the existing institutions, and in the second, how those whose profession it is to do so come together and take appropriate retribution for his guilt.

The matter only becomes different when man does not remain with the representation of such actual retribution, which he himself brings about. Then his moral feelings are transformed into religious ones. He then says thus: I demand that a man who does wrong should also suffer wrong. But I also demand that a person who suffers injustice has also done injustice. For every suffering of injustice without a previous act of injustice displeases me. If one applies this to art, then he who says that the works of art must please will also say that every suffering depicted requires a previous injustice or guilt. I dislike a drama in which suffering is depicted without guilt, so it is not a work of art.

We need only pronounce such a judgment in order to be clear about how little it corresponds to our present feelings.

Herbart was still of the opinion that human nature is such that the perception of one of the five conditions must necessarily give rise to the corresponding basic moral feeling. This view is simply refuted by the fact that when we perceive suffering, we no longer look for guilt, but only ask: how did this suffering come about? We do not care whether it was caused by guilt. Our interest is not focused on this guilt. If a stone falls on our forehead, we suffer pain. A child will hit the stone because it believes that the pain must be atoned for by a punishment. Just as the child acts towards the stone, so do those who seek guilt for suffering. People with a modern consciousness no longer do this. For them it is not interesting whether suffering arises from guilt or not, for them only the causes of suffering are interesting. They do not ask what is the fault of the one who is unfortunate, but what are the causes of this suffering. And the most advanced say that it is an unhealthy idea to add to the concept of suffering that of punishment and guilt. Nietzsche accuses the Christian worldview, which has existed for thousands of years, of having deprived the necessary succession of events of their innocence. "Misfortune is soiled with the concept of sin." Modern consciousness can disregard the moral feelings that used to immediately arise in people when they perceived volitional relationships. And that is why modern man no longer applies the standard of moral pleasure or displeasure to people's actions.

This modern consciousness rejects propositions that until recently belonged to the undoubted aesthetic truths. Carriere's "Aesthetics" reads: "Guilt from passion, suffering from guilt, selfish arrogance and retributive justice, loyalty for one's better self in a reluctant world or courageous heroism for an ideal conviction, for the goods that make life worth living, a causal connection that the mind recognizes and the mind delights in, and the reign of the moral world order, as reason and conscience demand it, represented in significant characters, in attractive situations; a free play of manifold forces, and yet in all of them an organizing basic idea: this is the true tragedy: a simple story with great motives, clear in themselves and sympathetic to us, firm outlines of the plot, strict connection excluding the accidental, and the outcome a judgment of God. " This is precisely what the modern consciousness does not understand: the outcome is a judgment of God. The old consciousness says: here is suffering, therefore there must be guilt somewhere. That is necessary, and the necessary is pleasing. The modern consciousness says: if suffering follows guilt, it is a mere coincidence, and as such the coincidence is indifferent. So it basically bothers us when suffering follows guilt by chance. We can then no longer feel purely. The usual thing is that suffering has nothing to do with guilt. So a work of art will satisfy us all the more the less we are distracted from the natural sequence of events by concepts such as guilt, sin and so on. A tragic hero who is guilty will only disturb the modern consciousness. A tragic hero, on the other hand, who shows the innocence of suffering through a particular example, is satisfying today. So it is fair to say that we are in the process of transforming the concept of tragic guilt into that of tragic innocence.

Today, things in drama are connected like cause and effect, not like guilt and atonement. A sentence like this: "The history of the world is the judgment of the world" seems childish to us today. When the effect, which follows its cause with inexorable necessity, intervenes in the circles of people and causes suffering there, we call it tragic today. We know tragic effects, but we do not know tragic guilt.

From an editor's point of view, adding comments to individual essays in a journal seems almost like schoolmastery applied to another field. But I can't help it if, after reading the essay "The Value of the Monologue", something occurs to me that seems worth mentioning. For it seems to me that there was an artist who would have signed Rilke's words: "But there is something more powerful than deeds and words". "To create space and justice for this life seems to me to be the most excellent task of modern drama." - This artist is Richard Wagner. And he sought to solve the problem posed by Rilke in a very specific way. He believed that what cannot be expressed in words in this life must seek the language of music. The author of the above essay, on the other hand, leaves the question he raises unanswered. But I also believe that he underestimates the expressive power of the word. Basically, the word hints at more than it clearly expresses. And if one adheres to this deeper meaning of the word, which can be reached through intuition, then it can - in my opinion - point to the most hidden depths of the soul's life. One must not reproach the word for not being taken deeply enough by most people. It is not actually a coarse pincer itself, but a fine pincer that is usually wielded by coarse hands. Rilke seems to me to be one of those critics of the word who attribute to the word what actually escapes the ears of the listener.

The unpleasant way in which the audience expressed its displeasure with Halbe's "Conqueror" at the Lessing Theatre on October 29 prompted the commendable director of the Schiller Theatre, Dr. Löwenfeld, to give a lecture on "Theatre Scandal" at the Berlin "Freie Literarische Gesellschaft". The content of this interesting lecture will be outlined here. Dr. Löwenfeld began by emphasizing that the scandal during the performance of Halbe's "Conqueror" differed significantly from other similar events. The behavior of the audience in the evening was preceded by a journalistic rally. The "Kleine Journal" published an article on the morning of the day of the performance in which the mood was stirred up against the management of the theater. The financial situation of the theater, the business and artistic management were presented in the most hateful way in this article. And in the evening, the noisy rejection followed.

Dr. Löwenfeld went on to describe how the appreciative theater audience views its critical task quite differently from the audience of another art. The theater director can do nothing other than offer the audience the best of the existing works of art. Of course, this best need not be the absolute good. But the theater director can't just conjure this absolute good out of thin air. In this respect, he can do nothing more than the director of a magazine or the director of an art exhibition. They too cannot help but offer the best of what is available to them.

The public has certain considerations to make. Firstly, to the poet. They should at least let him present his work before passing judgment. Secondly, to the actor. It should not interfere with him doing his best to show the poet to his best advantage. If it is as it was on October 29 in the Lessing Theater, the actor cannot possibly complete his task. The audience should also take the neighbor into consideration. What would we say if someone in an art exhibition held their hand in front of a painting while we were looking at it? But that's what someone does when he makes a noise in the theater next to someone else who wants to enjoy a quiet performance. Finally, the audience has aesthetic duties. A work of art can only be enjoyed as a whole. Anyone who judges before the end of the performance sins against this duty.

The purpose of a visit to the theater must also be considered. This is not the criticism of a dramatic poem, but the entertainment or enjoyment of a work of art.

Following on from this, Dr. Löwenfeld raised the very legitimate question of whether the usual premiere audience is at all suitable for such criticism. This audience is by no means made up of those elements who, due to their intellectual heights, appear qualified to make an authoritative judgment. Dr. Löwenfeld believes that much mischief is done at premieres by giving out free tickets to the uninvited. He cited a case from his practice. On the occasion of his performance of "The Robbers", he did not give a free ticket to a man who at least had a reputation in literary circles. This man would have made jokes about the inevitable imperfections of the performance. As a theater director, Löwenfeld didn't want that. Because such jokes, spoken with the necessary loudness in the theater, have an infectious effect.

Dr. Löwenfeld also highlighted a cancer of press criticism. The daily newspapers have one, perhaps two theater critics who are up to the task. One can now experience the following. There are four premieres in one day. One at the Schauspielhaus, one at the Deutsches Theater; two at theaters that live only on wild business manipulations and deliver subordinate performances. The famous critics go to the Schauspielhaus and the Deutsches Theater; the so-called "chic boys" go to the subordinate theaters. The next day one reads serious reviews of the Schauspielhaus and the Deutsches Theater in a style that meets the demands that one is entitled to make of serious art institutions. Of course, some things are criticized, and the tenor of the review is such that the criticism of the Schauspielhaus and the Deutsches Theater appears to be derogatory in comparison to the glorifying remarks of a fancy boy about a theater that has nothing at all to do with art. What kind of picture is the foreigner who comes to Berlin supposed to form from the reviews printed side by side? He says to himself: the plays at the Schauspielhaus are mediocre; there's nothing really going on at the Deutsches Theater either: that's why I go to the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater. Everything is excellent there. Dr. Löwenfeld stresses that the newspapers have a duty to create change here.

This interesting lecture was followed by a discussion. The undersigned opened it. He pointed out that there is a kind of rejection of a drama that is absolutely fatal for it, but which therefore has nothing in common with the repulsive behavior of the audience on October 29 in the Lessing Theater. He recalls a performance that the Goethe Assembly organized in Weimar a few years ago. Paul Heyse's "Bad Brothers" was performed. The audience, which had come together from all parts of Germany, felt bored and bored beyond measure. There was no hissing, hooting or jeering. After each act and after the last, the curtain came down in silent silence. The audience left the theater in silence. The play was buried. The audience had pronounced a death sentence, but in the awareness of the responsibility one assumes when one condemns a real work of art to death. The audience was not aware of this responsibility towards Halbe's "Conqueror". The silent rejection, however, seems noble to me. I also had to say that I do not believe that Halbe's drama was buried on Saturday, October 29. But when I read the Tageskritik on Sunday morning, I gave up everything. The Berlin Tageskritik doesn't know that it has a duty to hold back with its own opinion at first and tell people: this is what the poet wants, go in and form your own judgment. Instead it says: the play will not make money, so stay away. That's what she said on October 30th. The people stayed away. And the play could not be performed for the third time. Hans Olden then defended the audience at length. It had always rewarded artistic achievements with applause. Hauptmann had not misjudged it. Dr. Landau explained that what mattered most in the theater was the effect. It was impossible to wait until the end of the last act to express the effect a play had on the audience. Laughter is first and foremost a necessary expression of the psychic organism, and nothing can be done about that. Dr. Lorenz left the subject altogether. He said that Halbe's drama challenges laughter. That's why people laughed. Felix Lehmann made a good suggestion. He is of the opinion that the first real performance should be organized in front of an invited audience - according to the Parisian model. Such an audience will have the manners it should have. He hit the nail on the head, however, and what he said was like an egg to the resolution that the board of the "Freie Literarische Gesellschaft" wanted to propose. The kind of premiere audience that Felix Lehmann proposes for a first performance is what we want. Nothing else.

It was just a year ago that Schlenther was named as Burckhard's successor for the first time. Right then, there was fierce opposition. This must have surprised those from afar. Schlenther was, after all, a respected man whose literary merits were not in doubt. His name had become familiar along with the leading names of the modern movement. In Vienna, he was regarded as the critical representative of German modernism. And he was also known as a knowledgeable student of Scherer, so he must have been the right man - in a literary sense - for the diverse needs of the Burgtheater, which was striving towards the new without being able to do without the old.

And yet he was not welcomed. People were - with a few exceptions - cool, if not hostile towards him. But the reasons for this did not lie in his personality. People hated the new man because they loved the old one. That is true Viennese logic.

Burckhard had opponents everywhere during his time as director, in his theater, in the critics, in society - everywhere. No one liked him - with the exception of Hermann Bahr. When he left his post, he had only friends. They all stood by him. Not only because the loser always has the closest right to the hearts of the Viennese - for Vienna is the most kind-hearted city in the world - but because he had fallen for a glorious cause. That made him forget everything. He had declared that he could no longer submit to the censorship of the Obersthofmeisteramt and demanded a free path for modern literature. "With 'Liquidatorr' and the 'Jugendfreunde'," he thundered, "I can't run a Burgtheater. Then, gentlemen, I ask for the "Jugend" etc. Whether this memorandum was the cause or the reason for his dismissal - no matter, for the Viennese Burckhard was now the victim of his convictions, the holy Sebastian of modern art. Everyone felt they were on his side in his fight against the higher authorities. It was hoped that the prestige of public opinion would silence his opponents. For weeks it was the talk of the town whether Burckhard would remain in office or not. Every combination that wanted to put a new man in Burckhard's place was perceived as personal antagonism. People wanted nothing to do with Bulthaupt, Savits, Schönthan, Claar - and all the names that came to light at the time - they wanted to keep Burckhard. It was like a democratic vote against a cabinet decree. People completely forgot that they had no right to interfere in the matter; after all, the Burgtheater is a private matter for the court. They wrote and resolved and shouted: Burckhard and no one else!

So not Schlenther either. The new director soon had to feel this. Where he was not received with open hatred, he was met with cool distrust. Hardly one or two critical voices found a warm word for him. Of course, his first statement could not win him much love. If Burckhard was liked because he was an upright man, Schlenther betrayed a surprising courtly smoothness. In his welcoming speeches, he had displayed an enormous amount of devotion to the Imperial-Royal Olympians. Olympians in his welcoming speeches - probably with all the more unobjectionable words because he was a free-minded man and felt the whole thing to be a weightless formality. But that was not clever of him. Criticism was right behind him. So that's the modern, the independent, the revolutionary! Things were strange with this revolutionary character. We had expected an impetuous firebrand, a wild go-getter who had ten years of hot fighting behind him and who would bring a fresh sense of mischief into our quiet circles. Instead, we got a serious, very calm man, a skillful diplomat who never loses himself for a moment, who settles everything internally and always shows a calm, smiling face externally - that was another foreign, un-Viennese trait that we didn't like about him. In Vienna, everything is temperament, openness, love, hate, anger - but for God's sake, no secrecy, no reticence, no playing with the situation! That makes you insecure, unstable, confuses your judgment. The ideal theater director, who has become a legendary figure in Vienna, was Laube. And the whole of Vienna still raves about his straightforward coarseness today. This is how Schlenther was conceived: coarse, approachable, headstrong, strong. He was amiable, conciliatory, modest. He took an active part in the rehearsals and gave much appreciated advice to some of the actors - who are very intelligent people at the Burgtheater. But he placed the reigns in the hands of his directors; he was more of a corrective than a creative element in his company. But this did not earn him an impressive reputation. Under Laube, all directors were superfluous. He stood on the stage every day, leading, overseeing, the master of the house. An older court actor was once asked what the directors had to do under Laube. "Oh, they had a strictly regulated job," he reported, "the director on duty had to bring the director his sandwich every day at ten o'clock - on time, otherwise the old man would get very angry. But that was the end of the director's functions."

Under Schlenther, the directors were given other tasks after all. And the mistrust that is always shown in theater circles towards a proper man of letters grew. "He runs his theater from the chancellery!" they said. Many highly praised directors of the Burgtheater had done this before Schlenther, but Schlenther's time at the Burgtheater was a very troubled one that urgently required a strong hand. The new director found a completely decomposed theater. Almost all the youth departments were deserted - the staff consisted only of heroic fathers, albeit incomparable ones. - The repertoire was patchy, uninteresting, completely characterless. Modernism - despite modest attempts - had no home in the imperial house and could not have one. But the classical traditions had not found a caring hand either. Hebbel, Kleist, Moliere were completely absent - Schiller, Goethe, Grillparzer were only at home with individual works. However, all of the ideas were tarnished, much had become old and rotten, some had been inadequately replaced - everything called for strong and ruthless reforms. The new deeds of the director were eagerly awaited.

And now came a great disappointment. No one could predict whether the new master would bring success to the tired building. But everyone expected one thing: a program. A man who had been intimately connected with the German theater for decades, a man of letters who had followed the events of the stage, thinking, advising, theorizing, was now suddenly given the direction of the first German stage, at the height of his life, full of strength, completely in possession of his personality, his experiences, his wishes - a flood of ideas now had to rush down on this old stage, unclear, impractical perhaps, but nevertheless full of artistic power, impressive in its abundance and in the warmth of its intention! Here came someone who had spent a lifetime filling his pockets, and now he was finally to show what he had collected - everyone was waiting with burning eyes for his wealth, for the harvest of his life - and Schlenther came empty-handed. Completely empty-handed. He had nothing, absolutely nothing, to show the eager Viennese. He could have started the strangest things - he could have performed Maeterlinck or renewed Sophocles, he could have brought Moliere to the stage in new forms or Ibsen - but he would have had to do something, a real personal act that would have powerfully expressed his will. - And we have waited in vain for this act, we are still waiting today. It is true that he staged the "Baumeister Solneß" and a new adaptation of the "Komödie der Irrungen"; he then once again restaged the "Jungfrau von Orleans" and won a fine act by Ebner-Eschenbach for the Burgtheater - all commendable things that one may praise him for - but where is the Schlenther, the Paul Schlenther, Berlin's first critic, the prologue of a new era and new artistic ideals? After the Berlin successes, he also gave the "Cyrano" and the "Legacy" - but who wouldn't have done that? But we would have liked to have seen something that only he could do, he alone.

He didn't come to Vienna as a rich man who could live off his fortune - he had to greedily scrounge for the day's acquisition. Philippi is now the redeeming god of the Burgtheater. The director wants to make money. He has said it himself often enough. That is a very justified and understandable point of view. But he must not make the director anxious and despondently cautious. But it must not be the exclusive viewpoint of a Burgtheater director; and finally, it is still very much a question of whether it would not be entirely compatible with the artistic needs of the theater. Schlenther, who is still not completely familiar with the Viennese situation, overlooks the fact that the Burgtheater has its classical traditions, which have not lost their old magnetic power when cultivated with understanding. He does not need the "Mädchentraum" or the "Vielgeprüfte" and the other literature of the day; an interesting new production of Hebbel's "Nibelungen" fills the house much more securely for him. In June of last year (i.e. in the most unfavorable theater season) he had a sold-out house with "Faust", when Medelsky played Gretchen. No tickets were available for "Minna von Barnhelm" with Baumeister as Paul Werner. That should have been a proper instruction to the director.

No one doubts the integrity and solidity of his character, but he should have more daring, more decisiveness. It is true that a spirit of industriousness and artistic seriousness prevails in the Burgtheater today that has been alien to the house for years. A few years ago, when Gretchen was assigned to another actress, two scene rehearsals were enough to prepare the performance; "Carlos" was performed again without a rehearsal after a one-year break. Today, the repertoire is carefully prepared. When the "Ministerial Director" or the "Butterfly Battle" are recast in some roles, four to five rehearsals are devoted to the play.

And that is symptomatic. In every sense, there is order and diligence in the house today. But the rich, artistic life is missing. Of course, the director's work is not easy. Hartmann died a few weeks after he arrived; he had to let Sandrock go - he has also acquired some young talent, but they do not suit the Viennese taste, and rightly so.

The deed that gives the director's name its meaning for us is still missing. For the time being, we are still guessing what the once famous critic will bring to the Burgtheater. We know no more than we did a year ago.

In the series of "University Lectures for Everyone", one has been published that introduces the history of the origins of the German stage. Prof. Dr. Georg Witkowski deals with the topic: "The beginnings of the German theater". With the brevity necessitated by his task, he shows that this important factor in our intellectual life did not take its place in German cultural life until very late. In the Middle Ages there was no real theater in Germany. The content of serious poetry, which appeared in dramatic form, was taken from biblical history, and its presentation followed the church service. Scenes from the Old and New Testaments were performed at Easter and Christmas. They did not have the purpose, which every real dramatic poem must have, of presenting soul struggles for their own sake; they wanted to present sacred history in a vividly vivid way. Nor can the comic performances that were put on by craftsmen and schoolchildren at carnival time really be described as dramatic performances. They mostly dealt with small court scenes, marital disputes and crude jokes, which usually mocked the peasants from the townspeople's point of view.... The actors traveled from house to house, acting out their roles without any scenic means and certainly developed a very low level of acting skill, because where would that come from for the brave craftsmen and students? After the Reformation, conditions in Germany were more favorable for drama. Luther favored student performances because he believed that they had a positive influence on public opinion. "Comedies should not be hindered for the sake of the boys at school, but should be permitted and allowed, firstly, that they practise the Latin language, and secondly, that in comedies such characters are artificially condensed, painted and portrayed in a fine way, so that the people can be instructed, and everyone is reminded and admonished of his office and station, what is proper for a servant, master, young journeyman and old man, and what he should do; indeed, all degrees of dignity, offices and duties are held up and presented to the eyes, as in a mirror, how everyone should conduct himself in his station in his outward behavior. " In the period that followed, the drama of guilt flourished. But it could not achieve much, because the views on the nature of dramatic technique were of the most primitive kind. It did not go beyond a dialog spread over several characters. The impetus for a truly dramatic art in Germany came from the English. This developed with admirable speed at the end of the sixteenth century. The first theater building was erected in London in 1576, and by the end of the century there were more such artistic institutions in the city than there are today. And just as quickly, English drama developed from simple plays with religious and moral-didactic tendencies to the masterpieces of Shakespeare.

The art that developed there was also brought to Germany by traveling troupes of actors. In 1586, one such troupe, led by William Kempe, arrived at the Dresden court. From this time onwards, these companies of comedians appeared in a wide variety of places. They put on English plays, sometimes in an unheard-of corruption. However, plays were also written by Germans and performed by such companies. The leader of such a troupe usually played the leading role, which had to be a comic character. The plays that were performed had to be put into a form that allowed the leader to appear as this typical comic figure. - We have knowledge of these performances almost exclusively through the council minutes and tax tables of the cities, which show us what burdens the authorities imposed on the traveling troupes. There were no theater reviews or anything similar at this time. - The dramatic art in Germany had the character indicated here during the last years of the sixteenth and the first third of the seventeenth century. Witkowski shares a playbill from Nuremberg that gives us a glimpse of what was on offer: "Everyone should know that a whole new company of comedians is arriving here, who have never before been seen here in this country, with a very funny pickelhering, who will perform daily, beautiful comedies, tra; pastorelles (Schäffereyen) and histories, mixed with sweet and funny interludes, and today they will present a very funny comedy called "Die Liebes Süßigkeit verändert sich in Todes Bitterkeit. After the comedy, a beautiful ballet and ridiculous farce will be presented. The lovers of such plays want to gather at the fencing house after noon bell 2, where the praecise is to begin at the appointed time." Regarding the expression Pickelhering, which means kipper, it should be noted that the aforementioned comic figure at the center of the performances gave himself names of popular foods: Hans Wurst, Hans Knapkäse, Stockfisch and so on. - After 1631, the situation changed. The English troops were lost; they were replaced by "High German comedians".

Witkowski's description of the stage at that time is worthy of special mention:

"Long beforehand, the wide space of the courtyard, which can hold a very large number of people, is densely packed. In front of the door, those entering have found a plaque on which it is written that a person's place costs six kreuzer. Normally the English have often asked for more, but this time they are not allowed to. The audience, who had paid the large sum (the German troops only got half a kreuzer), sat in front of and around the stage, which bore little resemblance to the one we see today. It consisted of a small scaffolding that was erected against the back wall of the courtyard and only took up a small part of it. It was open on three sides, only at the back was it covered with carpets, in front of which you could see a smaller raised scaffolding with stairs leading up to it. This served a dual purpose. Firstly, its platform was always used when an elevation, a city wall, a hill or a tower was needed. On the other hand, its interior was used to create a second stage on the stage, on which the scenes that took place in the chambers of the houses were performed. This second stage was equipped with decorations and could be closed off by a curtain so that it could be transformed while the front part of the scene was being played; an extremely practical insight that greatly benefited the structure of the dramas. Later, the width of the stage was extended over the whole back wall of the building in which they played, thus producing the present form of our theater, which is far removed from the former simple and yet so sensible use of the English.

But we already find the important principle of the front and back stage with them; the original cell, so to speak, of the present stage is already there."

In Germany itself, at the time when the theater was under the influence of the English, only dramatic poems were created, which were worthless for the real theater. They were inspired by the Greeks and Romans. It was not until Moliere and the French art developed by him that anything fruitful emerged again in Germany. A complete decline of the theater in the first half of the eighteenth century was followed by a revival thanks to Gottsched, who worked together with the brilliant stage artist Neuber. Even if the French influence has been freed from Germany again, this influence can only be described as extremely favorable at this time.

In the February issue of the journal "Bühne und Welt", an essay by Johann Hertzberg (Stockholm, freely translated by E. Brausewetter) was published on "Ibsen as a tragedian". It appears to be an important chapter in modern dramaturgy. The author explains that in traditional aesthetics a distinction is made between three types of tragedy: tragedies of fate, in which the fate is controlled by supernatural or mystical powers; tragedies of character, in which the hero's fate depends on his own character; tragedies of situation, in which the catastrophe is a necessary consequence of certain general human conditions. None of these three types is strictly defined in Ibsen's work. His tragedies - and Hertzberg sees Ibsen as a poet of tragedy - show a mixture of styles. They can be categorized partly as one type and partly as another. - Although not in a completely clear way, Hertzberg nevertheless points out that this is a consequence of the world view resulting from modern knowledge. Today, we cannot recognize the existence of fate. Where a naïve mind sees such a thing, natural laws exist for us. Thus, for us, the two ideas of fate and the necessary connection resulting from the situations flow into one another. Let us take a look at the "ghosts". The tragic follows from the situation with natural necessity. "Mrs. Alving and Oswald are placed in a generally human, tragic situation, which is based on the insoluble contradiction between man's urge for full freedom and self-confidence and his helpless inferiority under the terrible and inexorable laws of heredity. On the other hand, they are very reminiscent of the ancient tragedy of fate. - They have no guilt upon them that can explain such a terrible fate." - This "can explain" is not complete. The explanation cannot be a moral one, but it is in the fullest sense of the word a natural law one. Because he transforms the artistic styles flowing from the old worldviews in the sense of the modern worldview: that is why Ibsen is so close to us. - We should therefore not speak, as Hertzberg does, of a mixture of the old types and styles; we should rather speak of the creation of a completely new kind of tragedy: the tragedy that results from the necessity of nature. When Hertzberg says: "In our time we have come to the realization that it is not a single factor that determines fate, but many together", we must add: They work together in the sense of nature, in which every fact arises from the interaction of many elements. The older world views were not based on this experience, but on a preconceived opinion that made any one of the factors - fate, character, situation - stand out in particular.

In heaven there should be more joy over one convert than over ninety-nine righteous people. In the heaven of aesthetics, where the Viennese critic Ludwig Speidel is the main saint, there must therefore be great joy over the conversion of the former main heretic Hermann Bahr. "This collection of reviews that I wrote about Viennese theater from 1892 to 1898, first in the "Deutsche Zeitung" and then in "Die Zeit", is intended to show how I gradually came to a pure view of dramatic art from uncertain but all the more vehement demands of a rather vague beauty, and how I came to recognize the theater for what it is. I owe this to you alone. Through your words the meaning has opened up to me, from you I have learned what drama is supposed to be, through your great demands I have become free from whims. And you also taught me what our office is, that of criticism, that "sharp handmaiden of production", as you called it: to help the creators. That is why I have asked you to adorn my book with your name." This is how Hermann Bahr introduces his latest book "Wiener Theater (1892-1898)". Ludwig Speidel is the representative of a thoroughly outdated aesthetic view. He is completely alien to the demands placed on us by the modern world view. He is a veteran of the ideas that set the tone in Gustav Freytag's time. Critiques such as he writes today could also have been written around the middle of our century. His school of thought envisioned an art that pursued an abstract ideal of beauty. Friedrich Theodor Vischer professed this ideal in his Aesthetics, which he himself later disavowed. From his point of view, Speidel initially always condemned all newer art movements. He always retreated when the times took sides with these art movements. How did he first treat Gerhart Hauptmann? How does he treat him now? You only have to read the review he wrote about "Lonely People" when it was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Hermann Bahr took his youthful education entirely from the modern direction. There was a time when he was the critic of "modernism" par excellence. And now he has converted to the views of aesthetic conservatism. There is only one explanation for this: Bahr has never advocated "modernism" from the innermost depths of his soul. He appropriated its buzzwords and traded on them. He always had a strong inclination and also a talent for finding nice smooth formulas for what modern art wants. These formulas did not come from within him. He was playing a dialectical game. That is why conversion is easy for him. His course of development is not a natural one. When he was young, he did not understand the aesthetics of Vischer and Speidel. But he fought against them. Others took this aesthetic as their starting point. On the basis of these aesthetics, they dealt with the legitimate principles of art. Due to the one-sidedness of these principles, they initially did not understand the tasks of the new art. Today they understand its demands. They judge the new according to the standard provided by the good old aesthetics and which they have developed accordingly. As a result, they have arrived at a just judgment. They cannot convert to Speidel. For the work of their lives is to go beyond Speidel and arrive at a modern aesthetic. When they judge the "modern", their judgment contains the element of the old aesthetic, which was justified.

Hermann Bahr's aesthetic never had this element in it. And his new aesthetic will probably be no less superficial than his old one. It seems less like a further development than a bankruptcy. He will now put into nice smooth formulas what Speidel's opinion is, just as he used to put into nice smooth formulas what Ibsen's opinion is.

I find the work written by Hans Landsberg under the above title (Berlin 1900) less interesting as an individual achievement than as a symptom of the times. It is the expression of the mood of those members of the younger generation who have formed their artistic judgment from the aesthetic traditions that have come down to us from our classical art epoch and who approach our contemporary art with a somewhat abstract-academic sense. Insight into these aesthetic traditions protects them from the overestimation of this contemporary art, into which all those who owe their aesthetic education entirely to the last decade and a half must necessarily fall.

However, in order to justifiably make the judgments that Hans Landsberg makes, a broader perspective is required than he has. Anyone who has really familiarized themselves with the aesthetic views that the author of the brochure wants to claim will find these views too trivial. In what he says about true art, Landsberg does not go beyond what the bourgeois Carrière put forward in his "Aesthetics". I don't want to do him an injustice. That is why I emphasize from the outset that I also find some good things in this little booklet. At the top of this good is an excellent characterization of Hauptmann's "Biberpelz". But anyone who wants to be entitled to say about Hauptmann what Landsberg is guilty of would have to have immersed himself in the classical view of the world to such an extent that it is impossible for him to write sentences like this: "I know the shyness that all "sensible people" feel before "symbolism" and "mysticism". Only someone who has once grasped or even just sensed the full depth of a great work of art understands the reality of these concepts. A statue by Michelangelo, a symphony by Beethoven, a poem by Goethe, they are all symbols, individual embodiments of the universe, they are all mystical because they rise from unfathomable depths. Even if one searches for abstract formulas for such concrete entities - "Faust", for example, as the tragedy of titanic striving, "Macbeth" as the drama of ambition - one can still in no way exhaust the symbolic-mystical content of these works." Much worse than the shyness of "sensible people" towards "symbolism" and "mysticism" is the unclear playing with and sympathizing with these terms, as found in Hans Landsberg. I don't want to take the word of narrow-minded intellectuals who want to exhaust the content of a great work of art in a few banal phrases. But there are no "unfathomable depths" that cannot be illuminated by the light of reason. Thinking, if it only has the ability to descend deep enough into the essence of things, will always be able to draw out the true content of great works of art. However, it will not then be able to offer trivial abstract formulas along the lines of Landsberg's on "Faust" and "Macbeth", but it will shed clarity and ideal light on areas that "symbolism" and "mysticism" would so like to veil with dark concepts.

Because Hans Landsberg does not have the perspective that gives a truly rational view of the course of the world, because he confuses depth with mystical obscurity and rationality with the narrow-minded view that "understands and explains everything, especially the inexplicable", he can write sentences like this: "However, compared to the older Shakespearean treatment of the people as a compact mass, here (in the "Weavers) a tremendous advance towards the individualization of the crowd is evident. But actually only individuals are portrayed. They are in no way typical, they do not merge into the higher unity of the weaver in general." Landsberg confuses the type with the template. The perfect type can only be represented if one characterizes the perfect individual, not an abstract generic idea. The "weaver in general" is an impossible concept.

"The great basic intellectual current that we believe we can recognize in the chaos of opinions and trends that fill our time is characterized roughly as follows: The autocracy of the natural sciences is followed by the endeavor to understand the world artistically. We feel that here we have a means of solving riddles that science is at a loss to solve." This is Hans Landsberg's opinion. But he does not understand how a world view comes about. He only understands the small science, which, with its abstract concepts, with its idealistic shells that it wraps around things, has nothing to do with worldview. A modern world view can only arise out of natural science. Such a world-view must today stand in the same relation to the results of the knowledge of nature as all old world-views stood to religion and theology. Seemingly modern worldviews that are formed independently of natural science all fall back into the old religious and theological ideas.

We have few personalities with the inner strength to expand the scientific knowledge of the present into a world view. The power of old religious sentiments is still too strong in our people. They cannot shape scientific knowledge into a world view, which is why they would like to convince themselves that it cannot be shaped into one.

However, Gerhart Hauptmann should not be presented as the poetic representative of the scientific world view, but one should not ignore the fact that within German poetry he has made the strongest approaches to such a world view. One should not wish for these beginnings to be replaced by a "new-romantic art", as Hans Landsberg characterizes it, but one should want Hauptmann to continue in the direction he took up to "Florian Geyer". Hauptmann's alarming backward movement only begins with "The Sunken Bell". Only with it has he shown that it is not possible for him to continue on the path he has begun. He has thus become unfaithful to himself and to the times.

Some of the clever remarks in Landsberg's little book lead me to believe that its author will not long after have reached a point in his development where he will regret having attacked Hauptmann with a miniature perspective. He will perhaps still have many things to say against Hauptmann later, but he will then - having matured - realize how deeply this dramatist is rooted in the intellectual life of the end of the nineteenth century, and how, in contrast, the critical concoctions of his present assessor Hans Landsberg are preparations of a German studies seminar that have little root in life and are highly superfluous for it.

It is highly curious which three spirits Hans Landsberg chooses to characterize the intellectual signature of the present. "Nietzsche, Ibsen, Böcklin, that's the name of the triumvirate. In them the intellectual current of the present is most clearly reflected. According to a saying by Robert Schumann, there has always been a secret alliance of kindred spirits. Nietzsche, Ibsen and Böcklin seem to me to best embody the spirit of the age, which for most people is still the spirit of the future."

For now: Nietzsche has nothing to do with the zeitgeist. He is a very lonely, isolated man who has gone the most individual ways imaginable and whose intellectual physiognomy can only be understood from his isolation. The fact that a large following follows him today is merely due to his unfortunate fate and the fact that his views can be translated into dazzling catchwords for thought-hungry writers and journalists. - Böcklin, too, is basically such a lonely man, who has little connection with the spirit of the times. Of the three mentioned, only Ibsen can be used to characterize this "zeitgeist". From a broader perspective than Landsberg's, however, one would have to emphasize Hauptmann's kinship with Ibsen much more sharply.

To emphasize it once again, it seems to me that Hauptmann's drama is much more deeply related to the zeitgeist than Hans Landsberg's interpretation of this zeitgeist.