The Rudolf Steiner Archive

To-day we will continue to develop such forms as we spoke about yesterday. In this connection I should like to speak about those forms which may help to establish a certain relationship between a statement and its answering statement (Rede und Gegenrede). Yesterday I mentioned the spiral form and we saw how the evolving spiral gives the feeling of an outgoing of the human being into the world, and how the involving spiral gives the feeling of coming back into oneself. Now, however, let us bring these two forms into a relationship with each other. Move the forms to a clear Anapest rhythm; do it in the first place so that one form follows after the other. You can try it in this way: Fri. S. . . . will you take the spiral which goes from within outwards, and you, Fri. V. . . . the line which goes from without inwards; now reverse it, taking about six Anapests . . . it can be practised in this way.

In the case of dialogue,—a conversation from some play for instance in the form of question and answer,—it is good to move the spiral which winds from within outwards and which corresponds to the answer, in such a way that, when one reaches the last two Anapests, one simply takes two long, emphasized steps; it is as if one wished simply to have the long, emphasized beats. Do the exercise thus: Four Anapests, two long beats. In this way you get a form, the feeling of which corresponds to the nature of dialogue in a play, for example,—or indeed any dialogue which is to be expressed in eurythmy.

This form can also have a certain significance in curative education. I said yesterday that the one spiral form can be made use of in the handling of wild, unruly children, who are always fighting; while the other spiral may be used in handling children who are phlegmatic and who hardly come to the point of raising their own hands.

If you get individual children of such types to practise these forms you will have a certain amount of success. But if you form two groups—the one group of choleric, the other of phlegmatic children—and make both these groups run the spiral forms, and in such a way that the children must constantly look into each other’s eyes, then they will mutually correct each other. If you employ this corrective action of the one type of child upon the other, these forms will prove to have a remarkably powerful effect.

Now we have in the course of the past years made use of a number of eurythmic exercises and forms, based on such things as these. Frau. K. . . . will you do the form which we have for Hallelujah. One can, in the first place, do this to the pentagram form. You stand at the back point of the pentagram and use one line to do the ‘Hallelujah’. Begin with the H, pass over into a, do the l seven times; pass on to the e; make the second l three times; then u, i, a. You must, however, continue to move the form. The second line of the form must be done in the same way. Thus, when carried out by one person alone, this exercise is repeated five times.

Now let us take five people; when each one does this same exercise we again have a complete ‘Hallelujah’. Frau K . . . . you move the first line; Frl. S . . . . has the next, Frl. Sch . . . . the third, Frau Sch . . . . the following line and Frl. V . . . . has the last line.

You must all begin at the same time. And you must be careful to space out the line in such a way that, when the exercise is completed, you have all arrived on your own places.

In this way, out of the lines of the pentagram, you get a complicated and ever changing form. When this exercise is carefully practised the effect is very impressive and does actually convey the whole character of the word ‘Hallelujah’.

It is, however, possible to find another variation of this exercise. Let one person stand here, the second there (see diagram) and there the third, fourth and fifth . . . now we must add a sixth and a seventh. Each one must move in this direction (see arrow).

A different impression is thus created. The form should be divided up as before. Those in the front must always stand in such a way that the back ones come into the intermediate spaces, and are, therefore, also visible. Let us try it: 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 7 and 7 (in a curve backwards) to 1. (All at the same time.)

You will see that this produces a form of ‘Hallelujah’ which, on account of its measured tempo gives an impression of high exaltation.

Yet another variation can be brought about if each of you, on reaching your place (see following diagram), adds this line (the curve) to the form. (Here again all must move simultaneously.) The two lines of the form must now be accompanied by the same gestures as before. This way of doing the ‘Hallelujah’ necessarily entails a certain quickening of the pace. Such a form lends itself to many further variations.

Let us for instance do it in this way: Frau S. . . and Frl. Sch. . . will you stand here, one on each side, while the others fonn the pentagram? Now, you Fri. Sch. . . . must make the movement for the Sun as we did it yesterday, continuing this while the others move the pentagram. At the same time, Frau S.... you must make the quiescent gesture for the Moon. Here we have a form for ‘Hallelujah’ which again has its special colour.

Let us pass over from this form to our second form,—without the curved lines,—then we shall have a very exalted ‘Hallelujah’. And in making this transition, let the Sun and Moon take their places as before.

At this point we can pass over to the last form of all, which again demands a somewhat quicker tempo. Thus the ‘Hallelujah’ may be carried out in the most varied manner. In this way you get a form which will really have a profound effect upon the onlookers. Let us try it: Hallelujah.

This shows the possibility of making use of forms in such a way that they actually correspond to the most individual characteristics inherent in the matter in question.

Now let us vary the form of Evoe in a somewhat similar fashion. Frau P. . . . will you do it alone? With E take a step; with v stretch out one arm and with the other make a movement as though you were going to take hold of something; with o hold the arms to the sides and raise yourself up to a very erect position; with e step backwards. When you carry out these movements the form comes of itself.

Now let us see how this works out when done by three people. Here, when three take part, you can approach so closely together that each one lightly takes the hand of the other (with the v). The greater the number taking part in this exercise the more beautiful is the effect.

These are examples of definite forms which may be developed when, by entering into their inherent mood and feeling, and at the same time retaining throughout the true character of eurythmy, one is able to conjure up a certain mood of soul from out of the movements for the sounds.

It is also possible, by means of a single gesture arising directly out of a certain mood of soul,—as do the sounds in eurythmy, to give adequate expression to some special feeling. Fri. S. . . . will you do the following: Dr. W. . . . will kindly stand here on the stage, while Frl. S. . . . looks at him; she must stand with the toe of the left foot touching the ground, and, while still looking at him, must make the movement for s; I think no one could mistake the fact that her dealings with him are ironical: the mood of irony is expressed absolutely naturally when this eurythmic movement is carried out in the right way.

And now, Fri. S. . . . will you make the following movements: first express an ironical perception of something, and then, with an inner effort of will make this mood of irony still more active. Thus we have the previous movement as the first stage; and now, putting the foot flat on the ground and still retaining the S-gesture, hold the chin awry and slant the eyes. Pass over from the first movement to the second: first Irony, then delight in being a minx.

There can be no doubt that we have here an adequate means of expression, one which is actually drawn out from the gestures themselves. You have seen how satisfying it is. I wanted to show by means of this example how these things must be felt and experienced.

In eurythmy the possibility of becoming truly artistic first arises when one has reached the point of finding each movement,—whether vowel, consonant, or any of the other movements we have had,—as inevitable as this most characteristic gesture for irony. From this very gesture you can learn how one can find one’s way into all these things.

I want to show you another example of the metamorphosis of form. Those who took part on the stage yesterday in the interwoven Peace Dance and I and You exercise will remember how the four groups of three people were arranged; and 1 shall now ask those who were on the stage yesterday to come up again and take these same places. Let us do the following: instead of merely moving the form silently as yesterday, you will do the first form, the triangle, three times, accompanied by lines built up according to this pattern: Es keimen der Seele Wunsche,—then a second line to the second part of the form, and a third line to the third part of the form. We have now reached the point where yesterday we began the ‘I and you’; but here again we shall have words which may be built up according to the pattern of ‘I and you’. Thus we shall have a number of lines fashioned in this way. Then again, as an ending, we have another three lines, so that we once more come back to the Peace Dance:

Es keimen der Seele Wünsche,
Es wachsen des Willens Taten,
Es reifen des Lebens Fruchte.
Ich fable mein Schicksal, (approaching each other)
Mein Schicksal findet mich, (going back)
Ich fuhle meinen Stern, (approaching)
Mein Stern findet mich. (going back)
Ich fuhle meine Zeile, (approaching)
Meine Ziele finden mich. (going back)
Meine Seele und die Welt Sind eines nur.

Now come the last three lines corresponding to the Peace Dance:

Das Leben, es wird heller urn mich,
Das Leben, es wird schwerer fur mich.
Das Leben, es wird reicher in mir.

(The wishes of the soul are quickened,
The deeds of the will wax and grow,
The fruits of life are ripening.

I feel my fate,
My fate finds me.
I feel my star,
My star finds me.
I feel my aims,
My aims find me.
My soul and the world
Are one.

Life will be clearer round me,
Life will be heavier for me,
Life will be richer in me.)

In this way we have a relationship with the ‘I and You’, etc. which is not merely schematic, not merely an abstract form, but which, even if not perfect, is still absolutely dependent upon the structure of the lines of the poem. It is an example of how these forms may be developed. Do it once more. Now you will understand it better; you will see that there really is a perfect adjustment between the lines of the form and what is contained in the lines of the poem.

Here, at the same time, I have given you an example of the intimate relationship existing between the language of eurythmy and the language which we ordinarily use.

I have attempted, it is naturally only a slight attempt and intended merely as an illustration, to answer the question: How did poems arise in certain Mystery Centres where an art of movement existed such as we are endeavouring to renew in eurythmy?—In these Centres it was not the language, the structure and form of language in a poem which was considered in the first place, for a man of those early times had something within him which caused him first to experience the movement, the gesture with its accompanying form. And it was out of the form, out of the gesture, that the structure of the poem was sought. The eurythmic forms and gestures preceded the fashioning of the poem.

These things actually show the intimate relationship existing between eurhythmy and the earthly language. As eurythmists we must acquire a feeling for the fact that not every poem can be expressed in eurythmy. You see, at least 99 per cent of the poems which have gradually accumulated are far from artistic; at the outside we have the remaining 1 per cent. The history of literature could certainly not assume vast proportions if true poetry only were taken into consideration. For true poetry always contains eurythmy within it; it gives the impression that the poet who wrote it first carried out in his etheric body the eurythmic movements and gestures; it is as if he only possessed his physical body in order to translate the eurythmic gestures and movements into the language of sound. In no other way can a true poem arise.

Naturally this need not penetrate into the intellectual consciousness. Even in our present age there are true poets who dance, as it were, with their etheric bodies before they produce a poem; and in earlier times too such poets existed, as for instance Schiller in his really beautiful poems. I do not mean those poems of Schiller’s which should also be set on one side, but those which are a real poetic achievement. With Goethe, too, in the case of most of his poems, one really feels the eurythmic gestures lying behind the words. Indeed quite a number of poets may be said to possess this quality, albeit unconsciously. It is present in them unconsciously.

Now the eurythmist must naturally be able to feel, from the way in which a poem works on his organism, whether it is suited to eurythmic expression; whether, that is to say, he can answer the question: Was the poet himself a eurythmist? Had he in himself that something which I wish to express in form and movement?—It is when one feels this to be the case that one can enter into a certain inner relationship with the poem which is to be expressed in eurythmy.

Of course all this must not be exaggerated, for in the realm of Anthroposophy we must never become fanatics; it is possible to carry such ideas too far. We need not, for instance, advocate that only such poems as arose out of the Mysteries should be done in eurythmy, or such poems as are fashioned, as it were, after the manner of the Mysteries. On the other hand one would not, I imagine, choose a poem by Wildenbruch. It is such things as these which must be felt by eurythmists, otherwise they will not be able to enter into the true nature of eurythmy.

From this you will perhaps have gained some understanding of the intimate relationship existing between eurythmy and language.—And now I will ask Fri. S. . . . to do the following in eurythmy:

Mein Freund, kannst du es nicht lassen,
Mir das Traurige immer wieder
In die Seele zu rufen?

(My friend, canst thou not refrain from ceaselessly calling up sorrow in my soul?)

Do it as follows. Take, for instance, a simple wave-like line as your form, and, when you come to the words: ‘Mein Freund, kannst du es nicht lassen’ . . . begin definitely to accelerate the tempo, letting this acceleration be really visible; move the second half: ‘Mir das Traurige immer wieder in die Seele zu rufen,’—at a quite definitely quicker tempo. Do this once more. Now let us reverse the process in the following sentence:

Was seh’ ich: es ist der Morgensonne Glanz!
(What do I see: it is the glow of the morning sun!)

After ‘ich’ you must try to retard the quick tempo with which you began. You have here (first example) the transition in tempo from slow to quick, and here (second example) the transition from quick to slow.

When it is a question of will or striving, as in the first sentence, in which there is the impulse to check something, where there is a certain element of will: ‘I do not wish him to call this up incessantly before my soul’—then we have a transition from a slow to a quick tempo.

And when it is a question of the effect of an external happening, thus when,—as in the second sentence,—we are incited to observe something, when we have to do with perception, then we must pass over from a quick to a retarded tempo.

Mein Freund, kannst du es nicht lassen,
Mir das Traurige immer wieder = Will
In die Seele zu rufen?

Was seh’ ich: es ist der Morgensonne Glanz! = Perception.

You will feel that these tempi really give the possibility of expressing in movement on the one hand, will and on the other hand perception or feeling. And you will have to analyse poems in order to discover whether it is more a question of expressing will, of resistance in the movement, warding off something, or whether it is a question of expressing a yielding up of oneself, something in the nature of reverence or devotion.

In addition to this one can, of course, make use of the gesture for devotion. The effect will then be intensified. For there are always more ways than one of expressing such things.

Just as in speech itself an inner understanding for the structure of language makes it necessary to divide words, according to the train of thought, into nouns, adjectives, etc., so, in eurhythmy, also these things must be taken into consideration. It is, of course, obvious that all pedantry must here be laid aside, and that the teaching of eurythmy from the aspect which we shall be developing here to-day must never be allowed to degenerate into those methods too frequently employed in the teaching of grammar in schools. But the eurythmist must be fully conscious of the way in which each single word,—a noun, for instance,—must be treated; for these details have their place in the whole scheme of the structure of language, by means of which the human being is enabled to express himself through speech. It is necessary then to differentiate between words which express the characteristics of things, descriptive words, and words expressing activities. Such words as describe the characteristics of things may be expressed in eurythmy by checking the movement of the form. Just at the moment when one wishes to express an adjective in eurythmy one must pause in the form and make the gestures standing still; the gestures must be made during a quiet interval in the form. On the other hand, when we are expressing some soul-content, as we do in ordinary speech by means of a verb, the point is to accompany the gestures by a decided movement in the form. Thus, gestures accompanied by movement, gestures carried out by the human being in motion, may be said to be the expression of the verb.

Now, one can sub-divide that which is expressed by means of the verb in this way; we may have the expression of something passive or of something active, or of something prolonged over a certain period of time. A transient activity, a transient passivity, or a prolonged activity, a prolonged passivity,—it is according to this that we can differentiate our eurythmic gestures. When we wish to express passivity, a passive relationship to something, the gestures must be made while the eurythmist moves in a forwards direction, not in a backwards direction. Everything which is inwardly connected with suffering, endurance, with a passive attitude, may be expressed by making the gestures to a forward-moving form; everything active may be expressed by making the gestures to a backward-movement in the form; while everything, either active or passive, which is of the nature of duration, may be expressed by making the gestures to a form which moves from side to side.

Thus we are able to express the verbal element in a way which enables the onlooker to perceive what actually lies in the nature of the verb.

We will now apply what has just been said to the working out of a short poem; we will try to bring out these three forms of inner experience as they come to expression in the verb. Let us, then, examine the verbs as they occur in this little poem:

Konnt' schlafen nicht (I could not sleep)

Sleep is something,—at least in the case of healthy people,—which has a certain duration; so here we must express something which lasts over a period of time (see diagram).

Konnt' traumen nicht (I could not dream).

Now it may be said of drearing,—and we must always analyse a poem in this way before working it out in eurythmy,—it may be said of dreaming that this also is something involving duration, but here at the same time a slight passivity is indicated. We must try to combine the side-to-side movement in the form with the forwards movement, not now going directly forwards, but in a diagonal line. You could express ‘dreaming’ by this form (see page 215). The poem continues:

Konnt' schlafen nicht,
Konnt' traumen nicht
Da hort' ich drauss'
Wie das Eis zerbricht

(I could not sleep,
I could not dream
I heard without
How the ice was shattered.)

In ‘heard' we have another verb; ‘heard' is quite obviously passive, so the line must be forwards. ‘How the ice was shattered'; we must bear in mind here that something is being said about the ice. Let us inquire: Is this the passive mood or the mood' of duration?—If we enter into the feeling of this phrase we shall realize that we have to do with the mood of duration; but that there is also the indication of something happening, of something active. The shattering of the ice is the reverse of the purely passive mood; it may even be said to make an aggressive impression upon us. We say: ‘shattered' . . . this crackling of the breaking ice is continuous . . . and at the same time we must express the active mood by moving up to a point in a backwards direction.

Then we have a line without a verb; at least there is only an auxiliary verb and we will not consider this for the moment.

Es war, als ob aus der Ferne
Es sich nahete
Wehete, lüftete,
Und in den Lüften es
Atmete, duftete.

(It was as if from afar
Something approached
Wafted, floating aloft,
As if something in the air
Breathed, sending forth fragrance.)

To approach, to be wafted, to float,—all these verbs express duration, but they have at the same time something active about them. Here, then, we must express these verbs: ‘to waft' ‘to float' by a line which goes backwards, and again backwards; ‘as if something in the air' . . . here we have no verb—‘breathed, sending forth fragrance ' . . . must be treated in the same way as ‘wafted, floating aloft'. We have therefore, to move in a backwards direction, and then again further back (see diagram).

(Over the meadows Down the valley, up the mountain,
Wenn das der Fruhling war' As though the spring were come
In full career!)

Now do the whole poem characterizing the different types of verb:

Early Spring.
(I could not sleep,
I could not dream,
I heard without
How the ice was shattered It was as if from afar, Something approached, Wafted, floating aloft, As if something in the air Breathed, sending forth
fragrance.
Over the meadows
Down the valley, up the mountain
Wenn das der Friihling war' As though the Spring were come
In full career!)

We have then these different types of verb:¹

Now we must define the nouns. Here in the first place we have those nouns which describe such things as make an impression upon the senses, things which in ordinary life are termed concrete objects.

It is, of course, impossible to state definitely what is concrete and what abstract; this must be left to individual judgment. Hegel, for instance, protested against the usual conception of ‘abstract' and ‘concrete'. He declared that a washerwoman is something very abstract, whereas wisdom is absolutely concrete!

Everything depends upon whether one is able to conceive wisdom as something concrete and a washerwoman as an abstraction! Anyone who conceives wisdom as concrete will certainly feel that a washerwoman is merely existent in thought and quite without reality. A washerwoman has no real existence. The human being embodied within her exists, but, in her capacity of washerwoman, she is altogether unreal.

For this reason it is perhaps better to say: Objects which produce an impression upon the senses are described by words which must be expressed in the form by an angle backwards. All objects producing an impression upon the senses correspond to a backward angle in the form.

On the other hand that which in the ordinary sense of the word is termed abstract,—everything, that is to say, which makes no impression upon the physical senses but depends upon experiences of the soul, as for instance: wisdom, thought-power, genius, fantasy and countless other qualities,—everything of this nature must be expressed by means of a curved line in a forwards direction.

Thus the mental-contemplative element, as we may call it, is expressed in this way, and this gives us two separate forms corresponding with two classes of substantives.²

There is also another type of noun which expresses condition. We might take as examples: whiteness, beauty, height. In the case of these nouns of condition we reverse the form which we use for objects perceptible to the senses. We make the angle forwards.

Then, further, we have words which express such things as are purely bound up with the soul-life. Here the curve line becomes more complicated.

In this way we are able to show nouns expressing some mood of soul; yearning, suffering, pain, pity, good-will, and so on. By means of the angle forwards we express conditions which appear as attributes of external objects; while for everything dependent upon the inner soul-life we must use such a form as I have just described.

In this way you will discover movements capable of arousing in the onlookers shades of feeling and perception which will enable him to follow the inner laws which determine why a certain combination of sounds conveys a definite mood of soul, a distinct condition or sense-impression.

It is not necessary to move a separate form for each individual word; with the pronouns, as with the adjectives, the movements may be made standing still. Numerals also should be treated like adjectives; they need not, in so far as eurythmy is concerned, be differentiated from the ordinary adjective.

Interjections, on the other hand,—Oh! for instance, or Ah!—have a quite special significance, for it is by such words as these that beauty and grace may be brought into eurythmy. In the case of all interjections we must either introduce a bending movement of the body, or else a spring or little jump.

Now that I am speaking about a jump or spring I will take the opportunity of drawing your attention once again to the fact that everything of this kind which is introduced into eurythmy must be carried out in such a way that one jumps on to the ball of the foot, only putting the heel down later: there is something fundamentally harmful about any jump which brings one down on to the flat of the foot. Due attention must be paid to this; it has often been overlooked in spite of very definite warnings. In the case of every jump, including those which occur in tone-eurythmy, one must jump on to the fore part of the foot, later bringing the heel into contact with the ground.

Now I am going to make a statement which will most certainly meet with opposition from materialists, but which is, nevertheless, of the utmost importance for the whole sphere of eurythmy, for eurythmy in its artistic, educational and curative aspects. Every single movement from whichever aspect it is regarded, must be carried out with ` grace' in the true sense of the word. And a eurythmy performance, or a lesson in eurythmy, which is not participated in by at least one of the ‘graces ',—I do not, of course, mean this in a physical sense—cannot, my dear friends, be said to be justified. We must have the feeling: All eurythmy, educational as well as artistic, must be of such a nature that one of the Graces might look on without embarrassment.

This, of course, entails an energetic campaign against all lack of skill in eurythmy. And of' all clumsy, awkward things this jumping on to the flat of the foot is the most awkward. As I have already said, every spring or jump must be on to the fore-part of the foot. When in education grace reigns in the sphere of eurythmy, the children actually grow in receptivity and perception in all directions. And teachers of eurythmy must make this increased power of receptivity and perception in the children the goal towards which they strive.

It is through grace alone that art finds its way into the realm of beauty. And in curative eurythmy,—this is the most difficult of all to believe, but it is nevertheless true,—one of the Graces must at least be hovering in the back-ground. Even if not actually visible, she must be listening, and for this reason that every exercise of curative eurythmy not gracefully carried out tends to produce a stiffening and hardening effect in the etheric body, thus counteracting the desired results.

Fri. S. . . . will you now show us some eurythmy into which you must introduce graceful bending movements. You can be quite free to follow your own feeling; but, when I come to the third sentence, try in addition to introduce a graceful jump. With the first of these sentences the movements must be subtle and interesting. I am going to recite three examples; you can express each one by means of the vowel sounds, adding at the same time the movements which I have just indicated:

‘The dog goes bow-wow'.

Introduce a bending movement which really represents the ‘bow-wow'.

‘The cat goes mi-auw!' . . .

and now, with the third gesture, make three graceful little jumps, combining the last jump with some sort of bending movement:

‘The cock goes cock-a-doodle-doo!'

In this way we get the interjections.

Further we have the prepositions. Some sort of acquaintance with these matters is, of course, essential. One must realize, for instance, that the prepositions express the relation-ship in which one thing stands to another. We have such words as: aus (out), ausser (outside), bei (with, among), entgegen (towards), mit (with), nach (after), nachst (next), von (of), zu (to), zuwider (contrary to),—all prepositions which, as we say, govern the dative; they are always followed by the dative, by the so-called third case. All prepositions must be expressed by a bending of the head and body in a sideways direction.

Here again, however, we must learn to differentiate. In the case of prepositions governing the dative the body must be bent, not sideways merely, but also slightly forwards, in a diagonal direction either to right or left; in the case of those governing the accusative the bending must be directly either to left or right; while in the case of those governing the genitive the movement must be sideways, and also slightly backwards.

In this way we get more variety. Let us now try to express the preposition in the following little poem. I shall ask Frau. P. . . . to express the preposition, when it occurs, by means of the corresponding movement.

‘Was mag es bedeuten? '

This is a question. In this connection we spoke earlier of the spiral form and now we have an opportunity of applying it.

Was mag es bedeuten?
Mein Herz pocht so geschwind,
Die Glocken sie Tauten
Im Morgenwind. (Bending movement forwards and sideways.)

You can, then, express prepositions in this way. On the other hand, a bending of the head only is the expression for conjunctions,—and, but, etc.—for those words whose function it is to connect other words and sentences.

To-day I want to speak of the way in which the structure of a poem may be shown by means of eurythmy forms. We must naturally try to make this course of lectures as comprehensive as possible, and with this in view I will now touch upon certain things which may help us to bring out the actual form of a poem, and to express this in eurythmy. To begin with I will show you how one may treat a poem in which the same form of verse, the same inner structure of the verse, is constantly repeated. We will suppose, for instance, that we have a verse of four lines, and we will see how such a four-lined verse can be worked out. . . . There are, of course many other possibilities. I do not mean to imply that every verse of four lines must be built up in this way, but it can be so built up.

One eurythmist must stand here (1), and move the first form, trying to find his way into it for the first line of the verse. The second eurythmist who stands here, does this form, trying to find his way into the second line, and of course only moving when this second line is being recited. The third must stand here, and during the recitation of the third line must move this form (forwards); and the fourth moves the fourth line to this last form (foreground). But now we must also observe the structure of this verse and see how the rhymes occur; the first line rhymes with the third, and the second with the fourth. We can show this quite clearly by making the eurythmist who does the first line continue to hold the i-gesture. This must also be done in the case of the third line; here again the i-gesture must be held. The eurythmist doing the second line continues to hold the u-gesture; and this same u-gesture must be shown by the fourth eurythmist.

This example shows you, in principle, the way in which the forms and movements of eurythmy may be drawn out from the actual structure of a poem. Will four of you take these places,—you will learn the form in a moment by looking at the diagram on the blackboard,—and now I will read a poem in which the structure of the verse corresponds to the form just described. This will show you how you can find your way into the building up of eurythmic forms. For one must not build up a form merely by vague dreaming, or by indefinite, muddling methods; a form must be made to correspond to what is actually contained in the text itself; and this can be done by bearing in mind all that has been said.

You will at first, of course, only be able to move the form as such, but, when you have had time to practise, you must try to bring into such a form those details of grammatical structure to which I have referred to-day. All this can also be introduced,—but you need not think, when a movement forwards is indicated, that you must immediately take ten steps! The slightest indication is quite sufficient, and indeed the effect is most beautiful when these things are suggested only. To-day I will not impose too much upon you, but will ask you simply to run the form, not showing the additional grammatical details. To do this would be comparatively difficult, but it is nevertheless possible, with adequate practice. The poem runs thus:

Scheiden

Was mag es bedeuten?
Mein Herz pocht so geschwind.
Die Glocken, sie Tauten
Im Morgenwind.

Was mag es bedeuten?
Mein Herz ist wund.
Die Glocken, sie lauten
Die Abschiedsstund.

Die Glocken, sie klagen.
Mein Herz tut mir weh,
Die Stund hat geschlagen
Ade, Ade.

Die Stund hat geschlagen.
Das Herz klopft so sehr.
Ich sitz in dem Wagen
Komm nimmermehr.

In this way then (see previous diagram), one can build up the form of a poem. To-morrow I shall speak even more exactly about the structure of poems; to-day I must just add the following:

It is only by repeatedly calling up a certain mood of soul that the eurythmist can gain the receptivity of feeling and perception necessary to expressive gesture. This delicate and fine perception can be awakened in the eurythmist by means of a meditation drawn out from the secret nature of the human organization. It can be attained when you enter, in deep and inward meditation, into what lies in the following words, not feeling them as words merely, as abstract concepts, but allowing their content to ripen within you. It is thus that you will be able to achieve all that I have just described.

I seek within me
The Strength of Creative Working,
The Power of Creative Life.
It tells me
The heavy weight of Earth
Through the Word of my feet,
It tells me
The forming power of the Air
Through the Singing of my hands,
It tells me
The strength of Heaven's Light
Through the Thinking of my Head,
So the World in Man
Speaks, sings, thinks.

Ich suche im Innern
Der schaffenden Krafte Wirken,
Der schaffenden Machte Leben.
Es sagt mir
Der Erde Schweremacht
Durch meiner Fiisse Wort,
Es sagt mir
Der Liifte Formgewalt
Durch meiner Hande Singen,
Es sagt mir
Des Himmels Lichteskraft
Durch meines Hauptes Sinnen,
Wie die Welt im Menschen
Spricht, singt, rinnt

When you have meditated upon such words as these, you will discover that you can say of yourselves: It is as though have awakened out of a cosmic sleep into the heavenly realm of eurythmy. If you stimulate this mood and feeling in your souls, you will be able to enter this realm as though awakening out of the darkness of night into the light of day.

• 1. The reader should look at all diagrams as though facing a stage. Hence a downward arrow = a line forwards.
• 2. Dr. Steiner had previously given indications as to how words describing spiritual beings (God, Zeus, Dionysus, etc.) should be shown in the form. Such words are expressed by a curved line backwards.

To-day we must bring this course of lectures to its conclusion. It has, naturally, only been possible to give certain guiding lines; much still remains unsaid and must be reserved for a future occasion. It seemed to me better to develop these guiding lines in a really fundamental way out of the nature of eurythrny itself, rather than to attempt a more encyclopedic survey of the whole domain of eurythmy.

It is of the greatest importance that each individual eurythmist should strengthen this power of creating the movements out of an inner activity, for it is in this way alone that a true understanding for eurythmy can be developed.

I shall deal first (my attention having been drawn to the matter) with the two sounds g and v (German w). Let us first take the g. In modern languages,—in modern European languages, at least,—this sound has not the same significance as it had in earlier times. For this reason we have not considered it until now. The sound g, when properly formed—gg—signifies an inner strengthening of the self, a strengthening of the soul-forces, a concentrating in itself of everything in the human being which naturally spreads outwards. It is therefore the sound of speech which, so to speak, holds our being together, in so far as the latter is a vessel for natural forces. This is the sound g.

Perhaps Frl. V. . . . will make the movement for g, in order that you may see how well the character of this gesture is adapted to show this inner strengthening and concentration. The warding off of everything external and the welding together of everything inward is expressed in the gesture for g.

Now we come to the remarkable sound v. We find this sound less frequently in the more ancient languages, in the Oriental languages that is to say. It expresses a special need of the human soul. It is as if the human soul were not used to the shelter of a firmly-built structure, but felt compelled to wander. Instead of the firmly-built house which may be experienced in the b-sound, instead of this solid house, the soul feels the need of a tent, or of the shelter of the woods. In the v-sound there lies the feeling of what may be described as a moving shelter.

This is why one always feels, with the sound v, that one is, as it were, carrying a shelter which is constantly being set up anew. Everything of a wandering nature, where the essential element is movement, must be experienced in this sound. It is the surging of the waves which is expressed by a strongly formed v; when delicately formed it expresses the sparkling of the waters. This will help you to realize what must be felt in the sound v. Now it is a remarkable fact that, when using the sound v (German w), one quite naturally finds oneself repeating it. One feels compelled to repeat it several times in succession. Something seems amiss if one simply says: ‘es wallet’; one wishes to say: ‘es wallet und woget, es weht und windet, es wirkt und webt,’ and so on. There is, in short, no sound which leads so naturally into the sphere of alliteration as this sound v. An alliteration can be made up with other sounds, but in no other way will it come about so naturally.

Perhaps Frl. S. . . . will demonstrate the sound v. You see how it demands a gesture filled with movement. V may thus be said to be that sound which permeates being with movement. Will you now show us, just going round in a circle without actually showing the structure of the alliteration,—we shall add this shortly, an alliteration built up on the sound v. In this example there are also other alliterated sounds; but observe how slight an impression they make when compared to one built up on the v-sound (German w). Thus we have

Wehe nun,
Waltender Gott,
Wehgeschick naht.
Ich wallete
der Sommer und Winter Sechsig ausser Landes,
Wo man mich immer scharte

(now comes the other alliteration)

In die Schar der Schntzen,
Doch vor keiner Burg Man den
Tod mir brachte.

Then we have a very marked alliteration, built up on m; you will feel this strongly, yet not so strongly as in the case of v:

Nun soll mein eigenes Kind
Mich mit dem Schwerte hauen,
Morden mich mit der Mordaxt!
Oder soll ich zum Morder werden?

One cannot help feeling that every alliteration based upon the v-sound appears to come about quite as a matter of course, whereas all other alliterations, no matter what sound is repeated, have the effect of being drawn out from the v.

Alliteration is an essential and fundamental element in poetry, especially where the sound v is experienced in a living way. In this connection we must develop a two-fold feeling. In the first place there lies in the nature of alliteration,—that is to say, when the first letter of certain words is repeated,—something which takes us back into earlier stages of European culture. Wilhelm Jordan has attempted to revive alliteration, and has indeed succeeded in introducing it into his work with a certain strength and conviction. In modern German this element of alliteration appears somewhat out of place. A feeling for it, however, can always be recaptured if one has the gift of going back in imagination to an earlier epoch. The short poem which I have read to you is taken from the Song of Hildebrand. Hildebrand was long absent from his native country, and on his return journey he met his son Hadubrand with whom he came into conflict. It is the battle between these two which is related in this alliterative form,—a form which was at that time an instinctive and completely natural means of expression.

An alliteration may be shown in the following way: Let a number of eurythmists form a circle, and now,—because the very essence of alliteration is consonantal, although not invariably based upon the v-sound,—they must emphasize the alliterated consonants by stepping round this circle. The vowel sounds do not form part of the alliteration; for this reason they may be shown by another group of eurythmists who stand inside the circle, making the movements for the vowels.

I will ask several of you to show the alliteration in the poem I have just read. Will you take your places in the circle; and now three others must stand in the centre and show the vowels.
The alliteration will be particularly strongly emphasized if, whenever a new alliterated sound occurs, it is shown by a different eurythmist, the preceding eurythmist at the same time repeating the previous sound. Only those vowels which follow directly after the alliterated consonant should be shown by those in the outer circle. The other vowel-sounds must be done more as an accompaniment by those standing in the centre. In order to make the whole thing quite clear let us take this example and do it quite slowly, those in the outer circle moving to the alliteration:

Wehe nun,
Waltender Gott,
Wehgeschick naht.
Ich wallete
Der Sommer und Winter
Sechsig ausser Landes,
Wo man mich scharte
In die Schar der Schützen,
Doch vor keiner Burg
Man den Tod mir brachte.
Nun soll mein eignes Kind
Mich mit dem Schwerte hauen,
Morden mich mit der Mordaxt!
Oder soll ich zum Mörder werden?

The alliterated consonant and the vowel sound immediately following it must be carried round the circle from one eurythmist to the next.

This will show you how in fact movement, and also restraint may be brought into such a poem sheerly by means of alliteration.

We will now pass on to something else, something which will help us to make of the human organism a fitting instrument for the service of eurythmy. In this connection it is very necessary to gain an understanding of the difference in eurythmy between walking and standing. Standing still always signifies that one is the image, the picture of some-thing. Walking, on the other hand, signifies that oneself will actually be something. When working out a poem in eurythmy you must be able to feel whether, at a certain point, it is a question of describing or indicating something or of representing the actual nature of something in a living way. It is according to this that one must decide whether to stand still (a lessening of the movement tends already in this direction), or whether to pass over into movement. We shall find that we have less occasion to stand still than to move, for there lies in the very nature of poetry the tendency to express something living, something which is, not merely that which signifies something. Here it is well that we should know how the human body is related to the whole cosmos. The feet of man correspond to the earth, for in their very structure they are suited to the earth, Where we have to do with gravity, with the weight of the earth,—and this feeling of the weight of the earth is present in nearly all forms of human suffering,—we must endeavour to express this in eurythmy by a graceful use of the feet and legs.

The hands and arms reveal the life of the soul. This soul-element is the most essential part of what may be brought to expression in eurythmy, and this is why in eurythmy the movements of the arms and hands play such an important part. Here already we pass over into the realm of the spiritual, for it is in the transition from one sound to the next that we find the best means of expressing that which is spiritual. In language the spiritual element finds expression in the mood of irony, for instance, or roguishness, in every-thing that is to say which emanates from the human spirit (aus dem menschlichen Spiritus), from man himself in that he is a spiritual being, gifted with intelligence in the best sense of the word. Such things must be indicated by means of the head, for the head is the instrument of the spirit.

We must become conscious of such things; then we shall be able to express them in the right way. It is specially important to be able to use the head in the most varied manner according to the possibilities of its organization.

Fri. S. . . . will you turn your head towards the right. The turning of the head towards the right may always be taken to signify: ` I will ' ; naturally I do not mean these two words merely, but everything which contains the feeling: ` I will.'

On the other hand, when you turn your head towards the left it signifies : I feel.' Thus, everything in a poem where the mood of `I feel' is dominant we must turn the head towards the left.

Now bend the head towards the right. This bending movement of the head (forwards towards the right) signifies: ` Iwill not.' Bend it in the same way towards the left and it signifies: ` I do not feel this, I do not understand it or realize it.'

And now bend the head forwards, straight forwards. You will see how natural this movement is if you do the following: Frau Sch. . . . will you stand facing Frl. S. . . . in profile, and do these movements. We must suppose that Frau Sch. . . . says: ` It is the gods who inspire the human heart with willing service.' Frl. S. . . . gives an eurythmic answer: ` You are too clever for me; I do not understand you.' She shows this by means of the aforesaid gesture, carried out clearly and definitely. You will find numberless opportunities of applying this movement. It signifies a sinking into oneself when faced with something which one is not able to understand.

Then, further, so that we may have at least one example, I must point out that the twelve gestures related to the Zodiac and the seven gestures related to the moving planetary circle may be made use of in a variety of ways. Quite apart, for instance, from what was said yesterday with regard to rhyming we must learn to understand such an exercise as the following:

Fri. S. . . . and Fri. V. . . . will you demonstrate what I am now going to describe. Fri. S. . . . will you make the gesture for Leo, and you, Frl. V. . . . the gesture for Aquarius; now, as I read this little poem, try to show it in eurythmy. In the case of the emphasized rhymes, the rhymes which fall on an accented beat, you, Fri. S.. . . must make the gesture for Leo. With the unemphasized rhymes, thus those which do not fall on the accented but on the unaccented beat, you, Frl. V. . . . must make the gesture of Aquarius. Make the movements standing still, choosing perhaps the vowel sounds, and only making the zodiacal gestures at the end of the lines so that we may really see their effect when they follow immediately after the rhyme.

Es rauschst das Bachlein -Ether Gestein... .

(You, Frl. V. . . . must hold the sound)

Ein Weidenbaum driiber gebogen,
Drauf sitzt des Miillers Büblein klein,
Im Schosse ein kleines Zitherlein,
Die Füsschen bespiilt von den Wogen.
Es kommt ein Mann des Wegs zu gehn,
Er bleibt so still, so schweigsam stehn
Sieht zu dem sinnigen Knaben;
Hatt' auch ein Büblein klein,
War auch so still und auch so fein.
Das liegt nun draussen begraben.

You see how the rhyme may be emphasized in this way by means of the zodiacal gestures. I am drawing your attention to such things so that you may be able to work out similar exercises for yourselves, thus gaining assurance and certainty in the development of eurythmic gestures.

I will now ask a number of eurythmists to come forward and make various movements as I explain them: Number one must place the feet together, stretching the arms out so that they lie in a horizontal direction, on a level with the shoulders.

Number two must stand with the feet slightly apart, holding out the arms in such a way that the hands about correspond with the level of the larynx:

Now for number three: stand with your feet somewhat further apart, and hold the arms in such a way that, if a line were drawn from hand to hand, it would pass just below the heart.

Number four: stand with the feet still further apart, quite wide, holding the arms right up above the head. The hands must be held in such a way that they could be connected with the feet by means of a straight line.

Number five: stand with the feet in a similar position to number three, and now hold the arms in such a way that a line drawn from hand to hand would pass at the level of the top of the head.

Here (in the case of Number two) the line passes across the larynx; here (Number one) the line is quite horizontal; here (Number four) it is high up above the head; and here (Number five) it is just at head-level. Continue to hold all these gestures.

Number six: you must stand with the legs close together, with the arms held upwards in an absolutely vertical line: To these gestures we must add the following words:

Ich denke die Rede—I
Ich rede—II
Ich habe geredet—III
Ich suche mich im Geiste (meinen geistigen Ursprung)—IV
Ich fühle mich in mir—V
Ich bin auf dem geistigen Wege—VI
Ich bin auf dem Weg zum Geiste (zu mir).

I think speech I speak
I have spoken
I seek for myself in the Spirit
(my spiritual origin)
I feel myself within myself
I am on the spiritual path
I am on the way to the Spirit (to myself).

Approximately in this way. And now you must try to pass from one position to the next. Frl. V. . . . will you do this? Place yourself in front of each one in turn, and, as you take up each position, you must feel impelled to express the words that are said by means of the gesture being carried out by the eurythmist standing behind you. As Number one, you have to begin:

Ich denke die Rede

Passing on take up your place in front of Number two:

Ich rede
Ich habe geredet
Ich suche mich im Geiste
Ich fühle mich im mir
Ich bin auf dem Geistwege.

In this way we get the whole series of gestures.

Ich denke die Rede
Ich rede
Ich habe geredet
Ich suche mich im Geiste
Ich fühle mich in mir
Ich bin auf dem Wege zum Geiste (zur mir).

If, when teaching eurythmy to adults, a beginning is made with this very exercise, it will certainly help them to find their way into eurythmy easily and well.

These gestures, when carried out in this way one after the other, form an exercise which may be classed among those having a harmonizing and curative effect. Thus, when anyone is so much disturbed in his soul-life that this disturbance works itself out into his physical body, manifesting itself in all sorts of digestive troubles, then this exercise, taken in such a case as a curative exercise, may always be given with the greatest benefit.

And finally, my dear friends, I must once again impress upon your hearts the fact that really good eurythmy can only be achieved when there is the determination always to make a thorough and careful preparatory analysis, of anything which is to be interpreted by means of eurythmy. Every poem must be studied in the first place with a view to discovering which are the most fundamental sounds. If in a poem expressing the feeling of wonder, the wonder experienced by the poet, we find many a sounds, then we may be quite sure that this poem is well suited to eurythmy, for it is the sound a which expresses wonder. The poet himself has felt that a is specially related to the mood of wonder. And the eurythmist will be able to intensify the effect by laying stress on the movement corresponding to the sound a. In eurythmy it is even more important to concentrate on the sounds contained in a poem than on the actual sense-content of the words. For the sense-content is the prose element. The more a poem depends upon its sense-content, so much the less is it a poem; and the more the sound-content is brought out, the more a poem is dependent on sound, the nearer it approaches to true poetry.

As a eurythmist, then, one should not take one's start from the prose-content, but should enter so deeply into the nature of the sounds as to be able to say: When many a-sounds occur in a poem it is obvious that it is a poem based upon the mood of wonder and must be so expressed. This shows us the attitude we must have towards language as such. Further we must seek in poetry for those characteristics of language which we have already mentioned here,—what is concrete, for instance, what abstract, and other details of this kind. This means that one must first enter into the nature of a poem and study it according to the structure and formation of its language, only later trying to express it in eurythmy.

In eurythmy there is still another thing to bear in mind, and that is the way in which, in the eurythmy figures, I have tried to portray Movement, Feeling and Character.¹ This is another field of study for eurythmists. The movement must be felt as movement, and is depicted as such in the figures. As a eurythmist one lives in movement. We must, however,—more especially when a veil is floating around us, but also when we are not actually wearing one,—picture this veil as expressing the aura (see Eurythmy Figures). It is only when one bears this in mind that one can bring the necessary grace and beauty into the movements. Let us look at the eurythmy figure for I. The 1-sound itself lies in the movement; but that which can be added to the 1 as feeling, is shown by the fact that here, in the region of the arms, the aura is quite wide, becoming narrower as it hangs down. You must imagine that your arms reveal your feeling by means of the floating aura of the veil. The dress which here appears somewhat wider at the bottom must be studied in a similar way. This is how one must picture oneself. As a eurythmist, one should always feel oneself attired in dress and floating veil as I have indicated here in the figure.

Character also is of the greatest importance. When stretching out the arms one should actually feel that here (see figure) the muscles are stretched and taut. Everywhere where character is indicated by means of its corresponding colour there must be a tension of the muscles. This must also be shown by the eurythmist. And here again, for example, (see figure) you must use the legs in such a way that you really experience this muscular tension. The eurythmy figures are intended to show such things and have been designed accordingly.

When you have in this way made a study of each separate sound, your whole organism will be so sensitive to sound that you will feel: This whole poem is built up upon the mood of l, let us say, or upon the mood of b; and it will then be possible for you to create your interpretation of a poem out of the sounds themselves.

All these things must be very carefully borne in mind when it is a question of teaching eurythmy. In educational eurythmy it is naturally important to introduce such movements of the body as can work with moral benefit upon the soul-life, and serve to further the development of intellect and feeling.

In artistic eurythmy the essential thing is that the soul should gain the power of working through the medium of the body. Thus the movements of eurythmy, these gestures as they are shaped and formed, must be felt to be absolutely natural, indeed inevitable. One must feel that they could not be otherwise, that it is only by means of these very gestures that certain moods or artistic concepts can be expressed.

Yet another thing must be borne in mind, and that is the fact that the learning of eurythmy entails an actual trans-formation of the human organism. Any performance which reveals the slightest trace of struggle between body and soul must be looked upon as unfinished and imperfect. In a eurythmy performance the whole body must have become soul.

A programme is sometimes given—as you yourselves know—which has been prepared with unbelievable industry and is then shown for the first time. One can enjoy such a programme, where everything is fresh and spontaneous, where there is still a struggle with the form-running, and where on occasion the arms are not moved but thrown about, appearing so heavy as to be liable at any moment to fall to the ground. There is spontaneity in all this and it gives us a certain pleasure.

Then the time comes when the programme is taken on tour and given perhaps in some ‘two dozen' towns. (As a matter of fact, I believe this has never actually happened, but it might well happen.) The programme is, as I said, performed in about two dozen towns and the eurythmists return. Then,—because Frau Dr. Steiner has had no time to prepare a new programme,—this old programme, which we saw some six weeks ago in all its youthful spontaneity, is presented again. Now the pleasure is of a very different kind. Everything has become easy and fluent. One notices, too, that the eurythmists, because they have visited new towns and learned to know fresh conditions, are stimulated by the outer world and have gained a certain inner enthusiasm. All this has had its effect on the movements and they have become effortless and free. The performance is now sheer delight, and one can only exclaim: ‘Oh, if this programme could be performed fifty times more, how beautiful it would be then!'

We must have an understanding for these things. Every artist whose work is bound up with the stage knows the truth of what I have just said. A good actor would never think that he has mastered a role before he had played it some fifty times. With the fifty-first performance he might perhaps think that he could play the part, for then every-thing would have become second nature. We, too, must acquire this attitude of mind, my dear friends. We must develop such a love for anything which is to be shown in a performance that we simply cannot put it aside. Indeed no one but the onlooker may be permitted to find an often repeated item dull or tedious! It is in the sphere of art above all, that it is important to realize this; one must come back to a thing again and again. In a place where I once happened to be staying, I had the opportunity of seeing a play repeated fifty times. I went every evening to see this same play and allowed it to work upon me. By the fifth evening I did perhaps have a certain feeling of boredom, but by the fifty-first evening I was not in the least bored. Even though the performance, in a small provincial theatre, was very mediocre, so much could be learned from its very imperfection that this experience,—peculiar though it was,—could be of life-long benefit. As a matter of fact, I did not like the play in question; as a play it did not interest me at all. (It was Sudermann's Ehre.) I could not stand the play; nevertheless, I saw it performed fifty times by a some-what mediocre cast. My aim was to enter into all the details unconsciously, thus experiencing it purely with the astral body. I wished to take it right out of the realm of conscious perception and simply to live with it.

People must learn,—and now, when I am speaking about eurythmy, I will take the opportunity of mentioning it,—people must learn the value of rhythm, even in more complicated matters. We say the Lord's Prayer not fifty times only, but countless times, and we never find it tedious. Notice is seldom paid to the fact that such things are connected with experiences of the human organism, experiences which are apparently more or less immaterial and to which our Karma leads us at one time or another.

With this, my dear friends, we must bring this course of lectures to a close. From the way I have developed the subject, you will have realized that my first aim has been to show you that it is out of the feelings, out of the soul-life, that eurythmy must proceed. Eurythmic technique must be won out of a love for eurythmy, for in truth, everything must proceed out of love.

How much I myself love eurythmy, my dear friends, I have told you recently in the ‘News Sheet'.² I said then how earnestly I wish that the great devotion demanded of all those actively engaged in the work of eurythmy,—work which was begun by Frau Dr. Steiner, begun by our eurythmy artists here in Dornach and which has gradually won wider recognition and esteem,—how earnestly I wish that all this may be rightly appreciated; for it cannot be too highly prized in Anthroposophical circles. It is my hope that this course of lectures may have contributed something towards the furthernace of eurythmy in this respect, in that all of us who are gathered together here,—whether as eurythmists who already know the fundamentals of eurythmy, as beginners, or indeed as those merely interested in eurythmy, that all of us here will feel ourselves as the helpers and promoters of eurythmy, of this art which springs from no humble source, but has as its lofty origin, that cosmic knowledge which creates from out of the spirit. If we feel ourselves as the helpers of eurythmy, either in an active or in a more passive sense, then eurythmy will be able to fulfil the mission which it can and should fulfil in the general development of Anthroposophy.

When people will see in beauty the spirit working in human movement, then this will make some contribution to the whole attitude which humanity, through Anthroposophy, should take up towards the spirit.

Let us think of all the many things which have grown up out of anthroposophical soil, forming together one great whole; and then, inspired by the Anthroposophy in our hearts, let us build up and develop each separate activity as it should and will be developed if we prove ourselves worthy of the real aims of Anthroposophy. This course of eurythmy lectures may perhaps have done something towards this end.

• 1. See page 274. The Eurythmy Figures.
• 2. S. page 260.

Introductory words to the Eurythmy performance given in Dornach, 26th December, 1923, on the occasion of the Foundation Meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society.

The nature of eurythmy has certainly been repeatedly discussed before the most varied groups of our friends, lately also it was presented in the most varied way in the Goetheanum,¹ and it is indeed unnecessary to speak at this performance, which is to be given exclusively to our friends about the essential nature of eurythmy, about the basic principles, which are known to all. Yet I should like to characterize again and again from a certain standpoint both the way in which eurythmy stands in the artistic development of the present and what its position among the arts in general is. To-day I will speak a few words about how eurythmy must in fact, as it were from its very nature, be drawn out from the being of man by a spiritual world-conception, which, in accordance with the signs of the times, is making itself felt in our present age.

We look at another art which portrays the human being—the plastic art, which portrays him in his quiescent form. Whoever approaches plastic art with a certain feeling for form, whoever experiences the human being, human characteristics, through a plastic work of art does so in the best way when he has the feeling: here the human being is silent, speaking through his quiescent form.

Now we know that in the eighteenth century Lessing wrote a paper on the limits of plastic art,—it was not called that, but that was its content,—in which he said that sculpture should in its very nature be a manifestation of that which is at rest, of that which is silent in man,—in man as a being placed into the cosmos. So that sculpture can only express that which manifests itself as silence, as stillness, in the human being. Hence any attempt to represent the human being in movement through the medium of sculpture will undoubtedly prove to be an artistic error.

In times gone by, indeed up to the time of the Renaissance, it was a matter of course that plastic art could only represent the human being in a state of rest. For it may be said: This age, which began with ancient Greece and ended with the Renaissance, was mainly concerned with the development in the human being of the intellectual soul. With regard to the inner configuration of man’s being, the sentient soul, the mind soul and the consciousness soul,—it is the mind soul, embracing as it does all that is connected with the human mind, that holds the middle place; and the mind is in fact permeated with that quiescent feeling which also comes to expression in the quiescent human form.

We live to-day in an age in which we must advance from the feeling element in man to the will element; for fundamentally speaking it is the descent into the will element which, if consciously achieved, would enable us to-day to attain to spiritual insight.

This brings us to the point where we may turn our spiritual gaze to the human being in movement; not to the human being who, as the expression of the Cosmic Word, remained silent in order to rest in form, but to the human being as he stands in the living weaving of the Cosmic Word, bringing his organism into activity in accordance with his cosmic environment.

It is this clement in man which must find expression in eurythmy. And if one is able to observe things from the point of view of the spiritual science which is suited to the humanity of to-day, one will always have the feeling that form must become fluidic. Let us look at a human hand. Its silence finds expression in its quiescent form. What then is the meaning of this quiescent form when the human being as a whole is taken into consideration? Its meaning is apparent when the quiescent element of feeling is allowed to hold sway as it did hold sway from the age of the ancient Greeks to the time of the Renaissance. There is certainly great significance in such a gesture as this, in which I indicate something with my hand, then allowing it to remain in a state of rest. But it does not enable us to understand what must be realized to-day with regard to man, it does not enable us to understand the human being in his totality.

It is indeed impossible to understand the human form, when observing the human being as a whole, unless one is conscious of the fact that every motionless form in man has meaning only because it is able to pass over into definite movement. What would be the significance of the human hand if it were compelled to remain motionless. Even in its motionless state the form of the hand is such as to demand movement.

When one studies the human being with that inner mobility which is essential to the Spiritual Science of to-day, then from out of the quiescent form, movement reveals itself on all sides. It is not too much to say that anyone who visits a museum containing sculpture belonging to the best periods of plastic art, and who looks at the figures with the inner vision arising out of the spiritual knowledge of our time, will see these figures descend from their stands, move about the room and meet each other, becoming on all sides enfilled with movement.

And eurythmy,—now eurythmy arises naturally out of sculpture. And to learn to understand this is our task also. To-day people gifted with a certain spiritual mobility feel disturbed if obliged to look for a long time at a motionless Greek statue. They have to force themselves to do it. This can, and indeed must be done in order not to spoil the Greek statue in one’s own personal fantasy. But at the same time the urge remains to bring movement into this motionless form. As a consequence there arises that moving sculpture to which we give the name of Eurythmy. Here the Cosmic Word is itself, movement. In eurythmy man is no longer silent but through his movement communicates innumerable cosmic secrets.

It is indeed always the case that man communicates through his own being numberless secrets of the universe. One can, however, have yet another cosmic feeling. Anyone who has a living understanding for such descriptions of cosmic evolution as are to be found in my Outline of Occult Science will realize from the outset that, in the case of the human form of to-day, it is as though one had allowed an inner mobility to become dried up, to become rigid. One need only to look back to the time of the Old Moon. The human being was then in a continual state of metamorphosis. Such a definitely formed nose, such definitely formed ears as man has to-day, these did not exist at that time. The once mobile forms had to become frozen. He who with his vision can transport himself into the time of the Old Moon, to him people to-day often appear as frozen, immobile beings, incapable of metamorphosis. And what we achieve by means of eurythmy, when we make it into a visible speech, is no less than this: The bringing of movement, of fluidity, into the frozen human form.

This demands a study which must in its very nature be artistic. In this sphere everything intellectualistic is positively harmful. Eurythmy is and must remain an art.

Just consider for a moment that some such eurythmy form as you have sometimes seen here in connection with poems which really have in their experience and structure the profundity, for instance, of the poems of Steffen, just consider that such a form would best be found when, let us say—one imagines ten or twelve people of the present day. You are certainly all individually different with regard to your external form; but one can say of every person, no matter whether he has a round or long head, a pointed or blunt nose,—one can say of every person how, in the case of a poem, he would move his etheric body. And it would certainly be interesting for one to take those sitting in a certain row and show how, in the case of a poem, each one of those sitting here would move in accordance with his own form, if this came about entirely from the individual characteristics of the person in question. Here are sitting, for instance, eight people in this row. In such a case quite different eurythmy forms would arise from the human form. This would be very interesting. One would have to look at many people in order to say how the human being would move for “Und es wallet und woget und brauset und zischt”.

And then one gets the idea of how the forms are necessary. Thus eurythmy is born wholly out of the moving human form, but one must be able to take up such a standpoint that, when asked why the form for a poem is such and such, one must say: Yes, that is how it is! If anyone demands an intellectual explanation in justification of such a form, then one will feel annoyed to give it, because that is really inartistic. Eurythmy is created entirely out of feeling and can also only be understood through feeling.

Of course one must learn certain things, the letters must be learned, and so on. But after all, when you write a letter, here also you do not think about how an i or a b is written, but you write because you are able to do so. The point, then, is not how the eurythmist must learn a, b, c but to enjoy what comes out of it in the end.

What must develop out of eurythmy is a newly created, moving sculpture. And for this living sculpture one must of course make use of the human being himself; here one cannot use clay or marble. This leads into a realm of art which, in the profoundest sense, touches reality just where sculpture departs from it. Sculpture portrays that which is dead in the human being, or at least that which is death-like in its rigidity. Eurythmy portrays all that in the human being which is of the nature of life itself. For this reason eurythmy can call forth the feeling of how the universal cosmic life laid hold of man and placed him into earthly evolution, giving him his earthly task. There is perhaps no other art through which one can experience man’s relationship to the cosmos so vividly as one is able to do through the art of eurythmy. Therefore this art of eurythmy, based as it is on the etheric forces in man, had to appear just at that time a modern Spiritual Science was being sought. For it was out of this modern Spiritual Science that eurythmy had to be born.

• 1. See Rudolf Steiner, foreword to a eurythmy performance in ‘Das Goetheanum’ Year 3, No. 7. 23rd Sept., 1925.

From the ‘News Sheet’ (Nachrichtenblatt) Year I. No. 22, June 8th, 1924

During the time from the middle of May to the middle of June, Frau Marie Steiner with the eurythmists from the Goetheanum is undertaking a eurythmy tour through the towns of Ulm, Nurnberg, Eisenach, Erfurt, Naumberg, Hildesheim, Hanover, Halle and Breslau. The accounts of this journey, which I receive here in the Goetheanum, speak of a profound interest which the comparatively large audiences take in the art which has arisen out of the anthroposophical movement.

That here and there a few noisy disturbers bring discord into the otherwise very gratifying reception cannot alienate him who knows the obstacles which must always, in every sphere of life, be contended with when that to which people are accustomed is faced by something new.

One would like to expect from the Anthroposophical Society that it should bring its full inner support towards the endeavours which are active in the art of eurythmy. For only with such inner support can the warmth be sustained which is necessary for those who dedicate themselves to these endeavours.

It is not everywhere known within the Anthroposophical Society upon what foundations such endeavours are built up. At the Goetheanum, under the direction of Marie Steiner, constant work is going on in order to carry out all the practices necessary before the performances. In all this work great devotion is indispensable from all those taking part. And from outside it is not always apparent how wearing it is, in artistic work, to make tiring journeys from town to town, how fretting to unfold the artistic mood during these fatiguing journeys. To succeed in carrying out such endeavours in the available circumstances certainly needs much devotion and a true enthusiasm for the cause.

Eurythmy as an art is the fruit of the spiritual impulse working in the anthroposophical movement. That which lives in the human organisation as soul and spirit comes to visible manifestation through eurythmy. Its effect upon those watching it depends upon the inner perception that in the externally visible movements of people and groups of people soul and spirit visibly unfold themselves. He only who has the artistic conception of what lies in the audible word can unfold the right sense for how the audible can, in eurythmy, be transformed into the visible. One has, as it were, the human soul-being before one’s eyes.

And into this evident revelation of the human soul-being resound the arts of recitation and of music. It can be said that the art of recitation experiences in the strivings of eurythmy the essential conditions of its being. Recitation is, of course, connected in the first place with the word. But the word easily succumbs to the temptation to stray away from the artistic. It tends to become the content of understanding and feeling. It is, however, only the formation of this content which can have artistic effect. When recitation appears at the side of the eurythmic art of movement it has to unfold its formative character in full purity. It must reveal what can work formatively and musically in language. Necessary for eurythmy, therefore, was the development of the art of recitation, as this has been made possible by the devotion of Marie Steiner to this part of the anthroposophical movement. Within the Anthroposophical Society one should follow up what has arisen since the time when Marie Steiner, with a few eurythmists, began the work in 1914 in Berlin. Eurythmy could only unfold itself as a visible art of speech side by side with the artistically conceived audible art of speech. He only who has the artistic conception of what lies in the audible word can unfold the right sense for how the audible can, in eurythmy, be transformed into the visible. From the side of the public that only can be of interest which shows artistic merit. For the members of the Anthroposophical Society the point is intimately to share in the becoming of such a striving. For this is a part of the anthroposophical life.

In such a sharing the noblest human elements will be able to develop. And in such a development lies indeed one of the grandest tasks of the Anthroposophical Society.

Our musicians who place their artistic gifts at the service of eurythmy are bringing, I am convinced—through the way in which they do this and through the great enthusiasm which ensouls them in their work with the related art—they are bringing music forward in a quite special direction. I believe, indeed that the musical sense which lives in them finds its true liberation when placed in this connection. In any case, in the work of our musicians within the framework of eurythmy activity there is a deeply satisfying expansion of the musical into the general sphere of art. And its fruitfulness is shown again by the beautiful working-back upon the specifically musical.

From Marie Steiner’s efforts in the sphere of eurythmy there has arisen the Eurythmeum in Stuttgart. This is based upon the idea of a eurythmy conservatorium. Eurythmy in all its branches is taught there, lectures being also given in such auxiliary subjects as poetry, aesthetics, history of art, music theory, etc. All this in accordance with that artistic conception in the light of which eurythmy must stand. What has arisen in this way in Stuttgart carries within itself many possibilities of further upbuilding. It is deeply satisfying to see how many members from the circle of our society devote themselves with the warmest participation to the furtherance of eurythmy endeavours. This participation is in process of growing in a gratifying way. Through this there has entered into our movement a feature which is entirely consistent with the fundamental conditions of its life. For art stands midway between the revelations of the sense-world and spiritual reality. It is the aim of anthroposophy to place the spiritual world before mankind. Art is the reflection of the spirit in the sense-world. If art did not grow upon anthroposophical soil this could only result from some lack in this soil itself. In anthroposophical circles insight into this has been steadily increasing; it is to be hoped that such understanding will ripen more and more.

To-day I should like to give you some indications about our art of eurythmy.

We must realise that every art is limited in its sphere of work by the means of artistic expression which stand at its disposal. And an art only gains a true life of its own when, in its struggle towards achievement, it makes use simply and solely of those means of artistic expression which lie within its own sphere.

Let us take as an example the art of sculpture. The plastic art, the art of sculpture uses as its means of expression form, surface; and it must, when for instance it represents an animal form or a human form, take as its basis the fact that everything which is bound up with the human being or the animal has to, be expressed by means of the modelled surface, and must consequently be carried out by the specialized technique of the same.

Let us suppose, then, that we wish to represent a smooth-coated animal. In such a case we should have to handle the marble, the bronze or the wood, in a manner quite different from that which we should have to employ if we wished to represent a rough-coated animal. We are always compelled, through these artistic means, to bring something to expression which does not actually lie within their sphere. Thus, for example, in the art of sculpture, we are obliged to use the way in which we treat the surface of our material as our means of representing that which is present in the human being himself as colour, as the natural flesh-colour. For this reason it would be wrong if, instead of modelling a statue, one tried in some way to represent the human being by means of a plaster cast. This might indeed, as far as the form is concerned, be in complete accordance with the human being, but it would only be reproducing the naturalistic human form. Such a reproduction could never give the impression of the actual human being. For in the case of the actual human being the effect is produced in the first place by means of the colour of his flesh, by his colour,—it is produced by many other things as well, for instance by his expression. All this cannot be brought into the art of sculpture. We must, therefore, give to the surface a moulding and shaping which is different from the naturalistic human form if we wish to produce an impression of the human being as a whole.

In the art of painting, for example, we again have to do with a working upon a surface. And here, in the figures we are representing, we must express by means of the treatment of colour all that is expressed in actual reality by means of form. In recent times this artistic insight has been in a measure lost, and, because people really have not understood how to confine their work in any particular art to the limits of its means of expression, the naturalistic element has crept into art to an ever greater degree. And this naturalistic principle, because it is confined in any art to a limited means of expression, brings in its train something which is inartistic and lifeless.

When, for instance, we are considering the stage, we must realize that a scene taking place on the stage and representing some aspect of life must necessarily be something quite different from the same scene taking place in ordinary naturalistic circumstances. The stage may be said to throw life up into relief, and, in arranging everything to do with the stage, we must always reckon with this fact. We must, for example, know what is signified when an actor moves from the back of the stage towards the front. On the stage this has a significance which is indeed quite different from what it would have if anyone moved in a room from the back towards the front. We must take the whole milieu into account; we must reckon with the auditorium. For a dramatic work of art unfolds itself in an interplay between that which is taking place on the stage and in the auditorium.

Suppose, for instance, that in a drama one of the actors has to speak a passage which, according to its content, is intended to produce the effect of something specially intimate. This effect of intimacy could never be produced by the actor moving backwards, but the effect of intimacy is conveyed when the actor moves forward towards the front of the stage. Generally speaking, everything on the stage has a significance other than in daily life. When an actor moves from the right side of the stage (as seen from the auditorium) towards the centre, this means something entirely different from what it would be if he moved towards the centre from the left side.

We must master the means at our disposal in the sphere of dramatic art. We must reckon with the movement of the actor in this or that direction of the stage. It is not without importance when we say to ourselves: What should be done by someone wishing to express a feeling of intimacy? In naturalistic art people as a rule would merely be of the opinion that the actor should be made to catch his breath. But this, in certain cases would not produce such an effect upon the naive onlooker as would the simple method of making the actor take three, four or five steps forwards.

Let us take another art,—one which in our present age is least of any rightly understood; let us take the art of recitation and declamation. When people’s attitude towards recitation and declamation is such that they believe that everything should be spoken in as naturalistic a way as possible, that all emphasis should be as naturalistic as possible, then the result is indeed inartistic. The art of declamation and recitation depends upon something quite different; here the whole point is that one knows how to study, asking: What is the character of the vowels, what the character of the consonants, what the special mood which lies in the vowel e or the vowel a? How is the pure a-mood affected by m? How is the pure a-mood affected by l? And further one must understand how such moods as lie in the vowels or consonants may spread their colour over a whole line; one might perhaps extend such a mood over a whole monologue, speaking of one monologue as being recited in the e-mood, of another in the a-mood,—that is to say, one can develop the whole atmosphere and mood of some special sound, of a or e, of m or l.

Thus it is absolutely possible to develop from out of the special means at our disposal in any situation an artistic method of treatment, which does indeed define the art in question. Apart from this the point is in recitation and declamation to realise the essential difference between the epic, the lyric and the dramatic mood. And further, just in this art, quite special attention must be paid to the naive impressions of the onlooker,—besides doing everything possible to develop the artistic feeling of whoever has to recite or declaim. This could never be achieved by naturalistic methods; it can only be achieved when one understands how to give shape and form,—the right shape and form,—not only to single sounds, but also to sentences, and even to whole passages. This is why I have repeatedly said that in the accompaniment of eurythmy by recitation and declamation the important thing is always to bring out the musical and imaginative element lying in the poet’s treatment of the language. That which in ordinary naturalistic life is attained by means of emphasis must here be attained by means of the whole forming and shaping of the speech itself.

Now when we look at eurythmy from this standpoint,—in so far as it is the aim of eurythmy to be a true art,—we must ask ourselves: What are its artistic means?—You have certainly all attended performances of eurythmy, and consequently you will know that here, in the first place, we have to do with a movement of the human limbs, of the hands and arms more especially,—but also, at least in indication, with a movement of the whole human body. This is the means of expression for eurythmy as an art.

Thus it is the movement itself which we have to consider in the first place. And the onlooker first gains a really satisfying impression of eurythmy when he is able to perceive something in the movement as such, in the movement, for example, which belongs to a vowel or a consonant, that is to say, in the plastic form which appears as a consequence of the movement. This is of the first importance. But also we should not forget that eurythmy really is an actual visible speech, and as such it is an expression of the soul, just as is the speech which manifests in sound. So that everything which is to be represented in eurythmy must depend solely upon such means as can produce upon the eye just such an effect as the language of sound produces on and through the ear.

Thus it would be quite wrong if anyone were to think that ordinary mime or play of feature can have any significance in eurythmy. This play of feature, this use of facial expression is quite without significance; only that has significance which really belongs within the sphere of movement. The onlooker must, then, be able absolutely to forget, in the essence of the movement, anything which depends upon mime or any other use of the face, or upon the face itself. Speaking in an ideal sense either beauty or lack of beauty in the face of the eurythmist is quite without importance. The attention must be absolutely concentrated upon the movement itself.

But in its movement eurythmy is itself a language; it is the expression of the human soul. And no one,—let us speak for example of a sculptor or an actor,—would be able to give form to a sound or a combination of sounds, or be able to give shape to a surface, if he did not possess feeling, the feeling for the curved surface or for the structure and formation of sounds. It is not so much a question of the performer, just at the moment of performance, having a feeling for what ought to be called up in the audience or for how it should be called up (for this would only lead him into error) but the point is actually to feel the structure of the sounds the shape and form of the sounds. The sculptor too must have a feeling for his surface. The sculptor has a different feeling according to whether he feels a round or a flat surface. This is not a feeling that one wishes to display; it is the artistic feeling which is developed by the artist within the sphere of his means of artistic expression.

The eurythmist also can develop such a feeling. And, in a performance of eurythmy, it is only when the right feeling, the right inner attitude towards the movements is present, that a real effect upon the soul of the onlooker is achieved.

Let us realize for once what this can mean. Let us take some movement,—any sound, which would make the eurythmist move the hand and arm in this way, and then hold it for a moment (demonstrating the movement);—here we have the movement or the plastic posture into which the movement has led us over.

Now the effect of this movement will only be ensouled when the eurythmist, apart from making the movement, actually feels in the movement itself the sensation, here in this upward direction, of something of the nature of tangible air. The sensation must be somewhat different from that of ordinary air; it is as if we had to do with air which is perceptible, tangible; it is as if something were twined around the arm, something we had to carry. We may think of this as the feeling; the arm is moved in such and such a way and the feeling ensues; the eurythmist feels something touching the arm quite lightly, a slight pressure, even a slight tension. If we represent this in somewhat expressionistic form, we may say that here, as it were, we fashion a veil. And the onlooker sees, when the eurythmist really uses the veil with skill, all this expressed in the veil. The veil is arranged so that the eurythmist feels a slight pressure here, a slight tension there; and then the onlooker sees what the eurythmist feels. It is possible in the movements of eurythmy to pour one’s whole feeling into the forms taken by the veil.

This is, of course, speaking of the matter from a very idealistic point of view, for such things cannot be achieved all at once; they should, however, at least form a goal towards which the eurythmist must gradually strive. This is why the addition of veils to our performances of eurythmy was completely justified. For the veil is, in its very nature, of real assistance to the onlooker, helping him to see in the external plastic movement what the fluidic feeling inherent in the movements of eurythmy is. And again, when we have such a working together of movement and feeling as I have described, then already we have represented some part of the soul life. For in the place of thought we have movement, and we contact the feeling quite directly. Further, something of very real assistance to the onlookers would be brought about if the colour of the veil were to have some special relationship to the colour of the dress; for it is in the dress that the movement is really brought to expression, while feeling is made visible by the veil.

Thus we are able to present, in beautiful expressionistic form this interplay between movement and feeling. And one may say that if, for instance, the dress is of a colour which corresponds in some measure to the e-sound,—when the dress is of some special colour,—then the veil must be of another colour. These two colours must, however, stand in a relationship towards each other corresponding to the relationship between movement and feeling.

Of course, in an actual performance of eurythmy, this cannot be carried out exactly, for it is obviously impossible to change dress and veil for each separate sound. I have already pointed out, however, that we may, if we penetrate with artistic feeling right into the essence of the whole matter, speak of certain moods; we may speak of an e-mood or an u-mood, and it is possible to carry this over, not merely into lines and verses, but into a whole poem. And when we have a feeling for the fact: This poem is written in the mood of i, and that poem in the mood of e;—or when, let us say, we are able to feel: In this poem when, having two eurythmists, we arrange that one expresses the character of the e-mood by means of dress and veil and the other the character of the i;—then once again we are able to bring to a somewhat more complicated expression, in the interplay of these two moods, the actual mood of the poem.

Such experiments in the harmonizing of dress and veil have, of course, already been attempted in poems as a whole; for it is these things which must form the basis of our work. But they cannot be said to rest upon mere nebulous fantasy; they must be experienced with inner artistic feeling, they must be studied artistically. Only then can they be represented with such reality and truth that the onlooker, even if completely ignorant of the whole matter, will nevertheless have, albeit in quite a naive way, the corresponding impression.

Now, however, in a performance of eurythmy we must consider yet a third element. This is the element of will, the character. If you take some sound and picture how it should be represented in eurythmy, you will say to yourselves: In the movement, in the first place, we have represented something which is similar to the whole treatment and formation of speech in recitation. The whole way in which speech is treated, whether pictorial or musical, is expressed in eurythmy by means of the movement.

The feeling which the reciter also brings into his recitation, the feeling, this is made really visible in what the eurythmist himself must experience in his own fantasy. It is as if there were here a slight feeling of pressure, there of tension, and this has a great effect upon the movements; quite naturally, quite instinctively, the movements themselves become different with the differing feelings of the eurythmist. This is what permeates the whole thing with life and soul. And it is good when the eurythmist is not merely master of the external movement as such, but when this feeling also is present. In the forming of an e, for instance, one does, quite definitely, have a slight sensation in some place or another; and it is good when one is able, in imagination, to give oneself up to these slight sensations. Then the movement itself gains a soul-quality quite different from that which it has when carried out mechanically.

But the reciter also introduces into his recitation an element of will. He speaks quietly, let us say, in one place; he gains strength; often he speaks out quite loudly. This is the will-element. And this will-element,—which I should like in the realm of art to name ‘character’,—can also be carried over into a performance of eurythmy. Now suppose that in some sound or other you have to hold the arm in this way,—and the hand here,—(demonstrating the movement). Quite involuntarily, out of your own instinctive artistic feeling, you will create something different when you hold the hand relaxed, yielding it up to its own weight, or when you stretch it out. And just as the reciter by exerting more or less strength and power in his speech, brings character into language, so too you can bring character into eurythmy.

You will, for instance, give a different character from what you are showing by means of your arm, when, as a eurythmist you do not merely give yourself up to your fantasy, but actually bring this fantasy into outward expression. Let us say that in the case of certain letters, or in some passage which you wish to express, the forehead takes on a slight tension, or you feel in some movement that you exert a certain strength of the muscles of the upper arm, or you have the feeling, that at some point you must put down the foot quite consciously with a certain pressure on the floor;—all this forms the third element which must be brought into eurythmy, the character. Thus we really have the possibility of expressing the whole soul life in a performance of eurythmy.

Now you see, my dear friends, the remarkable thing is this: If one really puts into practice the thoughts which I have just set before you, then, simply by expressing eurythmy in a certain way, one creates the impulses which underlie what is being sought after to-day as a special form of art,—expressionism in art. For eurythmy is, from a certain point of view, absolutely expressionistic. Only it does not make use of the many absurd means which are made to serve so-called Expressionism; it makes use of those means whereby one can create forms of expression really artistically. It makes use of movements of the physical body, and by this means feeling is poured into the limbs, character is poured into the limbs, as I have just described.

Now in our performances, which are still, of course, only at the very beginning of their development, we have always endeavoured to carry out just these things of which I have been speaking, to carry them out in such a way that the sounds have been treated at least according to these principles. We have endeavoured to find for each sound a justifiable means of expression, justifiable, because in the choice of one colour the movement is definitely represented, in a second colour the feeling (this is shown in the veil and is consequently only to be seen at a performance), and in a third colour the character is brought to expression. So that in eurythmy you are able to represent each sound by means of colour, according to movement, feeling and character.

In this way one may perhaps achieve a two-fold result. In the first place one may see in how far eurythmy can attain to what is artistic by its own means. For everything which is to be achieved artistically in the realm of eurythmy, limited as this is to the stage where everything has to take place,—all this may be summed up in Movement, Feeling and Character, as I have explained them here. The sculptor must achieve everything by means of his treatment of the surface, the reciter by his forming and shaping of the sounds the musician by his forming and shaping of the tones; and so also must the eurythmist achieve all that is possible to achieve by means of movement, feeling and character. What lies outside this must not be considered. This is the sphere of expression for the art of eurythmy, and by these means everything has to be achieved.

From lectures given on 4th August, 1922 (Dornach) 26th August, 1923 (Penmaenmawr).

We have recently made the attempt here at Domach, to produce figures representing the movements of Eurythmy. And at the performances given at Oxford¹ we showed how an understanding of eurythmy may be helped by means of such figures, and how they may serve to clear up our ideas with regard to the nature of this art. From what I am now going to say in this connection you will see that in these figures I have at least attempted to further the understanding of eurythmy from more than one point of view.

In these figures I have been able to reproduce just those three elements of eurythmy of which I have previously spoken. It is possible by this means to increase the appreciation of the onlookers; and at the same time the eurythmists themselves may learn infinitely much from looking at these figures, because they represent those elements of eurythmy which are absolutely essential. As I am showing you these representations, I must ask you first of all to notice that they should not in any way be copied or imitated: Reproduction strictly prohibited. That is the first point. And the second is that, if I now show them to you, you will not all push forward and thus cause confusion.

We have, in the first place, tried to represent the letters of the alphabet in the way I have just described. Thus you see here, in these figures, representations of the human being from which everything not belonging to the sphere of eurythmy has been omitted. You must not expect either pictorial or plastic representations of the human form; for here the human being has been depicted entirely from the point of view of eurythmy. It is, then, only the eurythmic aspect of the human being which has been taken into account; but every sound has been represented with the utmost completeness and detail. For this reason the eurythmy figures have no faces, or, to be more correct, their faces are used to express the character of the movement, the form of the movement, and so on.

Thus, taking these figures in their order, you have: A. E. I. O. U. D. B. F. G. H. That part of the figure which would usually represent the face is here formed in such a way as to represent the movement. This can, of course, only be indicated; but it is quite a good eurythmic exercise to picture oneself in fancy as really appearing like the figure in question. Proceeding, then, we have the letters: T. S. R. P. N. M. and L.

Let us, for example, take this eurythmy figure, which represents the experience lying behind the sound H. Now one might ask: In which direction is the face looking? Is it looking upwards or straight ahead?—This is really a matter of no consequence; we are concerned with something quite different. In the first place this figure, taken as a whole, represents the eurythmic movement, that is to say, the movement of the arms and of the legs. In the second place the figure shows how in the forms of the veil, in the way in which the veil is held, drawn closer, thrown into the air, allowed to fall or to undulate, the actual movement, that is to say, the more intellectual expression of the soul life in eurythmy, can be made more deeply expressive.

The significance of the different colours is always indicated on the backs of the figures. Then, in certain places, as for instance here on the head, we have the indication as to where the eurythmist, in carrying out the movement, should exert a certain tension of the muscles. Let us now examine this eurythmy figure and we shall see how the effect of the movement is made more complete by means of the treatment of the face. Observe how here, where blue is painted on the forehead, there is a tension of the muscles, as also here at the nape of the neck, while here (indicating the figure) the muscles are left more relaxed. In eurythmy one can differentiate quite exactly between the experience of moving the arm with the muscles relaxed and the experience of moving the arm with muscles that are stretched and tense, or with an exertion of the muscles in the fingers for instance. Thus, when taking up a bending posture, the feeling is quite different when the muscles involved are consciously exerted, from what it is when these muscles are allowed to relax and the back simply bends of itself. By means of this muscular tension, which must be inwardly experienced by the eurythmist, character is brought into the movement.

Thus it may be said: In the way in which the movement is formed there lies,—or rather the movement itself actually manifests,—all that the soul wishes to express by means of this visible speech. In the same way, however, as words have their timbre, their own special tone, brought about by the feeling lying within them, so too the movement,—by means of the way in which it is coloured by fear, for instance, when this is expressed in a sentence, or by joy, or delight,—so too must the movement be permeated by feeling. And this can be done by the use of the veil, by the way in which the veil is made to undulate, to float in the air, to sink down, and so on. Thus, movement accompanied by the veil is movement permeated by feeling. And movement accompanied by this inner tension of the muscles, is movement which carries with it the element of character. When a eurythmist experiences this tension or relaxation of the muscles in the right way, it can also be perceived by the onlookers. There is no necessity to explain and interpret all this, for the audience will actually feel everything that can be brought into the language of eurythmy by means of character, feeling and movement.

The figures arose through the initiative of Miss Maryon;² they have, however, been further worked out according to my indications.

Looking at the way in which these figures are carried out, both as regards the carving and the colouring, we find that the essential thing is to separate all those elements in the human being which do not belong to the realm of eurythmy from those elements which are in themselves eurythmic. If a eurythmist were to use charm of face in order to please, this would in no way belong to eurythmy; the eurythmist must understand how to make use of the face by means of the muscular tension of which I have spoken. For this reason anyone possessing a truly artistic perception will in no way prefer a beautiful eurythmist to one who is less beautiful. In all these matters no attention need be paid to what a human being looks like, simply as a human being, apart from the movements of eurythmy; such a thing must be left entirely out of account.

Thus in the formation of these figures, we have represented only that part of the human being which may be expressed through the movements of eurythmy.

It would indeed be a very good thing if this principle were more generally applied in the development of art as a whole; for it really is necessary, in the case of any art, to separate those things which do not come within its sphere from those things which should be expressed by means of its own special medium. And in the case of eurythmy, in the case of a manifestation of the life of the human body, soul and spirit which is so direct and so true, one must be specially careful to ensure the putting aside of all those elements in the human being which do not definitely belong to the art of which we are speaking.

Thus I have always said, when asked at what age a person can do eurythmy, that there are no age limits; beginning at three until the age of ninety, the personality can fully find its place in eurythmy, for every period of life can—as in other ways also—reveal its beauties in eurythmy.

All that I have been saying is related to eurythmy in its artistic aspect, to eurythmy purely as an art. And it was indeed as an art that eurythmy first came into being. At that time, in 1912, there was as yet no thought of anything else; the aim was to bring eurythmy before the world as an art.

Then, when the Waldorf School was founded, it was discovered that eurythmy could also be an important means of education, and we have since been able to prove that eurythmy is completely justifiable from this aspect also. In the Waldorf School eurythmy has been made a compulsory subject from the lowest to the highest class, both for boys and girls; and experience has proved that this visible speech or visible song, which is learned by the children, is acquired by them in a way which is just as natural as that in which they acquired ordinary speech and song in their earliest childhood. Children accept eurythmy as something quite self-understood. And we have also noticed that all other forms of gymnastics, when compared with eurythmy, prove themselves somewhat one-sided. For these other forms of gymnastics bear within them, as it were, the materialistic ideas of our age, and are based mainly upon the laws of the physical body. The physical body is of course also taken into account in eurythmy, but here we have a working together of body, soul and spirit; so that eurythmy may be said to be a form of gymnastics which is permeated through and through with soul and spirit. The child feels this. He feels, with every movement that he makes, that he is not forming the movements merely out of physical necessity. He feels how his life of soul and spirit flows into the movements of the arms, into the movements of the whole body. The child comprehends eurythmy in the inner depths of his soul. And now that we have a certain number of years of experience in the Waldorf School behind us, we are able to see what eurythmy is expecially able to develop. It is initiative of will, that quality so much needed by modern man, which is specially cultivated by eurythmy as a means of education. One must, however, be quite clear that, if eurythmy were only to be introduced into schools and not given its full value as an art, a complete misunderstanding would arise. Eurythmy must primarily take its place in the world as an art, just as the other arts also have their places in the world. We are taught the other arts at school when they have an independent artistic existence; and eurythmy also can be taught in the schools when, as an art, it is acknowledged and appreciated, thus becoming part of our modern civilization.

Later on a considerable number of doctors found their way into the anthroposophical movement, and through their activities the art of medicine began to be cultivated from the point of view of Anthroposophy. At this time the need made itself felt to apply the movements of eurythmy,—movements which are drawn out from the healthy human organism and in which the human being can be revealed and manifested in a way which is in truth suited to his organism,—to apply these movements in the realm of healing. Looked at from this aspect eurythmy may be said to be that part of the human being which demands free outlet. Anyone understanding the nature of a hand will know that a hand in the true sense is simply non-existent when it is regarded as something motionless. The fingers are quite without meaning when they are regarded as something motionless; their meaning first becomes apparent when they grasp at something and take hold of it, when movement arises out of the quiescent form. One can see the inherent movement in the fingers and hand. It is the same with the human being as a whole; and that which has come into being as eurythmy really is the healthy outpouring of the human organism into movement. Thus, when eurythmy is applied as curative eurythmy in the realm of therapeutics, the movements, although similar in nature, differ from those of artistic eurythmy; for they must, when used curatively, work back with a healing influence upon some particular part of the organism.

In this case, again, we have had considerable success in our treatment of the children in the Waldorf School. Natur-ally a real insight into child-nature is essential. Let us suppose that we are dealing with a child who is weak and ailing. He is made to do those movements which could help to bring about recovery. Results have proved, this can be said in all modesty,—that we have here had the most brilliant success. But all these things, and everything arising out of them, can only be successful if eurythmy as an art is really brought to complete development.

A statement must here be made: we are at the beginning. We have, however, certainly progressed some little way with eurythmy, and we are seeking to develop it ever further. At first, for instance, there were no silent forms at the beginning of a poem, which represents what can be expressed as introduction and again what can be expressed as the drawing to a conclusion. At first, too, there were not the changes of lighting, which must also be so conceived that the point is not that each separate situation should be followed by one or another lighting effect; but a light eurythmy has itself come about. The essential matter is not how a certain light effect is suited to what is happening at a particular moment on the stage, but the whole eurythmy of light, the play of one lighting effect into another, which itself produced a light eurythmy,—this bears within itself the same character, the same kind of experience, which otherwise comes to expression on the stage in the movements of a single human being or a group. Thus in the development of the stage picture, in the further perfecting of eurythmy, much will have to be added to what we are now able to see.

The wooden eurythmy figures are carried out in a special way. You must not look for anything in the nature of a plastic reproduction of the human form. This belongs to the sphere of sculpture or of painting. Here, in these eurythmy figures, it is only that part of the human being that is truly eurythmic which should be represented. Thus there is no question of a beautiful plastic reproduction of the motionless human form; the point here is to reproduce that aspect of the human being which is able to express itself in movements subject to form and themselves formative.

By means of these figures, certain details of the eurythmic movements, postures and gestures can be brought out and emphasized. These figures are only intended to reproduce such eurythmic impulses as can actually be led over into movement. In each figure there is embodied a three-fold eurythmic impulse; the movement as such, the feeling lying in the movement, and the character which wells up from the soul and pours itself into the movement.

• 1. These figures which are carved out of wood and coloured, are made at the Goetheanum at Dornach, where they may be bought. They were shown for the first time at Oxford, during a Conference at which Rudolf gave a course of lectures on the Art of Education.
• 2. Edith Maryou, sculptress at the Goetheauum (died 1924)

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.