| A Lecture on Eurythmy
26 Aug 1923, Penmaenmawr Translated by Alfred Cecil Harwood Rudolf Steiner |
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| Here it is only possible to give some indication of what underlies these wooden figures, and of all that can be revealed by them with regard to the nature and character of the various movements. |
| Eurythmy, from its very nature, is ever seeking for outlet through the human being. Anyone who understands the hand, for example, must be aware that it was not formed merely to lie still and be looked upon. |
| The same may be said of the human being as a whole. What we know under the name of Eurythmy is nothing else than the means whereby the human organism can find healthy outlet through movement. |
| A Lecture on Eurythmy
26 Aug 1923, Penmaenmawr Translated by Alfred Cecil Harwood Rudolf Steiner |
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Eurhythmy has grown up out of the soil of the Anthroposophical Movement, and the history of its origin makes it almost appear to be a gift of the forces of destiny. In the year 1912 the Anthroposophical Society lost one of its members, the father of a family, and as a result it was necessary for his daughter to choose a profession, a profession, however, which could be found within the field of Anthroposophical activity. After much thought it seemed possible to make this the opportunity for the inauguration of a new art of movement in space, different from anything which had arisen up to that time. And thus, out of the teaching given to this young girl, there arose the very first principles and movements of Eurythmy. Eurythmy must be accounted one of the many activities arising out of the Anthroposophical Movement, which have grown up in such a way that their first beginnings must be looked upon as the result of the workings of destiny. I spoke some days ago about the forms of the pillars of the Goetheanum, and mentioned how I had stood before these pillars, and realised that through artistic activity they had gained a life of their own, and had developed quite different qualities from those with which they had originally been endowed. The same may be said about the art of Eurythmy. This is always the case when one draws upon the creative forces of nature, either in one's work as an artist or in any other form of human activity. Just as the creative forces of nature draw upon the inexhaustible source of the infinite, so that it is always possible to perceive in something which has come to fruition much more than was originally implanted in it, so is it also when artistic impulses unite themselves with the mighty creative forces of nature. In such a case the artist is not merely developing some more or less limited impulse, but he reaches the point when he makes of himself an instrument for the creative powers of the universe, so that very much more grows out of his activity than he could originally have intended or foreseen. At the time of which I speak, Eurythmy was studied only by a very few people. At the beginning of the war, (the first world war) Frau Dr. Steiner undertook their further training, and from that time on Eurythmy became more and more widely known, and its artistic possibilities very much enriched. The art of Eurythmy, as we know it today, has developed out of the first principles which were given in the year 1912. The work since then has been carried on without interruption; but Eurythmy is still only in its first beginnings, and we are working unceasingly towards its further development and perfection. I am, however, convinced that Eurythmy bears within it infinite possibilities, and that, in the future, when those who were responsible for its inauguration must long have left their work in other hands, Eurythmy will develop further until it is able to take its place as a younger art by the side of those other arts having an older tradition. No art has ever risen out of human intention intellectually conceived, neither can the principle of imitating nature ever produce an art. On the contrary, true art has always been born out of human hearts able to open themselves to the impulses coming from the spiritual world, human hearts which felt compelled to realise these impulses and to embody them in some way in external matter. It can be seen how, in the case of each separate art—architecture, for example, sculpture, painting or music—certain spiritual impulses were poured into humanity from higher worlds. These impulses were taken up by certain individuals specially fitted to receive them, and in this way, through human activity, pictures of the higher worlds were reflected in the physical world; and the various arts came into being. It is true that the arts, in the course of their further development, have for the most part become naturalistic, and have lost their connection with the impulses which originally inspired them, a mere imitation of external nature taking their place. Such imitation, however, could never be the source of any true art. To-day, when a sculptor or painter wishes to represent the human figure, he does so by studying and working from a model. It can, however, easily be shown that the art of sculpture, which reached its zenith during the civilisation of ancient Greece, did not arise through the artist working from a model, and in his way more or less imitating the external impressions of the senses, but at that time, when the plastic art of Greece was in full bloom, man was still to some extent aware of the etheric body—which contains within it the formative forces and the forces of growth. At the height of Greek civilisation man knew how to make use of the etheric body when bringing an arm or hand, for instance, into a certain attitude, and the position and arrangement of the muscles were an actual experience to him. He had an inner understanding of the possibilities of movement in the arm and hand, of the possibilities of muscular expansion and contraction. And he was able to bring this inner experience to physical expression, making use of physical materials. Thus the Greek sculptor incorporated into matter a real, inward experience, not merely the external impression of the eye. He did not say to himself: the lines go in this or that direction, and then proceed to embody in plastic form the perceptions of his physical senses; but for him it was indeed an actual inward experience which he re-created out of the creative forces of nature, and entrusted to external physical matter. This is true of every form of art. There have always been, and will always be, in the course of human evolution on the earth, epochs during which art is at its height, during which influences from the spiritual worlds penetrate more easily into the souls of men than at other times, urging them to turn their gaze towards the spiritual worlds and to carry down from thence living spiritual impulses. This is how every true art is brought to birth. Such periods of civilisation are always followed by others of a more naturalistic tendency, in which certain arts often attain to a greater external perfection than they had possessed at an earlier stage; but this perfection bears within it traces of decadence, whereas in their beginnings, these arts were permeated with a more vital, a more powerful and enthusiastic spiritual impulse. At that earlier stage they had not yet lost their true reality; their technique was the outcome of man's whole being. It was not a merely external, traditional technique, but was based on the body, soul, and spirit of man. The realisation of this fact of human evolution might well give one courage to develop ever further and further this art of Eurythmy, which has been borne on the wings of fate into the Anthroposophical Movement. For it is the task of the Anthroposophical Movement to reveal to our present age that spiritual impulse which is suited to it. I speak in all humility when I say that within the Anthroposophical Movement there is a firm conviction that a spiritual impulse of this kind must now, at the present time, enter once more into human evolution. And this spiritual impulse must perforce, among its other means of expression, embody itself in a new form of art. It will increasingly be realised that this particular form of art has been given to the world in Eurythmy. It is the task of Anthroposophy to bring a greater depth, a wider vision and a more living spirit into the other forms of art. But the art of Eurythmy could only grow up out of the soul of Anthroposophy; could only receive its inspiration through a purely Anthroposophical conception. It is through speech that man is able to reveal his inner being outwardly to his fellow-men. Through speech he can most easily disclose his inmost nature. At all periods of civilisation, in a form suited to the particular epoch, side by side with those arts which need for their expression either the external element of space or the external element of time, accompanying and completing these, we find that art which manifests itself through speech—the art of poetry. The art of speech—I purposely use the expression ‘the art of speech,’ to describe poetry, and the justification for doing so will appear later—is more comprehensive and universal than the other arts, for it can embody other forms of art within its own form. It can be said that the art of poetry is an art of speech which in the case of one poet works more plastically, and in the case of another more musically. Indeed one can go so far as to say that painting itself can enter into the art of poetry. Speech is a universal means of expression for the human soul. And one who is able to gaze with unprejudiced vision into the earliest times of human evolution on the earth, can see that in certain primeval languages a really fundamental artistic element entered into human evolution. Such primeval languages were, however, to a far greater degree than is the case with modern languages, drawn out of the whole human organisation. When one investigates without prejudice the course of the evolution of man, one discovers certain ancient languages which might almost be likened to song. Such singing was, however, enhanced by accompanying movements of the legs and arms, so that a kind of dancing was added. Especially was this the case when a dignified form of expression was sought, the form of some ritual or cult. In those primeval times of human evolution the accompanying of the word which issued forth from the larynx with gesture and movement was felt to be something absolutely natural. It is only possible to gain a true understanding of what lies behind these things, when one realises that what otherwise appears only as gesture accompanying speech can gain for itself independent life. It will then become apparent that movements which are carried out by the arms and hands, from the artistic point of view can be not merely equally expressive, but much more expressive than speech itself. It must be admitted that such an unprejudiced attitude with regard to these things is not always to be found. One often observes a certain antipathy towards the accompanying of speech by gesture. Indeed, I myself have noticed that certain people even go so far as to consider it not in very good taste when a speaker accompanies his discourse with pronounced gesture. As a result of this the habit has grown up, and is by no means unusual at the present day, of putting one's hands in one's pockets when making a speech. I must say that I have always found this attitude most unsympathetic. It is a fact that the inmost nature of the human being can be revealed most wonderfully through movements of the arms and hands. My fingers often itch to take up my pen and write an essay on the philosopher, Franz Brentano, a dear friend of mine who died some years ago. I have already written a good deal about him, but I should much like to write yet another essay, based on what I shall now relate. When Franz Brentano mounted the platform and took his place at the lecturer's desk he was himself the embodiment of his entire philosophy, the spiritual content of which called forth such deep admiration when clothed in philosophical terms and concepts. Brentano's philosophy, in itself, was far more beautiful than his own description of it. All that he could say in words was revealed through the way in which he moved his arms and hands while speaking, through the way in which he held out the piece of paper containing the notes of his lecture. It was a very remarkable type of movement, and its most striking characteristic was, that by means of this piece of paper, and, indeed, by his whole attitude, he gave the impression of imparting something of great significance, while at the same time preserving an appearance of unconcern. So that in the course of one of his lectures one could see his entire philosophy expressed in these gestures, which were of the most manifold variety. What is especially interesting about Franz Brentano is the fact that he founded a psychology in which he departs from the theories of all other psychologists, Spencer, Stuart Mill and others, by refusing to include the will among the psychological categories. I am acquainted with all that Franz Brentano brought forward to substantiate this theory of his, but I found nothing so convincing as the way in which he held his piece of paper. The instant he began to make gestures with his hands and arms, all trace of will disappeared from his whole bearing as a philosopher, while feeling and idea revealed themselves in the most remarkable manner. This preponderance of idea and feeling, and the disappearance of will, underlay every movement which he made with his hands. So that one day I shall really find myself compelled to write an essay: The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, as revealed through his Gesture and Bearing. For it seems to me that much more was expressed in these gestures than in any philosophical discourse on the subject. Those who enter deeply and without prejudice into this matter will gradually realise that the breath which we expel from our lungs, our organs of speech and song, when vocalised and given form by means of the lips, teeth and palate, is really nothing else than gesture in the air. Only in this case these air-gestures are projected into space in such a way that they conjure up sounds which can be heard by the ear. If one succeeds, with true sensible-super-sensible vision, in penetrating into the nature of these air gestures, into all that the human being actually does when he utters a vowel or consonant sound, when he forms sentences, uses rhyme and rhythm, the Iambic, for instance, or the Trochee—when one penetrates into these gestures of the air, the thought arises; alas, the languages of modern civilisation have indeed made terrible concessions to convention. They have become simply a means of expression for scientific knowledge, a means of communicating the things of everyday life. They have lost their primeval spirituality. Civilised language bears out what has been so beautifully expressed by the poet: “Spricht die Seele, so spricht ach schon die Seele nicht mehr.” (“Alas, when the soul speaks, in reality it speaks no more.”) Now all that can be perceived by super-sensible vision, all that can thus be learned about the nature of these forms and gestures of the air, can be carried into movements of the arms and hands, into movements of the whole human being. There then arises in visible form the actual counterpart of speech. One can use the entire human body in such a way that it really carries out those movements which are otherwise carried out by the organs connected with speech and music. Thus there arises visible speech, visible music—in other words, the art of Eurythmy. When one brings artistic feeling to the study of the nature of speech, one finds that the individual sounds form themselves, as it were, into imaginative pictures. It is necessary, however, entirely to free oneself from the abstract character which language has taken during the so-called advanced civilisation of the present day. For it is an undeniable fact that modern man, when speaking, in no way brings his whole human being into activity. True speech, however, is born from the whole human being. Let us take any one of the vowels. A vowel sound is always the expression of some aspect of the feeling life of the soul. The human being wishes to express what lives in his soul as wonder—Ah. Or the holding himself upright against opposition—A; or the assertion of self, the consciousness of ego-existence in the world—E. Or again he wishes to express wonder, but now with a more intimate, caressing shade of feeling—I. The character of the sounds is of course slightly different in the different languages, because each individual language proceeds from a differently constituted soul-life. But every vowel sound does in its essence express some shade of the feeling-life of the soul; and this feeling only has to unite itself with thought, with the head system, in order to pass over into speech. What I have said about the vowel sounds of speech can be applied equally to the tones of music. The various sounds of speech, the use of idiom, the construction of phrases and sentences—all these things are the expression of the feeling-life of the soul. In singing also the soul life expresses itself through tone. Let us now consider the consonants. The consonants are the imitation of what we find around us in external nature. The vowel is born out of man's inmost being; it is the channel through which this inner content of the soul streams outwards. The consonant is born out of the comprehension of external nature; the way in which we seize upon external things, even the way in which we perceive them with the eyes, all this is built into the form of the consonants. The consonant represents, paints, as it were, the things of the external world. In earlier times the consonants did actually contain within themselves a kind of imaginative, painting of what exists in external nature. Such things are, certainly, dealt with by many students of the science of language, but always in a one-sided manner. For instance, there exist two well-known theories with regard to the origin of language—the Ding-Dong theory and the Bow-Wow theory—which have been set forth by investigators who are, as a matter of fact, absolutely lacking in any real understanding of their subject, but belong to that type of person who is constantly originating all sorts of scientific theories. The Ding-Dong theory is based upon the assumption that, as in the case of the bell—to take an extreme example—so within every external object there lies some sort of a sound, which is then imitated by the human being. Everything is included in this theory of imitation; and it has been named the Ding-Dong theory after the sound made by the bell, which is perhaps its most striking example. The idea is, that when one says the word “wave,” one is imitating the actual movement of the waves—which is, indeed, perfectly true in this instance. The other theory, the Bow-Wow theory, which could equally well be called the Moo-Moo theory, is one which assumes that speech in the first place arose from the transformation and development of the sounds of animals. And because one of the most striking of these sounds is “Bow-Wow,” this theory has been called the Bow-Wow theory. Now all these theories do actually contain a certain element of truth. Scientific theories are never without some foundation. What is remarkable about them is that they do always contain say, a quarter, or an eighth, or a sixteenth, or a hundredth part of the truth; and it is this fraction of the truth, put forward as it is in a very clever and suggestive manner which deceives people. The real truth is that the vowel arises from the soul-life, and the consonant out of the perception and imitation of the external object. The human being imitates the external object through the way in which he holds back the stream of the breath with his lips, or gives it shape and form by means of the teeth, tongue and palate. While the consonants are formed in this way, by the fashioning of gestures in the air, the vowel sounds are the channel through which the inner soul-life of the human being streams outwards. The consonants give plastic form to what is to be expressed. And in the same way as the single sounds are formed, the single letters, so are sentences also formed, and poetic language becomes actual gesture in the air. Modern poetry, however, shows very clearly how the poet has to struggle against the abstract element in language. As I have already said, our soul-life does not in any way flow into the words which we speak; we do not enter into the sounds of speech with our inner being. How few of us really experience wonder, amazement, perplexity, or the feeling of self-defence simply in the vowel sounds themselves. How few of us experience the soft, rounded surface of certain objects, the thrusting hammering nature of others, their angular or undulating, their velvety or prickly qualities, as these are expressed by the different consonants. And yet all these things are contained in speech. If we follow the successive sounds as they occur in a single word, entering into the real nature of this word as it originally arose out of the whole being of man, then we can experience all possible shades of feeling, the ecstasy of joy, the depths of despair; we can experience the ascending and descending of the whole scale of the human emotions, the whole scale of the perception of external things. All that I have been describing can be conjured up in imaginations, in the same way as speech itself once came forth from the world of imagination. One who has this imaginative vision perceives how the E sound (as in me). always calls up in the soul a certain picture, a picture which expresses the assertion of self and shows how this self-assertion must be expressed through the stretching of the muscles, in the arm for example. Should anyone be able to use his nose in a skilful manner, he could also make an E with his nose! An E can also be shown by the direction of the glance of the eye; but because the arms and hands are the most expressive part of the human body, it is more natural to make an E with the arms and it has a more beautiful effect. But the essential thing is that the stretched, penetrating feeling should really come to expression in E. If we utter the sound A, (as in mate) and take this out-going stream of the breath as the prototype for the Eurythmic movement, we find that this breath stream reveals itself to our imagination as flowing in two crossed currents. This is how the Eurythmic movement for A is derived. All these movements are just as little arbitrary in their nature as are the sounds of speech, or the tones of music. There are many people who are inclined to say that they have no wish for anything so hard and fast, that there should be more ways than one of expressing any particular sound in movement. They feel that the movements should arise quite spontaneously out of the human being. If, however, one desires such absolute spontaneity, one should carry this desire into the realm of speech itself, and declare that there should be no German, French, or English language to interfere with the freedom of the human being, but that each individual should feel himself at liberty to express himself by means of other sounds if he should so choose. It would be just as rational to say that the freedom of the human being is hindered through the fact that he must perforce speak English, or some other language. But the existence of the different languages in no way interferes with human freedom. On the contrary, man could not express beauty in language, if language were not already there to be used by him as an instrument, and in the same way beauty can only be expressed in the movements of Eurythmy through the fact that Eurythmy actually exists. Eurythmy in no way infringes upon human freedom. Such objections really arise from lack of insight. Thus Eurythmy has come into being as a visible language, using as its instrument the arms and hands, which are undeniably the most expressive part of the whole human organism. To-day it would really be possible to come to an understanding of these things by purely scientific means. Science, however, although on the right path with regard to much of the knowledge it has acquired, knows about as much of this matter as someone with a veal cutlet on his plate knows about a calf—namely, the most insignificant fraction! Scientists know that the centre of speech lies in the left region of the brain, and that this is connected with what the child acquires for himself by means of movement of the right arm. In the case of left-handed people the centre of speech is situated in the right side of the brain. One might almost say that the scientist has no knowledge of the calf in its entirety, but is only acquainted with the veal cutlet! Thus he is aware only of the merest fraction of the whole connection between the life-processes in one or other arm and the origin of speech. The truth is that speech itself arises out of those movements of the human limb system which are held back, and do not come to full expression. There could be no such thing as speech were it not for the fact that, during the natural course of his early development, the child has inherent within him the instinct to move his arms and hands. These movements are held back and become concentrated in the organs of speech; and these organs of speech are in themselves an image of that which seeks outlet in movements of the arms and hands, and in the accompanying movements of the other limbs. The etheric body—I can, after what you have heard in the morning lectures, (published as The Evolution of Consciousness.) speak to you quite freely about the etheric body—the etheric body never uses the mouth as the vehicle of speech, but invariably makes use of the limb-system. And it is those movements made by the etheric body during speech which are transferred into the physical body. Of course you can, if you choose, speak quite without gesture, even going so far as to stand rigidly still with your hands in your pockets; but in that case your etheric body will gesticulate all the more vigorously, sheerly out of protest! Thus you can see how, in very truth, Eurythmy is drawn out of the human organisation in just as natural a way as speech itself. The poet has to fight against the conventionality of speech in order to be able to draw from speech that element which could make of it a way leading to the super-sensible worlds. Thus the poet—if he is a true artist, which cannot be said of most of those people whose business it is to manufacture poems—does not over-emphasise the importance of the prose content of the words he uses. This prose content only provides him with the opportunity for expressing in words his true artistic impulse. Just as his material—the clay or the marble—is not the chief concern of the sculptor, but rather the inspiration which he is striving to embody in form, so, the chief concern of the poet is the embodiment of his poetic inspiration in sounds which are imaginative, plastic and musical. And it is this artistic element which must be brought out in recitation and declamation. In our somewhat inartistic age, it is customary in recitation and declamation to lay the chief stress on the prose content of a poem. Indeed, in these days, the mere fact of being able to speak at all is looked upon as sufficient ground for becoming a reciter. But the art of recitation and declamation should rank as highly as the other arts; for in recitation and declamation there is the possibility of treating speech in such a way that the hidden Eurythmy lying within it, the imaginative, plastic, coloured use of words, their music, rhythm and melody, are all brought to expression. When Goethe was rehearsing his rhythmic dramas, he made use of a baton just as if he were the conductor of an orchestra; for he was not so much concerned with the merely prosaic content of the words, but with the bringing out of all that lay, like a hidden Eurythmy, in their construction and use. Schiller, when writing his most famous poems, paid little heed to the actual sense of the words. For instance he wrote, “Das Lied von der Glocke” (The Song of the Bell), but, as far as the prose content of the words is concerned, he might just as well have written a completely different poem. Schiller first experienced in his soul something which might be described as a vague musical motif, a sort of melody, and into this melody he wove his words, like threaded pearls. Language is truly poetic only in so far as it is used musically, plastically, or only in so far as it is filled with colour. Frau Dr. Steiner has given many years to the development of this special side of the art of recitation and declamation. It is her work which has made it possible to bind together into one artistic whole, much in the same way as the various instruments of an orchestra, the picture presented on the stage by the “visible speech” of Eurythmy and with what is expressed through a truly Eurythmic treatment of speech, a truly Eurythmic recitation and declamation. So that, on the one hand, we have the visible speech of Eurythmy, and, on the other hand, that hidden Eurythmy which lies, not in tone-production alone, but in the whole way in which speech and language are treated. As far as the artistic element of poetry is concerned, the point is not that we say: “The bird sings,” but that, paying due regard to what has gone before and to what is to come, we say with enthusiasm, for instance: “The bird sings,” or, again, in a more subdued tone of voice, at a quite different tempo: “The bird sings.” [The reader must imagine the difference of tone which Rudolf Steiner gave to these repetitions of Der Vogel singt.] Everything depends on giving due form and shape to the words and sentences. And it is just this which can be carried over into Eurythmy, into our whole conception and treatment of Eurythmy. For this reason we must put before ourselves as an ideal this orchestral ensemble, this interplay between the visible art of Eurythmy and the art of recitation and declamation. Eurythmy cannot be accompanied by the ordinary conventional recitation, which is so well liked to-day. It would be impossible to do Eurythmy to such an accompaniment, because it is the soul-qualities of the human being which must be given expression here, both audibly through speech, and visibly through Eurythmy. Eurythmy can be accompanied, not only by recitation and declamation, but also by instrumental music. But here it must always be borne in mind that Eurythmy is music translated into movement, and is not dancing in any sense of the word. There is a fundamental difference between Eurythmy and dancing. People, however, often fail to make this distinction when seeing Eurythmy on the stage, owing to the fact that Eurythmy uses as its instrument the human body in motion. I myself know of a journalist—I am not personally acquainted with him, but his articles have been brought to my notice—who, writing on Eurythmy, says: “It cannot be denied that, when one witnesses a demonstration of Eurythmy, the performers on the stage are continually in motion. Eurythmy must, therefore, be looked upon as dancing, and must be judged accordingly.” Now I think it will be admitted that what we have seen here of Tone-Eurythmy, of this visible singing, accompanied as it is by instrumental music, is clearly to be distinguished from ordinary dancing. Tone-Eurythmy is essentially not dancing, but is a singing in movement, movement which can be carried out either by a single performer, or by many together. Although the movements of the arms and hands may be accompanied and amplified by movements of the other parts of the organism—the legs, for instance, or the head, the nose, ears, what you will—nevertheless these movements should only be used to strengthen the movement of the hands and arms in much the same way that we find means of emphasising and strengthening the spoken word. If we wish to admonish a child we naturally put our reproof into words, but at the same time we assume an expression suitable to the occasion! To do this electively, however, a certain amount of discretion is required, or we run the risk of appearing ridiculous. It is the same with regard to Eurythmy. Movements of a type approaching dancing or mime, when they are added to the essentially Eurythmic movements, are in danger of appearing grotesque; and, if made use of in an exaggerated manner, given an appearance of crudity, even of vulgarity. On the other hand purely Eurythmic movements are the truest means of giving outward and visible expression to all that is contained in the human soul. That is the essential point—that Eurythmy is visible speech, visible music. One can go even further and maintain that the movements of Eurythmy do actually proceed out of the inner organisation of man. Anyone who says: “As far as I am concerned, speech and music are all-sufficient; there can surely be no need to extend the sphere of art; I, for my part, have not the slightest wish for Eurythmy”;—such a man is, of course, perfectly right from his particular point of view. There is always a certain justification for any opinion, however conventional or pedantic. Why should one not hold such opinions? There is certainly no reason why one should not—none at all; but it cannot be said that such a standpoint shows any really deep artistic feeling and understanding. A truly artistic nature welcomes everything that could possibly serve to widen and enrich the whole field of art. The materials used in sculpture—the bronze, clay and marble—already exist in nature, and yield themselves up to the sculptor as the medium of his artistic expression; this is also true of colour in the case of the painter. When, however, in addition to all this, the movements of Eurythmy, drawn forth as they have been from the very fount of nature and developed according to her laws—when such movements arise as a means of artistic expression, then enthusiasm burns in the soul of the true artist at the prospect of the whole sphere of art being thus widened and enriched. From a study of the Eurythmy models or wooden figures, very much can be learned about the individual movements. [Rudolf Steiner here refers to a series of coloured wooden figures illustrating the fundamental Eurythmy gestures.] Here it is only possible to give some indication of what underlies these wooden figures, and of all that can be revealed by them with regard to the nature and character of the various movements. These models are intended to represent the fundamental laws of Eurythmy which are carried over into the actual movements themselves. Every Eurythmic movement may be looked upon as being of a threefold nature; and it is this threefold aspect which is embodied in the models. In the first place there is the movement as such; then there is the feeling which lies within the movement; and lastly there is the character which flows out of the soul-life, and streams into the movement. It must, however, be understood that these wooden models have been designed in a quite unusual manner. They are in no way intended to be plastic representations of the human form. This comes more within the sphere of the sculptor and the painter. The models are intended to portray the laws of Eurythmy, as these are expressed through the human body. In designing them the point was not in any way to reproduce the human figure in beautiful, plastic form. And, in witnessing a Eurythmy demonstration, anyone who would regard beauty of face as an essential attribute of an Eurythmist, is labouring under a delusion as to the nature of Eurythmy. Whether the Eurythmist is beautiful or not beautiful, young or old, is a matter of no consequence. The whole point is whether the inmost nature of the Eurythmist is carried over into, and expressed through, the plastic form of the movements. Now if we look at the Eurythmy model for H, for instance, the question might naturally arise: “In what direction is the face turned? Do the eyes look upwards or straight ahead?” But that is not the first thing to be considered. In the first place we have, embodied in the model as a whole, the movement as such, that is to say, the arm movements or the movements of the legs. Secondly, in the draping of the veil, in the way the veil is held, drawn close to the body, or thrown into the air, or allowed to fall again or to fly out in waves—all this gives the opportunity for adding to the more intellectual expression of the soul-life, as this is shown through the movement, another quality of the soul-life, that of feeling. At the back of the models there is always an indication of what the different colours are intended to represent. In the case of all the models certain places are marked with a third colour, and this is intended to show where the Eurythmist, in carrying out the particular movement, should feel a definite tension of the muscles. This tension can be shown in any part of the body. It may have to be felt in the forehead, for instance, or in the nape of the neck, while in other places the muscles should be left in a state of complete relaxation. The Eurythmist experiences the movements quite differently according to whether they are carried out with relaxed muscles or with the muscles in a state of tension; whether the arm is stretched out more or less passively, or whether there is a conscious tension in the muscles of the arm and hand; whether, when bending, the muscles which are brought into play are stretched and tense, or whether the bending movement leaves the muscles comparatively inactive. Through this consciously experienced tension of the muscles, character is brought into the movement. In other words: there lies in the whole way in which the movement, as such, is formed, something which might be described as being the expression of the human soul, as manifested through visible speech. The actual spoken words, however, also have nuances of their own, their own special shades of feeling; for instance, fear may be expressed in a sentence, or joy, or delight; all these things can be shown by the Eurythmist in the way in which he or she carries out the movements. The manipulation of the veil—the way in which it floats, the way in which it is allowed to fall—all this provides a means whereby these feelings can be brought to expression in Eurythmy. So we see how the movement, when accompanied by the use of the veil, becomes permeated with feeling, and how, when there is added a conscious tension of the muscles, the movement acquires character as well as feeling. If the Eurythmist is able to experience this tension or relaxation of the muscles in the right way, a corresponding experience will be transmitted to the onlooker, who will himself feel all that lies in the visible speech of Eurythmy as character, feeling and movement. The whole artistic conception of these models, both as regards their carving and their colouring, is based on the idea of separating the purely Eurythmic element in the human being from those elements which are not so definitely connected with Eurythmy. The moment a Eurythmist becomes conscious of possessing a charming face, in that moment something is introduced into Eurythmy which is completely foreign to its nature; on the other hand, the knowledge of how to make conscious use of the muscles of the face does form an essential part of Eurythmy. For this reason, the fact that many people prefer to see a beautiful Eurythmist on the stage, rather than one who is less beautiful, shows a lack of true artistic judgment. The outward appearance of a human being when not engaged in Eurythmy should not in any way be taken into consideration. These models, then, have been designed in such a way that they portray the human being only in so far as he reveals himself through the movements of Eurythmy. It would indeed be well if, in the whole development of art, this principle were to be more generally adopted—I mean the principle of putting on one side everything which does not definitely belong to the sphere of the art in question, everything which cannot be expressed through the medium of this art and which does not strictly come within the range of its possibilities. A distinction should always be made, particularly when dealing with an art such as Eurythmy, which reveals so directly, so truly and so sincerely, the life of the human being in its threefold aspect of body, soul and spirit—a distinction should always be made between what can legitimately be revealed through the medium of any particular art and what does not lie within its true scope. Whenever I have been asked: “Up to what age can one do Eurythmy?”—my answer has always been: There is no age limit. Eurythmy can be started at the age of three and can be continued up to the age of ninety. The personality can find expression through Eurythmy at each and every period of life, and through Eurythmy the beauty of both youth and age can be revealed. All that I have said up to this point has reference to Eurythmy purely as an art, and, indeed, it was along purely artistic lines that Eurythmy was developed in the first instance. When Eurythmy was inaugurated in 1912 there was no thought of its developing along any but artistic lines, no thought of bringing it before the world in any other form. But some little time after the founding of the Waldorf School, it was discovered that Eurythmy can serve as a very important means of education; and we are now in a position to recognise the full significance of Eurythmy from the educational point of view. In the Waldorf School, (The original Waldorf School in Stuttgart of which Steiner was educational director.) Eurythmy has been made a compulsory subject both for boys and girls, right through the school, from the lowest to the highest class; and it has become apparent that what is thus brought to the children as visible speech and music is accepted and absorbed by them in just as natural a way as they absorb spoken language or song in their very early years. The child feels his way quite naturally into the movements of Eurythmy. And, indeed, in comparison with Eurythmy, the other forms of gymnastics have shown themselves to be of a somewhat one-sided nature. For these other kinds of gymnastics bear within them to some extent the materialistic attitude of mind so prevalent in our day. And for this reason they take as their starting point the physical body. Eurythmy takes the physical body into consideration also; but, in the case of Eurythmy, body, soul and spirit work harmoniously together, so that here one has to do with an ensouled and spiritualised form of gymnastics. The child feels this. He feels that each movement that he makes does not arise merely in response to a physical necessity, but that every one of his movements is permeated with a soul and spiritual element, which streams through the arms, and, indeed, through the whole body. The child absorbs Eurythmy into the very depths of his being. The Waldorf School has already been in existence for some years, and the experience lying behind us justified us in saying that in this school unusual attention is paid to the cultivation of initiative, of will—qualities sorely needed by humanity in the present day. This initiative of the will is developed quite remarkably through Eurythmy, when, as in the Waldorf School, it is used as a means of education. One thing, however, must be made perfectly clear, and that is, that the greatest possible misunderstanding would arise, if for one moment it were to be imagined that Eurythmy could be taught in the schools and looked upon as a valuable asset in education, if, at the same time, as an art it were to be neglected and underestimated. Eurythmy must in the first place be looked upon as an art, and in this it differs in no respect from the other arts. And in the same way that the other arts are taught in the schools, but have an independent artistic existence of their own in the world, so Eurythmy also can only be taught in the schools when it is fully recognised as an art and given its proper place within our modern civilisation. Shortly after the founding of the Waldorf School, a number of doctors having found their way into the Anthroposophical Movement, there arose the practice of medicine from the Anthroposophical point of view. These doctors expressed the urgent wish that the movements of Eurythmy, drawn as they are out of the healthy nature of the human being, and offering to the human being a means of expression suited to his whole organisation—that these movements should be adapted where necessary, and placed at the service of the art of healing. Eurythmy, from its very nature, is ever seeking for outlet through the human being. Anyone who understands the hand, for example, must be aware that it was not formed merely to lie still and be looked upon. The fingers are quite meaningless when they are inactive. They only acquire significance when they seize at things, grasp them, when their passivity is transformed into movement. Their very form reveals the movement inherent within them. The same may be said of the human being as a whole. What we know under the name of Eurythmy is nothing else than the means whereby the human organism can find healthy outlet through movement. So that certain of the movements of Eurythmy, though naturally differing somewhat from the movements which we use in Eurythmy as an art, and having undergone a certain metamorphosis, can be made use of and developed into a Curative Eurythmy. This Curative Eurythmy can be of extreme value in the treatment of illness, and can be applied in those cases where one knows the way in which a certain movement will react upon a certain organ with beneficial results. In this domain also we have had good results among the children of the Waldorf School. But it is of course necessary that one should possess a true insight into the nature of the child. For instance, a child may have certain weaknesses and be generally in a delicate state of health. Such a child is then given those particular movements likely to assist in the re-establishment of his health. And along these lines we have indeed had the most brilliant results. But this, as also the educational side of Eurythmy, is entirely dependent on the successful development of Eurythmy as an art. It must frankly be admitted that Eurythmy is still at a very early stage of its development; a beginning, however, has certainly been made, and we are striving to make it ever more and more perfect. There was a time, for instance, when we had not as yet introduced the silent, unaccompanied movement of the Eurythmist at the beginning and end of a poem. Such movement is intended to convey in the first instance an introductory impression, and, in the second, an impression reminiscent of the content of the poem. At that time also there were no effects of light. The lighting in varied tones and colours has not been introduced with a view to illustrating or intensifying any particular situation, but is in itself actually of a Eurythmic nature. The point is not that certain effects of light should correspond with what is taking place on the stage at a given moment, but the whole system of lighting, as this has been developed in Eurythmy, consists of the interplay between one lighting effect and another. Thus there arises a complete system of Eurythmic lighting which bears within it the same character and the same shades of feeling as are being simultaneously expressed on the stage in another way through the movements of the Eurythmists, or the Eurythmist, as the case may be. And so, as Eurythmy develops and attains to ever greater perfection, very much more will have to be added to the whole picture of Eurythmy as this is presented on the stage, very much will have to be added to all that we can now see when witnessing a Eurythmy demonstration. I could indeed speak about Eurythmy the whole night through, carrying on this lecture without a break into the lecture of tomorrow morning. I am afraid, however, that my audience would hardly benefit by such a proceeding, and the same certainly applies to any Eurythmists who may be present! The great thing is that all I have said to-day in this introductory lecture will be practically realised for you tomorrow, when you witness the performance; for a practical demonstration is, after all, where art is concerned, of more value than any lecture. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture II
06 Oct 1920, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| As to how this art of recitation must use its instrument – the human voice in connection with the human organism – even for this there is no clear understanding. This is undoubtedly connected with the fundamental absence, in our present age, of any earnest feeling for the true nature of poetry. |
| Our age can no longer take this seriously – for the understanding that lies hidden behind the opening of the Homeric poem had, in fact, already been extinguished by the eighteenth century, with its intellectual conceptions. |
| As we shall see next time, each single verse-form, each single poetic form including rhyme, alliteration, and assonance, may be understood when we start from a living perception of the human organism, and what it does when it employs speech artistically. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture II
06 Oct 1920, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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Our present age, inartistic as it is, shows little awareness of the fact that recitation stands midway between speaking, or reading, which are not artistic, and artistically developed singing. In many circles there is a feeling that really anyone can recite – and this, of course, is not unconnected with the fact that in these same circles everyone flatters himself that he can also write poetry. It would not so easily enter anyone's head that someone could be a musician, or a painter, without having previously undergone any sort of artistic training. When we consider current views on the art of recitation, we are obliged to admit that, just as in people's ideas about the real nature of poetry, there is also a certain lack of clarity as to the nature of the art of recitation. As to how this art of recitation must use its instrument – the human voice in connection with the human organism – even for this there is no clear understanding. This is undoubtedly connected with the fundamental absence, in our present age, of any earnest feeling for the true nature of poetry. There is no doubt that poetry stands in a relationship with the whole being of man quite different to that of ordinary prose, of whatever kind this may be; everything that man must recognize as that higher world to which he belongs with the soul and spiritual parts of his being poetry must also stand in a certain connection with all this. Along with the lack of clarity which gradually invaded ideas concerning man's relationship with the super-sensible world, there also came about another partial lack of clarity, concerning man's relationship with that world which is expressed in the art of poetry. I should like to draw attention to two facts – things which resound to us from ancient times, though from quite different peoples, with quite differently evolved characters. One fact, though one which today is passed over so lightly, is something to which Homer, the great writer of Greek epic, draws our attention at the beginning of both his poems: namely, that what he wished to convey to the world as his poetry did not come from himself.
‘Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus' son Achilles ...’
It is not Homer, but the Muse who is singing. Our age can no longer take this seriously – for the understanding that lies hidden behind the opening of the Homeric poem had, in fact, already been extinguished by the eighteenth century, with its intellectual conceptions. When Klopstock began his Messiah, he did indeed look at the beginning of the Homeric poems; but in this respect he lived entirely in abstract ideas, intellectualistic ideas, and these could only lead him to say: the Greeks still believed in gods, in the Muses – modern man can replace this only by his own immortal soul. Thus, Klopstock begins with the words:
‘Sing, immortal soul, of sinful man's redemption.’
Now this opening of the Messiah, for anyone who can see into these things, is a document of the very greatest significance. And in the nineteenth century, too, all feeling had been completely lost for what Homer meant to convey – that when I reveal myself in poetry, it is really something higher that is revealed in me: my “I” withdraws, my ego withdraws, so that other powers make use of my speech-organism; divine-spiritual powers make use of this speech-organism in order to reveal themselves. One must, therefore, regard what Homer placed at the opening of his two poetic creations as something worthy of more serious consideration than is usually accorded to such things today. It is remarkable how something similar, and yet quite different, resounds to us from a certain period in the development of Central Europe, a period to which the Nibelungenlied points – although it was not written down until a later date. This begins in a manner similar to, yet quite different from Homer:
‘To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told’
“In olden maeren” – what are maeren, for those who still have a living feeling and perception for such things? I cannot go into all this in detail, but I need only allude to the real meaning of this expression, maer – Nachtmar (nightmare): for this same expression is used to describe certain dreams which are caused by being oppressed, as it were, by an Alp – by a nightmare. In this nightmare, this Alp, we have the last atavistic traces of what is indicated in the Nibelungenlied, when it says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told…”; something is here related which does not come out of normal day-time ego-consciousness, but from a kind of perception which proceeds in the manner of the consciousness we possess in an especially vivid dream such as the nightmare, the maeren. Here again our attention is directed not to ordinary consciousness, but to something which is revealed, through ordinary consciousness, from super-sensible spheres. Homer says: “Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus' son Achilles ...”; and the Nibelungenlied says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told.” What is referred to in the first instance? To that which is, in reality, brought forth by the Muse, when she makes use of the human organism, begins to speak through the human organism, to vibrate musically; our attention is directed to something musical which permeates the human being, and which speaks from greater depths than are reached by his ordinary consciousness. And when the Nibelungenlied says: “To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told …” – it is something which permeates human consciousness as a perception similar to seeing, as something like visual perception, to which we are referred. The Nibelungenlied indicates something plastic and formative, something imaginative; in the Homeric epic we are given something musical. Both, however, from different sides, show us what wells up in poetry from the profounder depths of human nature, something which takes hold of the human being and finds utterance through him. One must have a feeling for this, if one is to experience the way in which true declamation gives expression in poetry, and takes hold of the human instrument of speech – though, as we shall see later, this involves the entire human organism. The manner, the whole way in which a human being is built up is an outcome of the forces of the spiritual world. And again, the whole manner in which a human being is able to bring his organism into movement when he declaims or recites poetry – this, too, must be the result of a spiritual force holding sway in the human organism. One must learn to trace this working of the spirit in the human organism when the art of poetry is expressed through recitation or declamation. Declamation then becomes what the human organism can be, when it is tuned in the most various ways. In order to gain a practical, artistic realization of these things in some detail, we would now like to show you what must live in declamation when something more of the nature of folk-poetry, or folk-song, is taken into consideration; we shall then proceed to something which is more definitely art – poetry. We hope to show you how fundamentally different the effect of declamation must be, depending on whether it sounds forth from those depths of human nature from which earnestness, or tragedy, resound; or whether it comes from those surface realms of the human organization from which gaiety, satire and humour emanate. Only when we have learned to apprehend these things quite concretely today will I permit myself to give certain intimations of the connection between poetry and recitation and declamation. From these, we will then show how there results an exact method of educating oneself in artistic recitation and declamation. We will ask Frau Dr. Steiner to declaim a poem of Goethe: a folk-poem in its whole tone and mood – Goethe's “Heidenröslein”. HEIDENRÖSLEIN
Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein stehn, Röslein auf der Heiden, War so jung und morgenschön, Lief er schnell, es nah zu sehn, Sah's mit vielen Freuden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden.
Knabe sprach: Ich breche dich Röslein auf der Heiden, Röslein sprach: Ich steche dich, Dass du ewig denkst an mich, Und ich will's nicht leiden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden.
Und der wilde Knabe brach 's Röslein auf der Heiden; Röslein wehrte sich und stach, Half ihm doch kein Weh und Ach, Musst' es eben leiden. Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot, Röslein auf der Heiden. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [Comparable in English in many respects is: MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. – Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North; The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth: Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlandsfor ever I love. – Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below: Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. – My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlandsa-chasing the deer: Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. – Robert Burns (1759-1796.]
We will now ask Frau Dr. Steiner to recite to us “Erlkönigstochter”, which gives opportunity for a quite special style in the rendering of folk-poems. Herr Oluf reitet spät und weit, Zu bieten auf seine Hochzeitleut': Da tanzten die Elfen auf grünen Land, Erlkönigs Tochter reicht ihm die Hand. ‘Willkommen, Herr Oluf, was eilst von hier? Tritt her in den Reihen und tanz mit mir.’ – ‘Ich darf nicht tanzen, nicht tanzen ich mag, Frühmorgen ist mein Hochzeittag.’ – ‘Hör’ an, Herr Oluf, tritt tanzen mit mir, Zwei güldne Sporen schenk' ich dir; Ein Hemd von Seide, so weiss und fein, Meine Mutter bleicht's im Mondenschein.’ – ‘Ich darf nicht tanzen, nicht tanzen ich mag, Frühmorgen ist mein Hochzeittag.’ – ‘Hör’ an, Herr Oluf, tritt tanzen mit mir, Einen Haufen Goldes schenk' ich dir.’ – ‘Einen Haufen Goldes nahm’ ich wohl; Doch tanzen ich nicht darf, noch soll.’ ‘Und willt, Herr Oluf, nicht tanzen mit mir, Soll Seuch' und Krankheit folgen dir.’ – Sie tät einen Schlag ihm auf sein Herz, Noch nimmer fühlt er solchen Schmerz. Sie hob ihn bleichend auf sein Pferd: ‘Reit heim zu deinem Bräutlein wert.’ Und als er kam vor Hauses Tiir, Seine Mutter zitternd stand dafür. ‘Hör’ an, mein Sohn, sag’ an mir gleich, Wie ist dein' Farbe blass und bleich?’ – ‘Und sollt’ sie nicht sein blass und bleich? Ich traf in Erlenkönigs Reich.’ – ‘Hört an, mein Sohn, so lieb und traut, Was soll ich nun sagen deiner Braut?’ – ‘Sagt ihr, ich sei im Wald zur Stund’, Zu proben da mein Pferd und Hund.’ – Frühmorgen als es Tag kaum war, Da kam die Braut mit der Hochzeitschar. Sie schenkten Met, sie schenkten Wein. ‘Wo ist Herr Oluf, der Bräutigam mein?’ – ‘Herr Oluf, er ritt in Wald zur Stund’, Er probt allda sein Pferd und Hund.’ – Die Braut hub auf den Scharlach rot, Da lag Herr Oluf, und er war tot. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803). [Comparable in style in English is: LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the Lake, And no birds sing. O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful – a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said – ‘I love thee true’. She took me to her elf in grot, And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulled me asleep And there I dream'd – Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; Who cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!’ I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid darning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side. And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. John Keats (1795-1821).]
Now we will present Goethe's two poems “Olympos” and “Charon”, where we shall find an opportunity to demonstrate recitation or declamation as the case may be. In the Poem “Olympos”, which is drawn more from the pictorial element, we have the art of declamation; while the more metrical “Charon” is drawn more from the musical element. OLYMPOS
Der Olympos, der Kissavos, Die zwei Berge haderten; Da entgegnend sprach Olympos Also zu dem Kissavos: ‘Nicht erhebe dich, Kissave, Turken – du Getretener. Bin ich doch der Greis Olympos, Den die ganze Welt vernahm. Zwei und sechzig Gipfel zähl ich Und zweitausend Quellen klar, Jeder Brunn hat seinen Wimpel, Seinen Kämpfer jeder Zweig. Auf den höchsten Gipfel hat sich Mir ein Adler aufgesetzt, Fasst in seinen mächt'gen Klauen Eines Helden blutend Haupt.’ ‘Sage, Haupt! wie ist's ergangen? Fielest du verbrecherisch?’ – Speise, Vogel, meine Jugend, Meine Mannheit speise nur! Ellenlänger wächst dein Flügel, Deine Klauen spannenlang. Bei Louron, in Xeromeron So in Chasia, auf'm Olympos Kämpft’ ich bis ins zwölfte Jahr. Sechzig Agas, ich erschlug sie, Ihr Gefild verbrannt’ ich dann; Die ich sonst noch niederstreckte, Türken, Albaneser auch, Sind zu viele, gar zu viele, Dass ich sie nicht Ahlen mag; Nun ist meine Reihe kommen, Im Gefechte fiel ich brav. CHARON Die Bergeshöhn, warum so schwarz? Woher die Wolkenwoge? Ist es der Sturm, der droben kämpft, Der Regen, Gipfel peitschend? Nicht ist's der Sturm, der droben kämpft, Nicht Regen, Gipfel peitschend; Nein, Charon ist's, er saust einher, Entführet die Verblichnen; Die Jungen treibt er vor sich hin, Schleppt hinter sich die Alten; Die Jüngsten aber, Säuglinge, In Reih' gehenkt am Sattel. Da riefen ihm die Greise zu, Die Junglinge, sie knieten: ‘O Charon, halt! halt am Geheg, Halt an beim kühlen Brunnen! Die Alten da erquicken sich, Die Jugend schleudert Steine, Die Knaben zart zerstreuen sich Und pflücken bunte Blümchen.’ Nicht am Gehege halt’ ich still, Ich halte nicht am Brunnen; Zu schöpfen kommen Weiber an, Erkennen ihre Kinder, Die Männer auch erkennen sie, Das Trennen wird unmöglich. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [A similar contrast is presented within the work of Donne, between the vivid, declamatory style of “The Sunne Rising” and the more sustained, metrical “Elegie: His Picture”: THE SUNNE RISING Busie old foole, unruly Sunne, Why dost thou thus, Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run? Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices, Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride, Call countrey ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme, Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time. Thy beames, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou thinke? I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke, But that I would not lose her sight so long: If her eyes have not blinded thine, Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee, Whether both the ‘India's of spice and Myne Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee. Aske for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay. Nothing else is. Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this, All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie. Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee, In that the world's contracted thus; Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee To warme the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art every where; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare. ELEGIE: HIS PICTURE Here take my Picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soule dwels, shall dwell. ‘Tis like me now, but I dead, 'twill be more When wee are shadowes both, than 'twas before. When weather-beaten I come backe; my hand, Perhaps with rude oares torne, or Sun beams tann'd, My face and brest of hairecloth, and my head With cares rash sodaine stormes, being o'rspread, My body'a sack of bones, broken within, And powders blew staines scatter'd on my skinne; If rivall fooles taxe thee to 'have lov'd a man, So foule, and course, as, Oh, I may seeme then, This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say, Doe his hurts reach mee? doth my worth decay? Or doe they reach judging minde, that hee Should now love lesse, what hee did love to see? That which in him was faire and delicate, Was but the milke, which in loves childish state Did nurse it: who now is growne strong enough To feed on that, which to disused tasts seemes tough. John Donne (1573-1631).] We will now pass on to a more highly-wrought verse-form – the sonnet; and sonnets by Hebbel and Novalis will now be recited. DIE SPRACHE Als höchstes Wunder, das der Geist vollbrachte, Preist ich die Sprache, die er, sonst verloren In tiefste Einsamkeit, aus sich geboren, Weil sie allein die andern möglich machte. Ja, wenn ich sie in Grund und Zweck betrachte, So hat nur sie den schweren Fluch beschworen, Dem er, zum dumpfen Einzelsein erkoren, Erlegen wäre, eh' er noch erwachte. Denn ist das unerforschte Eins und Alles In nie begrifftnem Selbstzersplitt‘rungsdrange Zu einer Welt von Punkten gleich zerstoben: So wird durch sie, die jedes Wesenballes Geheimstes Sein erscheinen lässt im Klange, Die Trennung vollig wieder aufgehoben! Friedrich Hebbel (1813-1863).
I Du hast in mir den edeln Trieb erregt, Tief ins Gemüt der weiten Welt zu schauen; Mit deiner Hand ergriff mich ein Vertrauen, Das sicher mich durch alle Stürme trägt. Mit Ahnungen hast du das Kind gepflegt, Und zogst mit ihm durch fabelhafte Auen; Hast als das Urbild zartgesinnter Frauen, Des Jünglings Herz zum höchsten Schwung bewegt. Was fesselt mich an irdische Beschwerden? Ist nicht mein Herz und Leben ewig dein? Und schirmt mich deine Liebe nicht auf Erden? Ich darf fier dich der edlen Kunst mich weiten; Denn du, Geliebte, willst die Muse werden, – Und stiller Schutzgeist meiner Dichtung sein. II In ewigen Verwandlungen begrusst Uns des Gesangs geheime Macht hienieden, Dort segnet sie das Land als ew'ger Frieden, Indes sie hier als Jugend uns umfliesst. Sie ist's, die Licht in unsre Augen giesst, Die uns den Sinn für jede Kunst beschieden, Und die das Herz der Frohen und der Müden In trunkner Andacht wunderbar geniesst. An ihrem vollen Busen trank ich Leben: Ich ward durch sie zu allem, was ich bin, Und durfte froh mein Angesicht erheben. Noch schlummerte mein allerhöchster Sinn; Da sah ich sie als Engel zu mir schweben, Und flog, erwacht, in ihrem Arm dahin. Novalis (1772-1801). [The following three poems show some characteristics of the English sonnet: ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's – he takes the lead In summer luxury, – he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. John Keats SONNET O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray Warbl'st at Eve, when all the Woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love; O if Jove's will Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate Foretell my hopeless doom in som Grove ny: As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief; yet hadst no reason why: Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. John Milton (1608-1674).
\ My galy charged with forgetfulnes Thorrough sharpe sees in wynter nyghtes doeth pas Twene Rock and Rock; and eke myn ennemy, Alas, That is my lorde, sterith with cruelnes; And every owre a thought in redines, As tho that deth were light in suche a case. An endles wynd doeth tere the sayll apase \ Of forced sightes and trusty ferefulnes. A rayn of teris, a clowde of derk disdain, \ Hath done the wered cordes great hinderaunce; \ Wrethed with errour and eke with ignoraunce. The starres be hid that led me to this pain; \ Drowned is reason that should me consort, And I remain dispering of the port. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542).]
And now, in order to show how another, the very opposite mood must be drawn from quite different realms of the human organization when this serves as the instrument for poetry and declamation, we will end with something humorous and satirical – choosing a poem by Christian Morgenstern. ST. EXPEDITUS Einem Kloster, voll von Nonnen, waren Menschen wohlgesonnen. Und sie schickten, gute Christen, ihm nach Rom die schönsten Kisten: Äpfel, Birnen, Kuchen, Socken, eine Spieluhr, kleine Glocken, Gartenwerkzeug, Schuhe, Schürzen... Aussen aber stand: Nicht stürzen! Oder: Vorsicht! oder welche wiesen schwarzgemalte Kelche. Und auf jeder Kiste stand ‘Espedito’, kurzerhand. Unsre Nonnen, die nicht wussten, wem sie dafür danken mussten, denn das Gut kam anonym, dankten vorderhand nur IHM, rieten aber doch ohn’ Ende nach dem Sender solcher Spende. Plötzlich rief die Schwester Pia eines Morgens: Santa mia! Nicht von Juden, nicht von Christen Stammen diese Wunderkisten – Expeditus, o Geschwister, heisst er und ein Heiliger ist er! Und sie fielen auf die Kniee. Und der Heilige sprach: Siehe! Endlich habt ihr mich erkannt. Und nun malt mich an die Wand! Und sie liessen einen kommen, einen Maler, einen frommen. Und es malte der Artiste Expeditum mit der Kiste. – Und der Kult gewann an Breite. Jeder, der beschenkt ward, weihte kleine Tafeln ihm und Kerzen. Kurz, er war in aller Herzen. II Da auf einmal, neunzehnhundert- fünf, vernimmt die Welt verwundert, dass die Kirche diesen Mann fürder nicht mehr dulden kann. Grausam schallt von Rom es her: Expeditus ist nicht mehr: Und da seine lieben Nonnen längst dem Erdental entronnen, steht er da und sieht sich um – und die ganze delt bleibt stumm. Ich allein hier hoch im Norden fühle mich von seinem Orden, und mein Ketzergriffel schreibt: Sanctus Expeditus – bleibt. Und weil jenes nichts mehr gilt, male ich hier neu sein Bild: – Expeditum, den Gesandten, grüss’ ich hier, den Unbekannten Expeditum, ihn, den Heiligen, mit den Assen, den viel eiligen, mit den milden, weissen Haaren und dem fröhlichen Gebaren, mit den Augen braun, voll Güte, und mit einer grossen Düte, strebt ihr spärlich Los zu lindern. Einen güldnen Heiligenschein geb’ ich ihm noch obendrein den sein Lacheln um ihn breitet, wenn er durch die Lande schreitet. Und um ihn in Engeiswonnen stell’ ich seine treuen Nonnen: Mägdlein aus Italiens Auen, himmlisch lieblich anzuschauen. Eine aber macht, fürwahr, eine lange Nase gar. Just ins ‘Bronzne Tor’ hinein spannt sie ihr klein Fingerlein. Oben aber aus dem Himmel quillt der Heiligen Gewimmel, und holdselig singt Maria: Santo Espedito - sia! Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914). [An excerpt from “The Rape of the Lock” shows the great English satirist in a comparatively rare mood of good humoured and friendly mocking. It comes from Canto II:
But now secure the painted vessel glides, The sun-beams trembling on the floating tides; While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die; Smooth flow the waves, the Zephyrs gently play, Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay. All but the Sylph – with careful thoughts opprest, Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons strait his Denizens of air; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair: Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light. Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew, Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes, While ev'ry beam new transient colours flings, Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings. Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd; His purple pinions op'ning to the sun, He rais'd his azure wand, and thus begun. Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear, Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Daemons hear! Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd By laws eternal to th' aerial kind. Some in the fields of purest Aether play, And bask and whiten in the blaze of day. Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high, Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky. Some less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, Or suck the mists in grosser air below, Or dip their pinions in the painted bowl Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain. Others on earth o'er human race preside, Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide: Of these the chief the care of Nations own, And guard with Arms divine the British Throne. Our humbler province is to tend the Fair, Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious care; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let th' imprison'd essences exhale; To draw fresh colours from the vernal Flow'rs; To steal from rainbows e'er they drop in show'rs A brighter wash; to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs; Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow, To change a Flounce, or add a Furbelow. This day, black Omens threat the brightest fair That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight; But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)]
Now the art of recitation must undoubtedly follow the poetry. Recitation introduces the human element into poetry, for the human organization itself furnishes the instrument of artistic expression. How this instrument is used in singing and in recitation – that is something which has indeed been much investigated: we have already taken the opportunity here of pointing out, in response to certain questions, how many methods (one method after another!) exist in our present age, to singing and recitation. For in a certain sense we have entirely lost the deeper, inner relationship between poetic utterance or expression and the human organization. I will take as. a starting-point next today something apparently quite physiological – and next time, after our detour through physiology, we shall be able to show you what poetry, as expressed in recitation and declamation, really demands. Let us look first at something which has been frequently mentioned during the lectures of the last few days: the human rhythmic system. The human being is organized into the system of nerves and senses – the instrument for the thought-world, for the world of sense-representations, and so on; the rhythmic system – the instrument for the development of the feeling world, and for all that is mirrored from the feeling-world and plays into the world of mental representations; and the metabolic system – through which the will pulsates, and in which the will finds its actual physical instrument. [Note 4] First, let us look at the rhythmic system. In this rhythmic system, two rhythms interpenetrate each other in a remarkable way. In the first place, we have the breathing-rhythm. This is essentially regular – though everything living is different in this respect, and it varies from individual to individual – so that in the case of healthy people, we are able to observe 16-19 breaths per minute. Secondly, we have the pulse-rhythm, directly connected with the heart. Naturally, when we take into account that in this rhythm we are dealing with functions of a living being, again we cannot cite any pedantic number; but, generally speaking, we may say that the number of pulse-beats per minute, in a healthy human organism, is approximately 72. Hence we can say that the number of pulse-beats is about four times the number of respirations. We can thus represent the course of the breath in the human organism, and how while we take one breath, the pulse intervenes four times. Now let us devote our minds for a moment to this interaction of the pulse-rhythm and the rhythm of the breath to this inner, living piano (if I may so express myself) where we experience the pulse rhythm as it strikes into the course of the breathing-rhythm. Let us picture the following: one breath inhaled and exhaled; and a second inhaled and exhaled; and, striking into this, the rhythm of the heart. Let us picture this in such a way that we can see that in the pulse-rhythm, which is essentially connected with the metabolism, which touches on the metabolic system, the will strikes, as it were, upwards; thus we have the will-pulses striking into the feeling-manifestations of the breath-rhythm. And let us suppose that we articulate these will-pulses, in such a way that we follow the will-pulses in the words, inwardly articulating the words to ourselves. Thus we have, for instance: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short – one breath-stream; then we make a pause, a kind of caesura, we hold back; then, accompanying the next drawing of the breath, we have the heart-rhythm striking into it: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short.
¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È || ¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È ||
Then, when we allow two breaths to be accompanied by the corresponding pulse-beats, and between them we make a pause, a pause for breath – we have the hexameter. [Note 5] We can ask: what is the origin of this ancient Greek verse metre? It originated from the harmony between blood-circulation and breathing. The Greek wished to turn his speech inward, so that, having suppressed his “I”, he orientated the words according to the pulse-beats, allowing these to play upon the stream of breath. Thus he brought his whole inner organization, his rhythmic organization, to expression in his speech: it was the harmony between heart-rhythm and breath-rhythm that resounded in his speech. To the Greek, this was more musical – as if it resounded up from the will, resounded up from the pulse-beats into the rhythm of the breath. You know that what remained as the last, atavistic remnant of the old clairvoyant images – the Alp, the nightmare – found expression in pictures, and is connected with the breathing-process: and there is still a connection between the pathological form of the Alpdruck and breathing. Now let us assume – for me it is more than an assumption – that in those primaeval times when his experience was more closely connected with the internal processes, man went out more with the breath; the movement was more from above downwards. And then he put into one breath:
¤ ¤ ¤ ‘To us in olden maeren'
Again, three high-tones: three times the perception of how the pulse beats into the breathing, and how this brings to expression an experience that is more visual, finding expression in the light and shade of the language, in the high and low tones. In the Greek we have something metrical long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short; whereas in the Nordic verses we have something with more declamatory impetus – high-tone and low-tone:
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ‘To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ Of praise-deserving heroes, of labours manifold ...'
It is the interaction of the breathing-rhythm and the rhythm of the heart, the rhythm of the pulse. Just as the Greek experienced a musical element and expressed this in metre, so the Nordic man experienced a pictorial element, which he expressed in the light and shade of the words, in the high-tones and low-tones. But there was always the knowledge that one was submerged in a state of consciousness where the “I” yielded itself up to the divine-spiritual being which reveals itself through the human organism – which forms this human organism so that it may be played upon as an instrument through the pulsation of the heart, through the breathing-process, through the stream of exhaled and inhaled breath:
È ¾ È ¾ È ¾ È || ¾ È ¾ È ¾
You know that many breathing-techniques have been discovered, and much thought given to methods of treating the human body to facilitate correct singing or recitation. It is much more to the point, however, to penetrate the real mysteries of poetry and recitation and declamation: for both of these will proceed from the actual, sensible-super-sensible perception of the harmony between the pulse, which is connected with the heart, and the breathing-process. As we shall see next time, each single verse-form, each single poetic form including rhyme, alliteration, and assonance, may be understood when we start from a living perception of the human organism, and what it does when it employs speech artistically. This is why it was quite justified when people who understood such things spoke, more or less figuratively, of poetry as a language of the gods: for this language of the gods does not speak the mysteries of the transient human “I”; it speaks in human consciousness, speaks musically and plastically the cosmic mysteries – it speaks when the super-sensible worlds play, through the human heart, upon the human breath. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture IV
06 Apr 1921, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| He must comprehend the art of handling both the instrument and its medium. And likewise the reciter must understand the art of handling speech. His instrument is bound up much more closely with his own being than are the external instruments of the musician, and in deploying his particular instrument he will also have to develop his own special characteristics. |
| In the single vowel-sounds – when penetrated by a sensitive understanding, a discerning sensibility – lies the whole spectrum of human inner experience. In vocalisation (the sounding of the vowels) lives everything which we might describe as coming from musical experience and which is projected into the lyric. |
| Everything flowed together in Novalis: striving after truth, striving after beauty and religious ardour. Only if we understand his comprehensiveness do we understand Novalis. Hence there could arise the remarkable feeling which resounds through The Apprentices of Sais, and wrests itself from Novalis’s soul: man has felt that in the image of Isis truth is veiled; “I am the past, the present and the future, no mortal as yet has lifted my veil” – that is the pronouncement of the veiled Isis and Novalis was sensible of it. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture IV
06 Apr 1921, Dornach Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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The art of recitation and declamation, of which we are going to say something this evening, is not at present accorded its full status as an art-form. In our approach to this art we often give too little consideration to exactly what is presented by the poet and to the medium in which the reciter or declaimer has to be artistically active. This moves us to consider the essentials of the art of recitation and declamation – when, as you have seen demonstrated many times, it presents itself as an accompanying art to eurythmy. We then become deeply aware that recitation and declamation must go beyond the prose content of a poem, which is actually the poem’s thought-component. For to stress the prose content turns the recitation and declamation of the poem into something inartistic. When in reciting, as happens at the present day, importance is attached to a prosaic stress on the meaning, this is an indication of our having abandoned the domain of the truly artistic. Let us be clear that a poet – if he is a true poet – will certainly have had in his imagination (in the full sense of the word) something which ultimately becomes apparent in the recitation and declamation. A poet who only had in his soul the thought-content, or the word-for-word content of feeling, and not the inwardly heard sound- and word-movement of the poem, would simply not be a poet at all. But it must also be made clear that what is put before the reciter is, in the end, only a kind of score or music-script – and that the art of recitation and declamation must go beyond the script in the same way as a pianist or other practising musician has to do. The re-creation is a new creating and the new creation is a re-creating. A musician who composes a piano work will, of course, also have in his imagination the whole pattern of sound: and whoever wishes to re-create his composition must make himself familiar above all with the instrument itself and with its characteristic sound-pattern and tone – of the piano in this instance. He must comprehend the art of handling both the instrument and its medium. And likewise the reciter must understand the art of handling speech. His instrument is bound up much more closely with his own being than are the external instruments of the musician, and in deploying his particular instrument he will also have to develop his own special characteristics. But he will have to start with the handling of speech, the material by means of which he can give expression to what reaches him from the poet only as a sort of score. As regards the handling of speech, it will be just as necessary to begin with the fundamentals as in the art of piano-playing, though the study must in many respects be pursued more intensively than in the case of learning the piano. We must also take into consideration that we are now living in a time when much of what has hitherto lived instinctively within the soul of man must be raised into consciousness. There is still today in wide circles, and not least among artists, a certain fear of this consciousness when it is brought to bear on artistic, creative work. They think that by introducing this sort of consciousness they will injure instinctive, imaginative creation and cripple it; many believe, too, that by becoming conscious of what really goes on in the soul in artistic creation they will lose that spontaneity essential to the creation of art. There is certainly some truth in all this. But, on the other hand, we must realise that what we are striving for in the sphere of anthroposophical perception is a matter of exceptional importance for our time and our civilisation. The slow struggle toward the experience of what in our spiritual stream is called Imagination weaves and lives in an element quite other than the intellectual, so that artistic feeling need in no way be lost when it is confronted with Imaginative experience. Indeed, if we are dealing with genuine Imaginations it cannot be lost. For what is disclosed in an Imagination with a view to knowledge is objectively (not subjectively but objectively) different from the Imagination manifested when the soul gives it an artistic form. If I may refer for a moment to something personal: I would like to say that to me it was always extremely distasteful if someone or other came along and tried to interpret my Mystery Plays in a symbolic way and imported into them all sorts of intellectual notions. For what lives in these Mystery Plays is experienced Imaginatively – down to every single sound. The picture stands there as a picture and has always stood there as a picture. It would never have occurred to me to begin with an intellectual idea and then fashion it into a picture. In that way I was able to discover by experience how, when one is attempting to impart artistic form, the Imaginative comes to be something objectively quite different to the form assumed by an Imagination that is directed toward cognition. Hence this prejudice, that spontaneity and instinctive imagining will be impaired if one raises artistic activity into consciousness, will have to be overcome. Our times require that this prejudice should be overcome. We may then perhaps be guided to the true foundations of declamation and recitation, as it is in this direction that they will have to be developed in the near future. We cannot put recitation and declamation into practice unless we fathom the fundamental differences presented in poetry by, on the one side, lyric; on the second side, epic; and on the third, the dramatic. [Note 10] Today we shall only be able to present something of the lyric and the dramatic. We shall then continue with something that might be called a ‘prose-poem’. There were reasons for this choice. The epic will be considered separately later on – indeed the epic can perhaps best illustrate the art of recitation when once we have advanced beyond the elementary stages of the art. In order to penetrate to a real declamatory and recitative art involving the lyric, dramatic and epic, the following must be observed. Whoever aims at this kind of vocal production must, for instance, develop a distinct feeling for the connection between lyric and the constituents of speech – and this he will achieve through a living experience of the vowels. A feeling for the vowels, for the intimacy of the vowels, must be sought if the lyrical is to be embodied and brought to expression. For it is in the vowel sounds that man’s essentially inward experience is expressed. In the single vowel-sounds – when penetrated by a sensitive understanding, a discerning sensibility – lies the whole spectrum of human inner experience. In vocalisation (the sounding of the vowels) lives everything which we might describe as coming from musical experience and which is projected into the lyric. Lyrical experience can definitely be traced back to musical experience. But in musical experience we find inwardness being unfolded in the movement of sound. In the lyric, we find inwardness absorbed into the very substance of the vowel itself. Yet whoever wishes to approach recitation from this point of view must avoid a certain error – and no greater error in the art of recitation is conceivable. For when we are learning how to handle the materials and elements of speech, we might be tempted to commence by introducing an element of feeling, to put subjective feeling into the vowel; and this is just what would actually make it prosaic. This is the opposite approach to that of recitation. Anyone who wishes to recite lyrical poetry must have a sensitivity to the vowel itself. He must begin by experiencing the vowel as such. Just as Goethe, for instance, recognises different shades of feeling in the various shades of colour, so we shall not only experience in the vowels different shades of feeling, but utterly different conditions of soul, different soul-contents. We shall feel every gradation, from sorrow and bitterness to joy and jubilation, in our sensing of the vowels and experience of what might be termed the vowel-scale. It will be readily admitted that much of what I am saying is often felt instinctively by the reciter when he comes to apply his art in individual poems. But he will be able to enhance his art significantly if he brings such a feeling to conscious awareness. Through vocalisation something capable of further development will be disclosed to him: he will discover how a vowel sounding earlier on still sounds in the later vowels – or a later vowel-sound modifies the earlier ones, etc. However, these things must not be practised in the mechanical and materialistic way often adopted nowadays, when various postures are assumed, along with artificial breath-control. Everything the body has to learn in this domain must derive purely from what is learnt in working with speech itself. Just as a painter can learn most when, instructed by an accomplished artist, he paints directly onto the canvas and only touches his work up here and there, – so too will the reciter best learn to recite by acquiring his grasp of speech from speech itself: from actual speaking, from handling the speech-movement. Afterwards, his attention can be drawn to any particular detail relating to external, bodily control. It is a curious tendency of our materialistic times first to move away from the poem and adjust the instrument of speech and only then return to artistic speaking. This aberration might almost be called nonsense; it certainly does not derive from true artistic feeling. Furthermore, if it is with the help of the vowel-sounds that we come to experience the lyric it is through the consonants that we shall begin to get a feeling for the epic. Truly to enter into the consonants is to experience over again, within ourselves, what is going on outside us. And if we feel in the consonantal element this peculiar imitation within us of the outside world, we shall be led artistically from these elementary constituents to an inner re-experiencing of what is also to be found in the images of a far-ranging epos. I can only touch upon this today; at another opportunity it can be referred to again. In this way it will be possible to develop what ought to lie at the foundation of recitation and declamation into a true art-form, down to its handling of the constituents of speech. And it will necessarily become clear to us, if we see the essential feature of this art in the way it handles actual speech, that the nuances of the art will show up in its response to the different languages – each language having its own special recitative or declamatory requirements. A language which is essentially mimetic, one which takes its departure from the intellect and classification and has developed language in the sphere of the intellect, a language which has abstracted itself from what can be experienced in the outer world, – such a language will have to tackle recitation and declamation quite differently to one in which the sounds (vowels and consonants) themselves express their relationship to inwardness or to externality. Now, in the first part of what Frau Dr. Steiner is going to declaim, you will hear to begin with something lyrical. From this you should actually be able to hear how lyrical poems come to expression with varying nuances, depending on the language in which they are presented. That will be the first part of our programme – a performance of essentially lyrical poems.
Three poems of Goethe’s youth. BEHERZIGUNG
Ist es besser, ruhig bleiben? Klammernd fest sich anzuhangen? Ist es besser, sich zu treiben? Soll er sich ein Häuschen bauen? Soll er unter Zelten leben? Soll er auf die Felsen trauen? Selbst die festen Felsen beben.
Eines schickt sich nicht für alle! Sehe jeder wie er’s treibe, Sehe jeder wo er bleibe, Und wer steht, dass er nicht falle! MEERES STILLE Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser, Ohne Regung ruht das Meer, Und bekümmert sieht der Schiffer Glatte Fläche rings umher. Keine Luft von keiner Seite! Todesstille fürchterlich! In der ungeheuern Weite Reget keine Welle sich. MIT EINEM GEMALTEN BAND Kleine Blumen, kleine Blätter Streuen mir mit leichter Hand Gute junge Frühlingsgötter Tändelnd auf ein luftig Band.
Zephyr, nimm’s auf deine Flügel, Schling’s um meiner Liebsten Kleid! Und so tritt sie vor den Spiegel All in ihrer Munterkeit.
Sieht mit Rosen sich umgeben, Selbst wie eine Rose jung: Einen Blick, geliebtes Leben! Und ich bin belohnt genung.
Fühle, was dies Herz empfindet, Reiche frei mir deine Hand, Und das Band, das uns verbindet, Sei kein schwaches Rosenband!
A little English lyric: SONG April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter; Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears! April, that mine ears Like a lover greetest, If I tell thee, sweetest, All my hopes and fears, April, April, Laugh thy golden laughter, But, the moment after, Weep thy golden tears! William Watson (1858-1935). THE BELLS OF ST. PETERSBURGH Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells, Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those joyous hours are past away! And many a heart, that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells!
And so ’twill be when I am gone; That tuneful peal will still ring on, While other bards shall walk these dells, And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!
Thomas Moore (1799-1852).
An example of Russian lyric: NILE DELTA Lucid gold and emerald, and black earth’s thick fecundity: landscape aloof, your wealth witheld from ease, in mute profundity…
Bosom laden with your fruit, – how many slumberous shapes repose secure in you, most lowly root, or fertile corpses decompose?
Yet not for all slow dissipation: not those that yearly upward flame, like ghosts at magic conjuration, and vernal life from death proclaim;
not Isis, crowned with flowers supernal, lush companions of the spring – the Touch-me-not, the Maid eternal, the Rainbow’s incandescent ring! Vladimir Soloviov (1853-1900). Trans. Neil Thompson and A.J.W. [Note 11] [Of considerable interest too is the beautiful German translation used in the original programme: NILDELTA Goldenglänzendes, smaragdenes, Tief schwarzerdenes Gefild, Deines Kraftens reicher Segen Aus der Scholle quillt.
Dieser Schoss, der keimetragende, Tote bergend in den Ton, Er litt stumm, der allergebene, Die jahrtausend lange Fron.
Doch nicht alles so Empfangene Trugst empor du jedes Jahr. Das vom alten Tod Gezeichnete Sieht des Lenzes sich noch bar.
Isis nicht, die Kronen tragende, Wird dir bringen jenen Kranz, Doch die unberührte, ewige Magd im Regenbogenglanz. Trans. Marie Steiner.] WANDRERS STURMLIED Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Nicht der Regen, nicht der Sturm Haucht ihm Schauer übers Herz. Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wird dem Regengewölk, Wird dem Schlossensturm Entgegen singen, Wie die Lerche, Du da droben.
Den du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst ihn heben übern Schlammpfad Mit den Feuerflügeln; Wandeln wird er Wie mit Blumenfüssen Über Deukalions Flutschlamm, Python tötend, leicht, gross, Pythius Apollo.
Den du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst die wollnen Flügel unterspreiten, Wenn er auf dem Felsen schläft, Wirst mit Hüterfittichen ihn decken In des Haines Mitternacht.
Wen du nicht verlässest, Genius, Wirst im Schneegestöber Wärmumhüllen; Nach der Wärme ziehn sich Musen, Nach der Wärme Charitinnen.
Umschwebet mich ihr Musen, Ihr Charitinnen: Das ist Wasser, das ist Erde, Und der Sohn des Wassers und der Erde, Über den ich wandle Göttergleich.
Ihr seid rein, wie das Herz der Wasser, Ihr seid rein, wie das Mark der Erde, Ihr umschwebt mich und ich schwebe Über Wasser, über Erde, Göttergleich.
Soll der zurückkehren, Der kleine, schwarze, feurige Bauer? Soll der zurückkehren, erwartend Nur deine Gaben, Vater Bromius, Und helleuchtend umwärmend Feuer? Der kehren mutig? Und ich, den ihr begleitet, Musen und Charitinnen alle, Den alles erwartet, was ihr, Musen und Charitinnen, Umkränzende Seligkeit Rings ums Leben verherrlicht habt, Soll mutlos kehren?
Vater Bromius! Du bist Genius, Jahrhunderts Genius, Bist, was innre Glut Pindarn war, Was der Welt Phöbus Apoll ist.
Weh! Weh! Innre Wärme, Seelenwärme, Mittelpunkt: Glüh’ entgegen Phöb’ Apollen; Kalt wird sonst Sein Fürstenblick Über dich vorübergleiten, Neidgetroffen Auf der Ceder Kraft verweilen, Die zu grünen Sein nicht harrt.
Warum nennt mein Lied dich zuletzt? Dich, von dem es begann, Dich, in dem es endet, Dich, aus dem es quillt, Jupiter Pluvius! Dich, dich strömt mein Lied, Und kastalischer Quell Rinnt ein Nebenbach, Rinnet Müssigen, Sterblich Glücklichen Abseits von dir, Der du mich fassend deckst, Jupiter Pluvius!
Nicht am Ulmenbaum Hast du ihn besucht, Mit dem Taubenpaar In dem zärtlichen Arm, Tändelnden ihn, blumenglücklichen Anakreon, Sturmatmende Gottheit!
Nicht im Pappelwald An des Sybaris Strand, An des Gebirges Sonnebeglänzter Stirn nicht Fasstest du ihn, Den bienensingenden, Honig-lallenden, Freundlich winkenden Theokrit.
Wenn die Räder rasselten, Rad an Rad rasch ums Ziel weg, Hoch flog Siegdurchglühter Jünglinge Peitschenknall, Und sich Staub wälzt’, Wie vom Gebirg herab Kieselwetter ins Tal,— Glühte deine Seel’ Gefahren, Pindar Mut.—Glühte?—
Armes Herz! Dort auf dem Hügel, Himmlische Macht! Nur so viel Glut, Dort meine Hütte, Dorthin zu waten! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [For such lyrical intensity and power in English this famous ode remains unsurpassed: ODE TO THE WEST WIND I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! II Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aery surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear! IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and spare
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life: I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).]
When studying poetry with a view to artistic declamation, it is of primary importance to lose nothing of what wells up in the words from the poet’s soul, or is contained in what is given to us by him. Recitation, as well as poetry itself, will only become artistic when everything that the soul expresses in the prose content is recast into form, into something formed. In the lyric it must go more into the musical. In the epic and particularly in the dramatic, more into imagery, into what has been given a definite form. The lyrical, as I said, inclines toward the vowel-sounds; but we must not forget that every consonant also has in it a vowel-element. In every consonant there lies a disposition toward a vowel and every vowel has a tendency toward a consonant. Consequently through art, just as in other spheres where something similar is effected, the opposition between subjective and objective will be completely overcome. The whole inner being of man will be able to live in the outer world and the outer world will be brought to expression in its full strength through the inner being of man. Speaking about the art of reciting in our course last autumn, I drew your attention to the universal, cosmic rhythm which is expressed in the rhythmic system of man. Furthermore, I showed how this comes to find expression in poetry – and thence, of course, in recitation as the manifestation of poetic art. We may say that an element with a more spiritual tendency (since the spirit manifests itself in everything physical) unfolds in the tempo of the human pulse-beat; while something more psychic, we may also say, something that takes its course in the soul, unfolds in the rhythm of breathing. A greater part of what is expressed in poetic form depends on the interplay between the rhythms of the pulse and breathing and the ratio of one to the other. And it is in the hexameter that the primary and most self-evident ratio between pulse-rhythm and breathing-rhythm is displayed. Fundamentally the hexameter involves two breaths, with four pulse-beats to each breath and this, of course, is the natural ratio between human breathing and the pulse. In this way, what wells up in poetry comes to actual corporeal utterance. And conversely, the poetic must come to expression through recitation and declamation out of the human being as a whole. It is as if the pulse-rhythm were playing upon the breathing-rhythm – rhythm on rhythm. And what lives in rhythm is expressed again in the musicality of speech, in lyrical poetry. All the prose content of a poem must be led back to this inner rhythmic treatment of metre and tempo. Everything that lies in the what of the content must also lie in the how of the performance, so that in discovering the one in the other there is really an experience of the whole. [Note 12] If, in poetry or reciting, we find ourselves having to exert our intellect to grasp the merely word-for-word content, then the artistic is at that point disrupted. This should really be ever-present in our mind when in any field of art we have to struggle through from inartistic content to genuine artistic form or to what has been permeated by the element of music. The latter is especially evident in reciting or declaiming a poem that is lyrical in origin. In the case of dramatic art, too, its own artistic forms must be represented when it is expressed in speech-formation. In fact we can say: Recitation as an independent art must take account of the way that it evolves the dramatic rather differently from how it is evolved in a fully staged production. Yet the essence of the stage-production must appear in the way the speech is handled – in the recitative-declamatory treatment of the drama. What do we actually have before us when we consider poetic drama? It is essentially something that only comes into existence through the characters on stage – or, if we do not see the drama with our eyes and hear it with our ears, through what our imagination has picked up from the poetic language and set in its totality before our souls. Everything must flow in moving form. But although the drama is only complete when presented on stage, we must realise all the same that everything standing before us, the persons on the stage, everything we hear, is fundamentally the expression of a soul-quality. The soul-quality which evolves as drama, in the separate characters and in their interaction – this is really the essential content of the drama. At this point it becomes necessary to take note of what actually goes on in the soul. What goes on there, especially in the re-creation of a drama, is something imaginative; and this is so even when it is only with the poetry that we are concerned. On the stage the presentation must be pictorial. But here, too, what is spoken is a pictorial representation of what lives in the poet’s soul. What is presented on the stage is effective, not through its reality, but through what derives from the ’fair seeming’: [Note 13] it is imaginative despite its reality. And when the dramatic forms come before our souls as images – that too is imaginative, albeit in a special sense. Imagination is not experienced in its true being, but as a projection into our souls in image-form. In the same way a shadow thrown onto the wall by a three-dimensional object is related to the object itself, though in no way containing what lives in the object; as a good two-dimensional portrayal contains everything its three-dimensional subject has: so what is represented in our imaginings contains the shadow thrown there by imagination. The stage presentation is fundamentally nothing but an external, corporeal representation of what lives in these images and for this reason we feel an aversion (if we have any healthy feeling for such things) whenever in the drama external reality is merely imitated naturalistically. Dramatic art can no more tolerate realistic imitation than can the other arts of speech – though these are less liable to such difficulties. And when, as in our times, the tendency toward realism has so often emerged in drama productions, and we have seen Schiller’s characters shown on stage with their hands in their pockets! When an attempt has been made to produce a realistic imitation of external, physical nature, this only shows that we have strayed from a genuinely aesthetic perception, and little by little in the general course of civilisation lost the truly artistic. It is possible to adopt a materialistic world-conception, and in a certain sense this is appropriate for the external organic world. In outer life it is possible to be realistic, but it is not so in art. For what we then produce is no longer in the domain of art at all – and this can be seen both in the drama itself and in the way speech is handled in these dramatic productions. It is really a matter of putting everything an artistic speech-formation can achieve into the treatment of the language. This comprises the most varied elements. I should only like to point out a few details – our limited time does not allow more. There may exist, for example, in what is presented through speech-formation, a sort of average tempo. We feel this and starting from this average tempo we can effect a transition to a quicker one, to a more rapid delivery of the words, or to a slower one. The first, the more rapid delivery, always expresses a kind of going-out of the human “I” – a going out from oneself and widely extending oneself. Naturally one can feel this in different ways: as a separation, for example, from some thing one longs to reach. A slowing-down of the words, notably in dramatic speech, will present a kind of being-within-oneself. Everything expressed in a self-collected contemplation, a resting within oneself, will be connected with a slowing-down of the tempo. Another formative principle lies in the raising or lowering of the pitch. The first is connected with the spiritualisation of an inner experience, with an ascending of the “I” above itself. Going out of oneself in wide extension is connected with the tempo: and ascending above oneself is associated with a rising in pitch. Everything in the content which strives toward spiritualisation (even if only a spiritualisation in which the human intellect is overpowered by the will, by ardour, by enthusiasm) will bring itself to formative expression in raising the pitch. And when a human being sinks below the level of his ordinary life, whether in sorrow or in inwardness, this will be connected with a fall in pitch. All this will find particular expression in dramatic art and everything dramatic speech-formation demands will have to flow into the element of form – so that everything must be grasped, not by the sheer power of intellect, but as an expression of this formative treatment of speech – and of course, if it is a matter of stage production, through the gestures. It will all flow into this special way of speaking, so that in the very speech we can feel what the content is. It will not be very easy to bring certain things in dramatic art to perfection, because (as Aristotle already knew) drama has to do with causal connections in life; and for this reason what may be called the dramatic score, in the sense we spoke of earlier as that which has to be realised, is very largely based on an implicit understanding and discernment. It must be transformed into something that can be attained through the speech-formation itself: through tempo, metre, rhythm, the rise and fall of the pitch, etc. It is from the speech-formation that the images which arise before the soul must flow. We must enter into such intimacies of human life if we wish to find the truly artistic. Dramatic art itself, because it is lifted out of physical experience through imagination (even if only a reflection, a shadowy image of true imagination) can only become effective if it shows itself in the style, in the handling of the speech. Hence in dramatic art, even down to the treatment of speech, it is for dramatic style that one will have to cultivate a special sense. Style, not realism, must be all-important. Hence we can say that what has been developed in the way of dramatic style in the French theatre and has been imitated in other languages, what culminated in the classical French presentation of tragedy can stand before us like a model from which to learn the formation of a dramatic style. From the style in which the French classics were, until quite recently, presented on the French stage (and after them the non-classical drama too), we shall be able to obtain a good idea of how a uniquely dramatic mode stands out against naturalistic speech, such as depends on intellectual understanding rather than the element of form. Two passages, taken from the German and the French, will exemplify what I have roughly tried to indicate as regards dramatic style and the dramatic treatment of speech. Recitation by Marie Steiner. From Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, Act IV, Scene 5: TELL (enters with his crossbow): Durch diese hohle Gasse muss er kommen; Es führt kein andrer Weg nach Küssnacht – Hier Vollend’ ich’s. – Die Gelegenheit ist günstig. Dort der Holunderstrauch verbirgt mich ihm, Von dort herab kann ihn mein Pfeil erlangen; Des Weges Enge wehret den Verfolgern. Mach deine Rechnung mit dem Himmel, Vogt, Fort musst du, deine Uhr ist abgelaufen.
Ich lebte still und harmlos – Das Geschoss War auf des Waldes Tiere nur gerichtet, Meine Gedanken waren rein von Mord – Du hast aus meinem Frieden mich heraus Geschreckt, in gärend Drachengift hast du Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt, Zum Ungeheuren hast du mich gewöhnt – Wer sich des Kindes Haupt zum Ziele setzte, Der kann auch treffen in das Herz des Feinds.
Die armen Kindlein, die unschuldigen, Das treue Weib muss ich vor deiner Wut Beschützen, Landvogt! – Da, als ich den Bogenstrang Anzog – als mir die Hand erzitterte – Als du mit grausam teufelischer Lust Mich zwangst, aufs Haupt des Kindes anzulegen – Als ich ohnmächtig flehend rang vor dir, Damals gelobt’ ich mir in meinem Innern Mit furchtbarm Eidschwur, den nur Gott gehört, Dass meines nächsten Schusses erstes Ziel Dein Herz sein sollte. – Was ich mir gelobt In jenes Augenblickes Höllenqualen, Ist eine heil’ge Schuld – ich will sie zahlen.
Du bist mein Herr und meines Kaisers Vogt; Doch nicht der Kaiser hätte sich erlaubt, Was du. – Er sandte dich in diese Lande, Um Hecht zu sprechen – strenges, denn er zürnet – Doch nicht um mit der mörderischen Lust Dich jedes Greuels straflos zu erfrechen; Es lebt ein Gott, zu strafen und zu rächen.
Komm du hervor, du Bringer bittrer Schmerzen, Mein teures Kleinod jetzt, mein höchster Schatz – Ein Ziel will ich dir geben, das bis jetzt Der frommen Bitte undurchdringlich war – Doch dir soll es nicht widerstehn. – Und du, Vertraute Bogensehne, die so oft Mir treu gedient hat in der Freude Spielen, Verlass mich nicht im fürchterlichen Ernst: Nur jetzt noch halte fest, du treuer Strang, Der mir so oft den herben Pfeil beflügelt – Entränn’ er jetzo kraftlos meinen Händen, Ich habe keinen zweiten zu versenden.
(Wanderers pass over the stage.)
Auf dieser Bank von Stein will ich mich setzen, Dem Wanderer zur kurzen Ruh bereitet – Denn hier ist keine Heimat. – Jeder treibt Sich an dem andern rasch und fremd vorüber Und fraget nicht nach seinem Schmerz. – Hier geht Der sorgenvolle Kaufmann und der leicht Geschürzte Pilger – der andächtige Mönch, Der düstre Räuber und der heitre Spielmann, Der Säumer mit dem schwerbeladnen Ross, Der ferne herkommt von der Menschen Ländern, Denn jede Strasse führt ans End’ der Welt. Sie alle ziehen ihres Weges fort An ihr Geschäft – und meines ist der Mord’. (Sits down)
– Sonst, wenn der Vater auszog, liebe Kinder, Da war ein Freuen, wenn er wiederkam; Denn niemals kehrt’ er heim, er bracht’ euch etwas, Warts eine schöne Alpenblume, war’s Ein seltner Vogel oder Ammonshorn, Wie es der Wandrer findet auf den Bergen – Jetzt geht er einem andern Weidwerk nach, Am wilden Weg sitzt er mit Mordgedanken; Des Feindes Leben ist’s, worauf er lauert. – Und doch an euch nur denkt er, liebe Kinder, Auch jetzt – euch zu verteidigen, eure holde Unschuld Zu schützen vor der Rache des Tyrannen, Will er zum Morde jetzt den Bogen spannen. (Stands up). Ich laure auf ein edles Wild. – Lässt sich’s Der Jäger nicht verdriessen, tagelang Umher zu streifen in des Winters Strenge, Von Fels zu Fels den Wagesprung zu tun, Hinan zu klimmen an den glatten Wänden, Wo er sich anleimt mit dem eignen Blut, – Um ein armselig Grattier zu erjagen. Hier gilt es einen köstlicheren Preis, Das Herz des Todfeinds, der mich will verderben. (Gay music in the distance coming nearer.)
Mein ganzes Lebelang hab’ ich den Bogen Gehandhabt, mich geübt nach Schützenregel; Ich habe oft geschossen in das Schwarze Und manchen schönen Preis mir heimgebracht Vom Freudenschiessen. – Aber heute will ich Den Meisterschuss tun und das beste mir Im ganzen Umkreis des Gebirgs gewinnen. Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). [A speech from Dryden’s All for Love: or, The World Well Lost (his “imitation” of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra) may stand here as a sample of the Neoclassical drama in England. It comprises Act I, Scene i, 237ff: ANTONY (having thrown himself down) : Lye there, thou shadow of an Emperor; The place thou pressest on thy Mother-earth Is all thy Empire now: now it contains thee; Some few days hence, and then ’twill be too large, When thou’rt contracted in thy narrow Urn, Shrunk to a few cold Ashes; then Octavia, (For Cleopatra will not live to see it) Octavia then will have thee all her own, And bear thee in her Widow’d hand to Caesar; Caesar will weep, the Crocodile will weep, To see his Rival of the Universe Lie still and peaceful there. I’le think no more on’t. Give me some Musick; look that it be sad: I’le sooth my Melancholy till I swell, And burst my self with sighing—Soft Musick ‘Tis somewhat to my humor. Stay, I fancy I’m now turn’d wild, a Commoner of Nature; Of all forsaken, and forsaking all; Live in a shady Forest’s Sylvan Scene, Stretch’d at my length beneath some blasted Oke; I lean my head upon the Mossy Bark, And look just of a piece, as I grew from it: My uncomb’d Locks, matted like Misleto, Hang o’re my hoary Face; a mirm’ring Brook Runs at my foot… The Herd come jumping by me, And fearless, quench their thirst, while I look on, And take me for their fellow-Citizen, More of this Image, more; it lulls my thoughts. (Soft Musick again) John Dryden (1631-1700).] From Le Cid, Act III, Scene 4:
CHIMÈNE: Ah! Rodrigue, il est vrai, quoique ton ennemie, Je ne puis te blâmer d’avoir fui l’infamie; Et, de quelque façon qu’éclatent mes douleurs, Je ne t’accuse point, je pleure mes malheurs. Je sais ce que l’honneur, aprés un tel outrage, Demandait à 1’ardeur d’un généreux courage: Tu n’as fait le devoir que d’un homme de bien; Mais aussi, le faisant, tu m’as appris le mien. Ta funeste valeur m’instruit par ta victoire; Elle a vengé ton père et soutenu ta gloire: Même soin me regarde, et j’ai, pour m’affliger, Ma gloire à soutenir, et mon père à venger. Hélas! ton intérêt ici me désespère: Si quelque autre malheur m’avait ravi mon père, Mon âme aurait trouvé dans le bien de te voir L’unique allégement qu’elle eût pu recevoir; Et contre ma douleur j’aurais senti des charmes Quand une main si chére eût essuyé mes larmes. Mais il me faut te perdre après l’avoir perdu; Cet effort sur ma flamme a mon honneur est dû; Et cet affreux devoir, dont l’ordre m’assassine, Me force à travailler moi-même à ta ruine. Car enfin n’attends pas de mon affection De lâches sentiments pour ta punition. De quoi qu’en ta faveur notre amour m’entretienne, Ma générosité doit répondre à la tienne: Tu t’es, en m’offensant, montré digne de moi; Je me dois, par ta mort, montrer digne de toi.
RODRIGUE: Ne diffère donc plus ce que l’honneur t’ordonne: demande ma tête, et je te l’abandonne; Fais-en un sacrifice a ce noble intérêt; Le coup m’en sera doux, aussi bien que l’arrêt. Attendre après mon crime une lente justice, C’est reculer ta gloire autant que mon supplice. Je mourrai trop heureux, mourant d’un coup si beau.
CHIMÈNE: Va, je suis ta partie, et non pas ton bourreau. Si tu m’offres ta tête, est-ce à moi de la prendre? Je la dois attaquer, mais tu dois la défendre: C’est d’un autre que toi qu’il me faut l’obtenir Et je dois te poursuivre, et non pas te punir.
RODRIGUE: De quoi qu’en ma faveur notre amour t’entretienne. Ta générosité doit répondre à la mienne; Et, pour venger un père, emprunter d’autres bras Ma Chimène, crois-moi, c’est n’y répondre pas. Ma main seule du mien a su venger l’offense, Ta main seule du tien doit prendre la vengeance.
CHIMÈNE: Cruel! à quel propos sur ce point t’obstiner? Tu t’es vengé sans aide, et tu m’en veux donner! Je suivrai ton exemple, et j’ai trop de courage Pour souffrir qu’avec toi ma gloire se partage. Mon père et mon honneur ne veulent rien devoir Aux traits de ton amour ni de ton désespoir.
RODRIGUE: Rigoureux point d’honneur. Hélas! quoi que je fasse. Ne pourrai-je à la fin obtenir cette grâce? Au nom d’un père mort, ou de notre amitié Punis-moi par vengeance, ou du moins par pitié. Ton malheureux amant aura bien moins de peine A mourir par ta main qu’à vivre avec ta haine.
CHIMÈNE: Va, je ne te hais point.
RODRIGUE: Tu le dois.
CHIMÈNE: Je ne puis. Pierre Corneille (1606-1684). We shall continue now with something about the prose-poem. Here it is a matter of something in the artist’s soul which he experiences as poetry, but which cannot be expressed in any of the art-forms generally employed. Although put into prose, it is nonetheless a genuinely poetic art that is brought to expression in this form. But anything cast in the form of a prose-poem will need special treatment when it is expressed in speech-formation. It is almost universally – though quite erroneously – assumed that the recitation or declamation of prose-poems is something easy to accomplish. In reality, the recitative-declamatory speaking of prose-poetry is the most difficult, as it represents the most intimate form of the art. Everything that comes to light in lyric, dramatic or epic speech-formation, whether of a more delicate or more profound nature, must form a synthesis whenever a prose-poem is to be presented in oral production. In recitation of this kind everything that is to be found in verse, or any form of poetic art, will sound forth – but with a more delicate shading. In this way, merely touching upon what otherwise appears in the recitation and declamation with stronger emphasis, with more marked contours – by giving this only gentle emphasis – the recital will become essentially suffused with soul. Suffused with soul! The artistic recital of prose-poetry must become much more soul-filled: it must occasion our going beyond the conceptual understanding of the words toward something imaginative. The energetic impetus that underlies logical inference, for example, leads toward an image-forming experience; [Note 14] and at the same time there sounds through softly, as something musical, the octave. The image-forming treatment of speech in a prose-poem, when presented in recitation or declamation, is like a continually flowing stream with its even waves. And, as if from the depths, other waves arise, bringing variation into its even flow – this is the delicate musical element which should become perceptible in this kind of recitation. In speaking a prose-poem with poetic sensibility, the more intimate features of a language will come to light and the raising of what looks like a prose production into a poetical work, into the realm of art and poetry, is something of a triumph which man can give to his language. What we may call the soul of a language finds a very adequate embodiment there. We will now take an example – from The Apprentices of Sais by Novalis. In this novel, which remained unfinished, there is a wonderful little passage of prose in which all that I have tried to indicate about the recitation and declamation of prose-poems comes into prominence. The essential thing is that everything which otherwise comes to light in the reciting of poetry is transformed, through acquiring a more intimate character, into a particular mood or feeling. Everything, on the other hand, that serves to differentiate the mood will be taken up into the totality of the mood as a whole. Something like this can be attempted in an outstanding piece of prose like the fairy-tale in Novalis’ The Apprentices of Sais. In this wonderful fairy-tale, as in so much that has come to us from Novalis, is revealed the whole depth of his soul. The handsome youth Hyacinth loves the maiden Rosepetal. It is a love cherished in secret – only the flowers and the animals of the forest know of the love of the handsome youth for the maiden Rosepetal. And then there appears a man with a long beard, who makes a wondrous impression and tells marvellous stories, in which the handsome youth Hyacinth becomes completely immersed. He is seized with a great longing for the veiled Virgin, for the veiled image of Truth. His soul trembles with longing, which also enlarges his vision so that he becomes estranged from his immediate surroundings, and his heart yearns for the image of the veiled Virgin. He forsakes Rosepetal, who remains behind weeping. He wanders through all sorts of unknown regions, and comes to know many things on his way; and at last he arrives at the Temple of Isis. Everything seems familiar to him, and yet different from what he had experienced before – it seems so much more splendid. And behold! he ventures to lift the veil! and Rosepetal falls into his arms. It would be hard to represent with more intimate feeling the expansion of the soul out of her subjectivity into the wide universe; it would be hard to represent more intimately the longing of man for truth – hard to link more closely what man can experience when he rises to the highest spheres of truth with what he lives through in his most direct, intimate day-to-day experiences. All that is needed is sufficient intimacy of soul. What is expressed in this prose fairy-tale can only be brought to light by a soul such as that of Novalis, who really felt everyday life in such a way that it was for him a direct expression of the eternal. Novalis, after his first love had died, was able in inward truth of soul to live with her and to feel the direct presence of one who was in the other world as if she were in this world. Novalis’ soul was truly able to experience the super-sensible in the sensible and so raise what belongs to the sense-world to assume the character of the super-sensible. Everything flowed together in Novalis: striving after truth, striving after beauty and religious ardour. Only if we understand his comprehensiveness do we understand Novalis. Hence there could arise the remarkable feeling which resounds through The Apprentices of Sais, and wrests itself from Novalis’s soul: man has felt that in the image of Isis truth is veiled; “I am the past, the present and the future, no mortal as yet has lifted my veil” – that is the pronouncement of the veiled Isis and Novalis was sensible of it. Confronted with “No mortal as yet has lifted my veil”, Novalis responded with “Then we must become immortal”. Novalis never despaired of the soul’s ability to lift the veil of truth: but the soul must first become immediately aware of her own immortality. A man who experiences his immortality in himself may, in the sense of Novalis, lift the veil of truth. It is a powerful saying – “Then we must become immortal”. What lives in this feeling in a far-reaching way meets us again in an intimate mood when the handsome youth Hyacinth comes to the Temple of Isisafter long dream-wanderings through unknown regions, which are nonetheless familiar to him, though now appearing more splendid than he had once known. He comes to the Temple of Isis, lifts the veil and what he knows and loves – Rosepetal – comes to meet him. Yet, as we can envisage and feel intimately in this prose fairy-tale, she has become through this experience of eternity much more splendid than she once was. Truly it is a prose-poem conceived in a mood where the highest to which man can aspire takes the form of the most intimate – one of the fairest flowers of poetic prose, demonstrating that, in what is apparently prose, true poetry can be expressed. From Die Lehrlinge zu Sais: DAS MÄRCHEN VON HYAZINTH UND ROSENBLÜTE Vor langen Zeiten lebte weit gegen Abend ein blutjunger Mensch. Er war sehr gut, aber auch über die Massen wunderlich. Er grämte sich unaufhorlich um nichts und wieder nichts, ging immer still für sich hin, setzte sich einsam, wenn die andern spielten und fröhlich waren, und hing seltsamen Dingen nach. Höhlen und Wälder waren sein liebster Aufenthalt, und dann sprach er immerfort mit Tieren und Vögeln, mit Bäumen und Felsen, natürlich kein vernünftiges Wort, lauter närrisches Zeug zum Totlachen. Er blieb aber immer mürrisch und ernsthaft, ungeachtet sich das Eichhörnchen, die Meerkatze, der Papagei und der Gimpel alle Mühe gaben, ihn zu zerstreuen und ihn auf den richtigen Weg zu weisen. Die Gans erzählte Märchen, der Bach klimperte eine Ballade dazwischen, ein grosser dicker Stein machte lächerliche Bockssprünge, die Rose schlich sich freundlich hinter ihm herum, kroch durch seine Locken, und der Efeu streichelte ihm die sorgenvolle Stirn.—Allein der Missmut und Ernst waren hartnäckig. Seine Eltern waren sehr betrübt, sie wussten nicht, was sie anfangen sollten. Er war gesund und ass, nie hatten sie ihn beleidigt, er war auch bis vor wenig Jahren fröhlich und lustig gewesen, wie keiner; bei allen Spielen voran, von allen Mädchen gern gesehn. Er war recht bildschön, sah aus wie gemalt, tanzte wie ein Schatz. Unter den Mädchen war eine, ein köstliches, bildschönes Kind, sah aus wie Wachs, Haare wie goldne Seide, kirschrote Lippen, wie ein Püppchen gewachsen, brandrabenschwarze Augen. Wer sie sah, hätte mögen vergehn, so lieblich war sie. Damals war Rosenblüte, so hiess sie, dem bildschönen Hyazinth, so hiess er, von Herzen gut, und er hatte sie lieb zum Sterben. Die andern Kinder wussten’s nicht. Ein Veilchen hatte es ihnen zuerst gesagt, die Hauskätzchen hatten es wohl gemerkt, die Häuser ihrer Eltern lagen nahe beisammen. Wenn nun Hyazinth die Nacht an seinem Fenster stand und Rosenblüte an ihrem, und die Kätzchen auf den Mäusefang da vorbeiliefen, da sahen sie die beiden stehn und lachten und kicherten oft so laut, dass sie es hörten und böse wurden. Das Veilchen hatte es der Erdbeere im Vertrauen gesagt, die sagte es ihrer Freundin, der Stachelbeere, die liess nun das Sticheln nicht, wenn Hyazinth gegangen kam; so erfuhr’s denn bald der ganze Garten und der Wald, und wenn Hyazinth ausging, so rief’s von allen Seiten: Rosenblütchen ist mein Schätzchen! Nun ärgerte sich Hyazinth und musste doch auch wieder aus Herzensgrunde lachen, wenn das Eidechschen geschlüpft kam, sich auf einen warmen Stein setzte, mit dem Schwänzchen wedelte und sang:
Rosenblütchen, das gute Kind, Ist geworden auf einmal blind, Denkt, die Mutter sei Hyazinth, Fällt ihm um den Hals geschwind; Merkt sie aber das fremde Gesicht, Denkt nur an, da erschrickt sie nicht, Fährt, als merkte sie kein Wort, Immer nur mit Küssen fort.
Ach! wie bald war die Herrlichkeit vorbei. Es kam ein Mann aus fremden Landen gegangen, der war erstaunlich weit gereist, hatte einen langen Bart, tiefe Augen, entsetzliche Augenbrauen, ein wunderliches Kleid mit vielen Falten und seltsamen Figuren hineingewebt. Er setzte sich vor das Haus, das Hyazinths Eltern gehörte. Nun war Hyazinth sehr neugierig und setzte sich zu ihm und holte ihm Brot und Wein. Da tat er seinen weissen Bart voneinander und erzählte bis tief in die Nacht, und Hyazinth wich und wankte nicht und wurde auch nicht müde zuzuhören. So viel man nachher vernahm, so hat er viel von fremden Ländern, unbekannten Gegenden, von erstaunlich wunderbaren Sachen erzählt und ist drei Tage dageblieben und mit Hyazinth in tiefe Schachten hinuntergekrochen. Rosenblütchen hat genug den alten Hexenmeister verwünscht, denn Hyazinth ist ganz versessen auf seine Gespräche gewesen und hat sich um nichts bekümmert; kaum dass er ein wenig Speise zu sich genommen. Endlich hat jener sich fortgemacht, doch dem Hyazinth ein Büchelchen dagelassen, das kein Mensch lesen konnte. Dieser hat ihm noch Früchte, Brot und Wein mitgegeben und ihn weit weg begleitet. Und dann ist er tiefsinnig zurückgekommen und hat einen ganz neuen Lebenswandel begonnen. Rosenblütchen hat recht zum Erbarmen um ihn getan, denn von der Zeit an hat er sich wenig aus ihr gemacht und ist immer für sich geblieben. Nun begab sich’s, dass er einmal nach Hause kam und war wie neu geboren. Er fiel seinen Eltern um den Hals und weinte. ‘Ich muss fort in fremde Lande’, sagte er, ‘die alte wunderliche Frau im Walde hat mir erzählt, wie ich gesund werden müsste, das Buch hat sie ins Feuer geworfen und hat mich getrieben, zu euch zu gehn und euch um euren Segen zu bitten. Vielleicht komme ich bald, vielleicht nie wieder. Grüsst Rosenblütchen. Ich hätte sie gern gesprochen, ich weiss nicht, wie mir ist, es drängt mich fort; wenn ich an die alten Zeiten zurückdenken will, so kommen gleich mächtigere Gedanken dazwischen, die Ruhe ist fort, Herz und Liebe mit, ich muss sie suchen gehn. Ich wollt euch gern sagen, wohin, ich weiss selbst nicht, dahin wo die Mutter der Dinge wohnt, die verschleierte Jungfrau. Nach der ist mein Gemüt entzundet. Lebt wohl.’ Er riss sich los und ging fort. Seine Eltern wehklagten und vergossen Tränen, Rosenblütchen blieb in ihrer Kammer und weinte bitterlich. Hyazinth lief nun, was er konnte, durch Täler und Wildnisse, über Berge und Ströme, dem geheimnisvollen Lande zu. Er fragte überall nach der heiligen Göttin, Menschen und Tiere, Felsen und Bäume. Manche lachten, manche schwiegen, nirgends erhielt er Bescheid. Im Anfange kam er durch rauhes, wildes Land, Nebel und Wolken warfen sich ihm in den Weg, es stürmte immerfort; dann fand er unabsehliche Sandwüsten, glühenden Staub, und wie er wandelte, so veränderte sich auch sein Gemüt, die Zeit wurde ihm lang, und die innre Unruhe legte sich, er wurde sanfter und das gewaltige Treiben in ihm allgemach zu einem leisen, aber starken Zuge, in den sein ganzes Gemüt sich auflöste. Es lag wie viele Jahre hinter ihm. Nun wurde die Gegend auch wieder reicher und mannigfaltiger, die Luft lau und blau, der Weg ebener, grüne Büsche lockten ihn mit anmutigen Schatten, aber er verstand ihre Sprache nicht, sie schienen auch nicht zu sprechen, und doch erfüllten sie auch sein Herz mit grünen Farben und kühlem, stillem Wesen. Immer höher wuchs jene süsse Sehnsucht in ihm, und immer breiter und saftiger wurden die Blätter, immer lauter und lustiger die Vögel und Tiere, balsamischer die Früchte, dunkler der Himmel, wärmer die Luft, und heisser seine Liebe, die Zeit ging immer schneller, als sähe sie sich nahe am Ziele. Eines Tages begegnete er einem kristallnen Quell und einer Menge Blumen, die kamen in ein Tal herunter zwischen schwarzen himmelhohen Säulen. Sie grüssten ihn freundlich mit bekannten Worten. ‘Liebe Landsleute’, sagte er, ‘wo find’ ich wohl den geheiligten Wohnsitz der Isis? Hier herum muss er sein, und ihr seid vielleicht hier bekannter als ich.’ ‘Wir gehn auch nur hier durch’, antworteten die Blumen; ‘eine Geisterfamilie ist auf der Reise, und wir bereiten ihr Weg und Quartier, indes sind wir vor kurzem durch eine Gegend gekommen, da hörten wir ihren Namen nennen. Gehe nur aufwärts, wo wir herkommen, so wirst du schon mehr erfahren.’ Die Blumen und die Quelle lächelten, wie sie das sagten, boten ihm einen frischen Trunk und gingen weiter. Hyazinth folgte ihrem Rat, frug und frug und kam endlich zu jener längst gesuchten Wohnung, die unter Palmen und andern köstlichen Gewächsen versteckt lag. Sein Herz klopfte in unendlicher Sehnsucht, und die süsseste Bangigkeit durchdrang ihn in dieser Behausung der ewigen Jahreszeiten. Unter himmlischen Wohlgedüften entschlummerte er, weil ihn nur der Traum in das Allerheiligste führen durfte. Wunderlich führte ihn der Traum durch unendliche Gemächer voll seltsamer Sachen auf lauter reizenden Klängen und in abwechselnden Akkorden. Es dünkte ihm alles so bekannt und doch in niegesehener Herrlichkeit, da schwand auch der letzte irdische Anflug, wie in Luft verzehrt, und er stand vor der himmlischen Jungfrau. Da hob er den leichten, glänzenden Schleier, und Rosenblütchen sank in seine Arme. Eine ferne Musik umgab die Geheimnisse des liebenden Wiedersehns, die Ergiessungen der Sehnsucht, und schloss alles Fremde von diesem entzückenden Orte aus. Hyazinth lebte nachher noch lange mit Rosenblütchen unter seinen frohen Eltern und Gespielen, und unzählige Enkel dankten der alten wunderlichen Frau für ihren Rat und ihr Feuer; denn damals bekamen die Menschen so viel Kinder, als sie wollten.— Novalis (1772-1801). [The prose-poem is a relatively rare beast in English literature; but one of its descendants is the lyrical novel, as practised by (among others) Joyce. [Note 15] This is one of the formal poetic “epiphanies” from his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 4:
Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life: A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on. He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he walked? What hour was it? There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood. He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies; and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast. He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watcher, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than the other. Evening had fallen when he woke and the sand and arid grasses of his bed glowed no longer. He rose slowly and, recalling the rapture of his sleep, sighed at its joy. He climbed to the crest of the sandhill and gazed about him. Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of skyline, the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand; and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools. James Joyce (1882-1941).] |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VI
07 Jun 1922, Vienna Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| The poet knew that his inner being was seized by an objective spiritual force. That human consciousness has indeed undergone a change in this respect in the course of evolution has, I would say, been documented historically. |
| A time came when he could no longer come to terms with himself without undertaking a journey to Italy, which he did in the ’eighties. What was it that he longed for in his innermost being at that time? |
| Out of this, stemming from his feeling for such art as was still to be seen, came an understanding of Greek art He understood that the Greeks created their art in accordance with the same laws that govern the productions of nature; and of this he believed himself to have uncovered the clue. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VI
07 Jun 1922, Vienna Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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It is through declamation and recitation that the art of poetry is accorded its true value. So I shall allow myself – not, however, out of allegiance to any abstract principle or any wish to claim that a world-view which springs from the needs of our time must cast its reforming light in some way or other over everything – I shall allow myself on quite other grounds to say a little about recitation and declamation from the vantage-point of the life- and world-conception represented at this Congress. We shall only recapture an inner, a genuine soul-understanding of poetry when we are in a position to find our way to the real homeland of poetic art. And this real homeland of poetic art is in fact the spiritual world – though it is not that intellectual, that conceptual or ideational factor in the spiritual world particularly cultivated in our own time. For this more than anything else has a paralysing effect on poetry. We shall see most clearly what is meant by this when we are reminded that one of the most significant products of this art resounds to us out of the revolutions of time along with a particular avowal on the part of its creator, or perhaps creators. The Homeric epics invariably begin with the words “Sing, O Muse...” Nowadays we are only too inclined to treat such a phrase as more or less a cliché. But when it was first coined it was no cliché – it was an inner experience of the soul: whoever it was that conceived the poem out of the spirit, whence this phrase was also drawn, knew how he was immersed through his poetic faculty in a region of human existence and experience different to that in which we stand in immediate When Klopstock, drawing upon the German spiritual life, wished to sing of the great deed of the Messiah, as Homer had sung the past events of Hellas, he did not say “Sing, O Muse...”, but “Sing, immortal soul, of sinful man’s redemption.” Here something of greater intensity is indicated, something connected directly with the human and its self-reliance. Here man has come to himself in his individual personality. Yet we can add: if the mode of consciousness which lives in our modern world of ideas and observations were the sole criterion, we should lose poetry and art altogether. All the same, it is necessary that here, too, what was suitable for mankind at one time should now assume other forms. But these new forms can only arise if the way into the spiritual world is rediscovered; for such a path alone makes it possible for the human “I” to be laid hold of again by the spiritual world – not as in former times, in an unconscious, dreamy fashion, but in accordance with the needs of the present day: in full consciousness. That this need not be bound up with a crippling of imaginative activity – this is not generally recognized today. It will come to be understood, however, as the world and life-conception put forward here gains more and more ground. If we enter into the spiritual world with circumspection – in full consciousness and with a developed feeling of personality – it will exert no crippling effect on our direct perception or on the vital participation in things and beings so necessary to poetry and art in general. If, however, we abstract ourselves from things in ideas, standing aside from them in purely intellectual concepts, our knowledge will yield nothing that can become a direct artistic creation. But if we plunge down into what pervades the world as a vibrant spiritual essence we will find again, along this spiritual path what poetry and art as a whole were fundamentally seeking all along. From such a spiritual approach the poet will have before his soul what recitation and declamation must re-create for his audience. The poet must submerge himself in the element of speech. This experience of submersion was still to be found among the Greeks, and even in earlier forms of Central European spiritual life, such as the Germanic. In primaeval ages of humanity, if one wished to receive the divine-spiritual and bring it to expression as it spoke in the soul, one dived down not only into the element of speech, but also into what flowed within speech, like the waves of the sea – into the breath. And in earlier times, when the ancient spiritual life was still valued above science, art or religion in isolation, in the period when that spiritual life came into being, poetry, too, was not isolated. It grew isolated at the stage when the felt vitality of the breath (as manifestation of the efficacy of man’s innermost will) was taken up into more exalted regions of organic life: into the element of speech. In due course today we have arrived at the element of thought. And from the thought-element we can experience only a sort of “upthrust” of the breath. What held sway in ancient times in Central Europe in the form of an unconscious feeling whenever man felt the poetic urge was the pulsating of the blood. Taking hold with the will, this formed the breathstream from within, into tone; whereas when the man of Greek or Graeco-Roman times waxed poetic he lived more in what flowed from the breathing-rhythm in the way of a picture or conception, and in what musically formed the sound, tone and line through metre, number and syllable. Goethe’s whole being, his essential soul-nature, was born from the spirit of Central Europe. The writings of his youth derived their imaginative, pictorial form from an experience, an instinctive feeling of how human breathing pushes up, through the will-pulsating waves of the blood, into the formation of tone and sound – and so into the expressivity of the human soul. In this way he attained the qualities we admire so much in his youth, even when he appears to be speaking in prose. We have the prose-poems of Goethe’s youth, like the marvellous Hymn to Nature, where the ruling principle is that where we feel the language permeated by a kind of breathing which pulsates on the waves of the blood. It was from some such sense that the young Goethe initially composed his Iphigeneia. In this composition we feel how something from the Nibelungenlied, or the Gudrunlied, still lives and weaves in the prose, welling up and working in its high and low intonations. It calls attention to the upward thrust of the will into what comes to be man’s head-experience. This rhythm, thrown upward into configurations of thought, is what we can admire in the poems of Goethe’s youth, including the first version of his Iphigeneia. But Goethe longed to get away to Italy. A time came when he could no longer come to terms with himself without undertaking a journey to Italy, which he did in the ’eighties. What was it that he longed for in his innermost being at that time? He longed to enter more deeply into human individuality – to enter into the whole human being with what lived in the high and low tones, creating in speech-formation an effect like the forms of a Gothic cathedral. He wanted to blend this with the even-measured flow he was seeking and believed was accessible only in the south, in Italy, in the wake of what had lived in Greek culture. Out of this, stemming from his feeling for such art as was still to be seen, came an understanding of Greek art He understood that the Greeks created their art in accordance with the same laws that govern the productions of nature; and of this he believed himself to have uncovered the clue. He believed, too, that he had traced these laws in speech-formation. He brought speech into a deeper connection with the breath. Then, in Rome, he refashioned his Iphigeneia accordingly. We must distinguish sharply between the northern Iphigeneia as first conceived and what came about when he refashioned it in Rome – even though the difference between the original and the Roman verse-Iphigeneia is really quite slight. It turned it into a poem that no longer lives simply in high and low tones; it became a work where in quite a different way – and not in any trivial sense, but as regards the whole of its speech-formation - the psychical experience of the blood-rhythm, the circulation with its deeper rhythm, plays over into the tranquil metre of the breathing-rhythm and the element of thought. In this way, what represented a declamatory form in the Nordic Iphigeneia is transformed in the Roman version into recitation. By juxtaposing the one Iphigeneia with the other in this way, we can clearly discern the difference between declamation and recitation. Recitation leads us more deeply into human nature, and creates, too, more from its depths, seizing upon the whole blood-circulation as well as the breathing. But because in declamation the will (as it surges in the depths) is caught up into the highest part of man’s spiritual and soul-being, into the breath, it appears to us as the more forceful – living as it does in high and low tones. It does not only engage the flow of rhyme and verse, but evokes something which goes out into the world – perhaps even with a certain belligerence – as alliteration. In this there is a beauty that is peculiar to the north. We do not wish today to give theoretical explanations, but to make known what should be present in an artistic sensibility. We will therefore firstly present the declamatory, in Goethe’s Nordic Iphigeneia; and then contrastingly the recitative, in the Roman composition. [Note 25] [The magnificent language of the Authorized Version puts it on a different level to any other translation in English. There can be no doubt of its own high literary qualities, and it furnishes us with fine examples of poetry for declamation, as in this version of the ninetieth Psalm: Lord, thou hast bene our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountaines were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world: even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction: and sayest, Returne yee children of men.
For a thousand yeeres in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past: and as a watch in the night.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood, they are as a sleepe: in the morning they are like grasse which groweth up.
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up: in the evening it is cut downe, and withereth.
For we are consumed by thine anger: and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee: our secret sinnes in the light of thy countenance.
For all our dayes are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our yeeres as a tale that is told.
and if by reason of strength they be fourescore yeeres, yet is their strength labour and sorrow: for it is soone cut off, and we flie away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy feare, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our daies: that wee may apply our hearts unto wisedome.
Returne (O LORD) how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
O satisfie us early with thy mercie: that we may rejoyce, and be glad all our dayes.
Make us glad according to the dayes wherein thou hast afflicted us: and the yeeres wherein we have seene evil.
Let thy worke appeare unto thy servants: and thy glory unto their children.
And let the beautie of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish thou the worke of our hands upon us: yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. Metrical translations of the Psalms are numerous; but many of them have no aims beyond fitting the verses to a tune. The version begun by Sir Philip Sidney and completed by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, however, brought all the literary resources of the classical tradition in Renaissance poetry to bear on the problem of making an authentically poetic translation. The result is that the ninetieth Psalm is here drastically transformed into a recitative vein: DOMINE REFUGIUM
Thou’our refuge, thou our dwelling, O Lord, hast byn from time to time: Long er Mountaines, proudly swelling, Above the lowly dales did clime: Long er the Earth, embowl’d by thee, Bare the forme it now doth beare: Yea, thou art God for ever, free From all touch of age and yeare.
O, but man by thee created, As he at first of earth arose, When thy word his end hath dated, In equall state to earth he goes. Thou saist, and saying makst it soe: Be noe more, O Adams heyre; From whence ye came, dispatch to goe, Dust againe, as dust you were.
To mortall men of life and light: What is that to thee compared? One day, one quarter of a night. When death upon them storm-like falls, Like unto a dreame they grow: Which goes and comes as fancy calls, Nought in substance all in show.
As the hearb that early groweth, Which leaved greene and flowred faire Ev’ning change with ruine moweth, And laies to roast in withering aire: Soe in thy wrath we fade away, With thy fury overthrowne When thou in sight our faultes dost lay, Looking on our synns unknown.
Therefore in thy angry fuming, Our life of daies his measure spends: All our yeares in death consuming, Right like a sound that, sounded, ends. Our daies of life make seaventy yeares, Eighty, if one stronger be: Whose cropp is laboures, dollors, feares, Then away in poast we flee.
Yet who notes thy angry power As he should feare, soe fearing thee? Make us count each vitall hower Make thou us wise, we wise shall be. Turne Lord: shall these things thus goe still? Lett thy servantes peace obtaine: Us with thy joyfull bounty fill, Endlesse joyes in us shall raigne.
Glad us now, as erst we greeved: Send yeares of good for yeares of ill: When thy hand hath us releeved, Show us and ours thy glory still. Both them and us, not one exempt, With thy beauty beautify: Supply with aid what we attempt, Our attempts with aid supply. Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621).]
Goethe followed up his incursion into the new poetic sphere of his remodelled Iphigeneia with works like his “Achilleis”, from which a passage will now be recited. Here in Goethe we find something that shows us how poetry springs from the whole man, how it should emerge from the whole man and take shape as recitation and declamation. I might seem, at first glance, to be propounding a mechanical interpretation of reciting and declaiming, if I were to point to something in the nature of man as the origin of recitation and declamation: this something is to be found, however, precisely along the spiritual path. As an art, poetry has the task of enlarging again what prose has atomized and contracted into the single word. The harmony of sounds, the melodious flow of sound in the picture-formation of speech, of mundane speech, is in this way “canopied over,” as we might say, by a second, spiritual speech. The prose-speaker clothes in words those thoughts he wants to convey, along with whatever of individual experience he can. The poet draws back from such rhetoric, to a much more profoundly inward human experience. [Note 26] He reverts to a level at which (as I have already indicated) the rhythms of breathing and the circulatory system become perceptible, as they vibrate through the language of poetry. We shall only get to the bottom of rhyme, metre, the pictorial and the melodic in speech, by comprehending human nature spiritually, even down to the physical. We have, then, as one pole of the rhythmical in man, the breathing; and as the other pole, circulation. In the interaction of breathing and circulation is expressed something which is first given, in its simplest ratio, when we attend to the resonance of breathing and circulation in the flow of human speech. In breathing, we draw a particular number of breaths every minute – between sixteen and eighteen. And over the same period we have, an average, about four times as many pulse‑beats. Circulation and breathing interact, so that the circulation plays into the breath, and the breath in turn weaves into the circulation its slower rhythm. It is an apprehension of such an harmonious interchange between pulse-beat and breathing that echoes on in speech. Formed and transformed in various ways, it produces the after-effect of a pictorial or a musical speech-formation, which is then brought to expression by the poet. I said – and the point has actually been raised – that the fundamental law of poetry, the interaction of breathing and circulation that I have elicited from human morphology might be considered mechanical and materialistic. But the spiritual life that holds sway and works in the world can only be grasped if we trace that life right into its material formations; only if the life of man’s spirit and soul is pursued to those depths where it lives out its expression in corporeal functions. These bodily workings will then act as a firm wall to hurl back, like an echo, what derives from the laws of a profounder spirituality – a spirituality of direct experience pouring itself out into speech. Goethe sensed how in earlier stages of human culture man stood in a deeper relation, as it were, to his own nature. He too sought to enter into an earlier epoch’s feeling for poetic forms and revivify them. It is actually of deep significance that at the highest point in the development of German poetry, Goethe pointed away from the crude, prosaic stress popularly taken for recitation and declamation, to a special kind of what can be called – and deservingly – a real speech-formation. To rehearse the iambics of his Iphigeneia, Goethe stood in front of the actors with his baton. He knew that what had to be revealed was, above all, the imagery he wanted to incorporate, while the prose-content was there merely as a ladder by which to scale the heights of the full, spiritual sense – the sound and the picture-quality of speech that must evolve from it. We must pierce through the given prose-content of a poem into the truly poetic. Schiller’s experience in his best creations, of an initially indefinable melody, a musicality onto which he then threaded the prose-content, was not a personal peculiarity. As regards the words, some of Schiller’s poems could even have had a different content to the one they currently possess. In a true poet there is everywhere, in the background of the rhetorical speech, a quality that must simply be felt. And only when it does justice to the musical in speech-formation will true poetry stand revealed. If we turn to what is often taught today as recitation and declamation, it is with a keen sense of something having, in these uncultured times, gone amiss. The voice itself is strengthened, and great value is attached to technical adjustment of the organism: this is because no-one is any longer able to live in a direct relationship with recitation and declamation (not to mention singing), and we transfer to material tampering with the body what should be experienced on a quite different plane. The important thing in teaching recitation and declamation is that the pupil should on no account be made to do anything but live with speech-formation as such and the soul-resonance of living with speech-formation, in such a way as to bring him to listen properly. For anyone who is capable of listening correctly to what may come over in poetry, the appropriate breathing, proper disposition of the body, etc., will come about of their own accord – as a response to proper listening. It is important to let the pupil live in the actual element of declamation and recitation, and leave all the rest to him. He must become absorbed in the objective realities of tone, in “musical pictoriality” and in authentically poetic formations. In this way alone, paradoxical as it may sound, can we get the pupil to develop an ear for what he hears declaimed to him and thereby sensitivity to what moves spiritually over the waves of sound he hears. Only when he experiences something in his surroundings, we might say, and not in himself – and even though to begin with this experience is illusory, it must be cultivated – only then will he be able to refer back to himself what he feels vibrant in the world around him. It is only through the recital of certain aesthetically fashioned word-sequences, which have a special relation to human morphology, that we ought to learn breath-control or anything else connected with the adjusting of the voice. In this way we shall best meet the requirements of Goethe’s artistic perception and the sensitivity we value so greatly. By way of illustration – not of any theory, but of the foregoing remarks there will now be recited a passage from Goethe’s “Achilleis”. [Note 27] [Since the hexameter in its true, classical form can only occasionally be reproduced successfully in English, C. Day Lewis performed the service of devising a metre which sounds convincingly like it. He used it to evoke the heroic and epic associations of classical poetry in relating, for example, an episode from the Spanish Civil War in “The Nabara”. This extract is from “Phase One”:
Freedom is more than a word, more than the base coinage Of statesmen, the tyrant’s dishonoured cheque, or the dreamer’s mad Inflated currency. She is mortal, we know, and made In the image of simple men who have no taste for carnage But sooner kill and are killed than see that image betrayed. Mortal she is, yet rising always refreshed from her ashes: She is bound to earth, yet she flies as high as a passage bird To home wherever man’s heart with seasonal warmth is stirred: Innocent is her touch as the dawn’s, but still it unleashes The ravisher shades of envy. Freedom is more than a word.
I see man’s heart two-edged, keen both for death and creation. As a sculptor rejoices, stabbing and mutilating the stone Into a shapelier life, and the two joys make one – So man is wrought in his hour of agony and elation To efface the flesh to reveal the crying need of his bone. Burning the issue was beyond their mild forecasting For those I tell of – men used to the tolerable joy and hurt Of simple lives: they coveted never an epic part; But history’s hand was upon them and hewed an everlasting Image of freedom out of their rude and stubborn heart. C. Day Lewis (1904-1972) An earlier solution to the problem was a rather more radical departure from the hexameter for a five-foot line, and the blank-verse pentameter remains the natural epic metre in English. Milton employed it in recreating many of the features of classical epic in Paradise Lost, as may be illustrated from the following passage (Book VI, 189-214):
So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high, Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell On the proud Crest of Satan, that no sight, Nor motion of swift thought, less could his Shield Such ruin intercept: ten paces huge He back recoild; the tenth on bended knee His massie Spear upstayd; as if on Earth Winds under ground or waters forcing way Sidelong, had push’t a Mountain from his seat Half sunk with all his Pines. Amazement seiz’d The Rebel Thrones, but greater rage to see Thus foil’d their mightiest, ours joy find, and shout, Presage of Victorie and fierce desire Of Battel: whereat Michaël bid sound Th’ Arch-angel trumpet; through the vast of Heav’n It sounded, and the faithful Armies rung Hosanna to the Highest: nor stood at gaze The adverse Legions, nor less hideous join’d The horrid shock: now storming furie rose, And clamor such as heard in Heav’n till now Was never, Arms on Armour clashing bray’d Horrible discord, and the madding Wheeles Of brazen Chariots rag’d; dire was the noise Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss Of fiery Darts in flaming vollies flew, And flying vaulted either Host with fire. John Milton.] And now, to illustrate declamation, Goethe’s “Hymnus an die Natur” (abridged, as occasion demanded, for a Eurythmy performance).
Natur! Wir sind von ihr umgeben und umschlungen – unvermögend aus ihr herauszutreten, und unvermögend, tiefer in sie hinein zu kommen. Ungebeten und ungewarnt nimmt sie uns in den Kreislauf ihres Tanzes auf und treibt sich mit uns fort, bis wir ermüdet sind und ihrem Arm entfallen.
Sie schafft ewig neue Gestalten; alles ist neu, und doch immer das Alte. Sie baut immer und zerstört immer. Sie lebt in lauter Kindern; und die Mutter, wo ist sie? – Sie ist die einzige Künstlerin; sie spielt ein Schauspiel; es ist ein ewiges Leben, Werden und Bewegen in ihr. Sie verwandelt sich ewig, und ist kein Moment Stillestehen in ihr.
Ihr Tritt ist gemessen, ihre Ausnahmen selten, ihre Gesetze unwandelbar. Gedacht hat sie und sinnt beständig.
Die Menschen sind alle in ihr, und sie in allen. Auch das Unnatürlichste ist Natur, auch die plumpste Philisterei hat etwas von ihrem Genie.
Sie liebt sich selber; sie freut sich an der Illusion. Ihre Kinder sind ohne Zahl.
Sie spritzt ihre Geschöpfe aus dem Nichts hervor. Leben ist ihre schönste Erfindung, und der Tod – ihr Kunstgriff, viel Leben zu haben.
Sie hüllt den Menschen in Dumpfheit ein und spornt ihn ewig zum Lichte. Man gehorcht ihren Gesetzen, auch wenn man ihnen widerstrebt; man wirkt mit ihr, auch wenn man gegen sie wirken will. Sie macht alles, was sie gibt, zur Wohltat.
Sie hat keine Sprache noch Rede, aber sie schafft Zungen und Herzen, durch die sie fühlt und spricht. Ihre Krone ist die Liebe.
Sie macht Klüfte zwischen allen Wesen, und alles will sie verschlingen. Sie hat alles isoliert, um alles zusammenzuziehen.
Sie ist alles. Sie belohnt sich selbst und bestraft sich selbst, erfreut und quält sich selbst. Vergangenheit und Zukunft kennt sie nicht. Gegenwart ist ihr Ewigkeit. Sie ist gütig, sie ist weise und still. Sie ist ganz, und doch immer unvollendet.
Jedem erscheint sie in einer eignen Gestalt. Sie verbirgt sich in tausend Namen und ist immer dieselbe.
Sie hat mich hereingestellt, sie wird mich auch herausführen. Ich vertraue mich ihr. Alles hat sie gesprochen. Alles ist ihre Schuld, alles ist ihr Verdienst! [Perhaps the nearest parallel in English is the unrestricted and freely expansive rhythm of Blake. He celebrates not Nature, but the spirits (the Sons of Los) in Nature in these extracts from his Milton pl. 27,66 – 28,12; pl. 31, 4 – 22:
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night: They rise in order and continue their immortal courses Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song, With flute & clarion, with cups & measures fill’d with foaming wine.
Glitt’ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude, And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves: These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage. Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave: Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance, To touch each other & recede, to cross & change & return: These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains, The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro’ the darksom sky, Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons Of men: These are the Sons of Los: These are the Visions of Eternity, But we see only as it were the hem of their garments When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.
The Sky is an immortal Tent built by the Sons of Los: And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe: To meet the flat Earth &the Sea in such an order’d Space: The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold; And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move Where’er he goes, & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss. Such are the Spaces called Earth & such its dimension. As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner As of a Globe rolling thro’ Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro. The Microscope knows not of this nor the Telescope: they alter The ratio of the Spectator’s Organs, but leave Objects untouch’d. For every Space larger than a red Globule of Man’s blood Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los: And every Space smaller than a Globule of Man’s blood opens Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow. William Blake.]
And now we will adduce some examples of the lyric – to be precise, from two poets, both Austrian: Robert Hamerling and Anastasius Grün. The lyric diverges from epic and dramatic poetry in that, as far as speech-formation is concerned, its aesthetic quality must be experienced directly. In a way, all lyric strives to obliterate the immediate content of consciousness – at any rate to some degree. It would restore to man’s being a sense of universal participation. One might say that in lyric there is always a damping down of conscious experience. With a poet like Hamerling, a once widely influential poet who compared with then is now largely forgotten, we can indeed observe how personal experience passes over into a lyrical experience. Here we have a personality whose soul wants to share inwardly with every fibre of its being in the entire life of the world. He wants to share in the life of colour that meets him from the world. And thus the unconscious elements of human life come to play a part in him. We can still see the after-effects of this colourful experience in him when he tries to give it shape by casting it in antique forms. Particularly in Hamerling’s lyric poetry we can feel the true Austro-German lyricism. He is in a sense perhaps the most representative of Austro-German poets. The German spoken in Austria, deriving as it does from several dialects to become the common parlance and also the so-called “literary language” of Austrian poetry – this language has something which marks it off from the other forms of German language, fine discriminations which are of special interest to poetry and speech-formation. Compared with other varieties of German we might say that Austrian German has a subdued quality: yet in this quality there lingers a delicate sense of humour; this language became that of Austrian poetry. This soft humorous sound and intimate soul-quality that comes across in Austrian speech is not readily found in other forms of German – except possibly dialects. And here we have something which brings us, so to speak, close to antiquity. It is at any rate remarkable that so outstanding a poet as Joseph Misson should have resorted to Austrian dialect for his “Da Naz, a niederösterreichischer Bauerbui geht in d’Fremd”, and that he arrived at a type of hexameter in which he felt artistically at home. We might add that the idealism of thought natural to someone who lives with Austrian German imparts an idealistic tinge to all the German inner feeling in this little piece of Central Europe. We encounter this even in the formation of speech in Hamerling’s lyrics, which convey the feeling as if on the wings of a bird, while continually catching the bird again in powerfully moulded forms. This is really possible only with the soft humour of Austrian German. If we recapture this in declamation by taking what lives in Hamerling’s lyrical poetry and allow it to be heard elsewhere, it strikes a German from a different region as being cornpletely German and yet he feels what is German in the language to have been idealized. This is what gives Hamerling’s lyricism its nobility and what makes his verve and colour genuinely artistic as well as spontaneous. How differently this appears in our other poet, Anastasius Grün! In accordance with the unique character of the Austrian disposition, he had a real feeling for what ought to mediate between East and West – for the mutual understanding of people all over the earth. The mood of 1848 finds expression most nobly and beautifully in Anastasius Grün’s poem Schutt – and in other of his poems too. It is this prologue to Schutt that will be recited. So, on the one hand we have, in Hamerling, a poet who really created more for declamation, yet found for it a metrical form and in Anastasius Grün a poet who takes over a recitative principle straight from the language. We would now like to demonstrate this in a poem by Anastasius Grün which, from its contents, might be entitled “West und Ost”; and in two poems by Robert Hamerling: “Nächtliche Regung” and “Vor einer Genziane”. WEST UND OST
Aug’ in Auge lächelnd schlangen Arm in Arm einst West und Ost; Zwillingspaar, das liebumfangen Noch in einer Wiege kost’!
Ahriman ersah’s, der Schlimme, Ihn erbaut der Anblick nicht, Schwingt den Zauberstab im Grimme, Draus manch roter Blitzstrahl bricht.
Wirft als Riesenschlang’ ins Bette, Ringelnd, bäumend, zwischen sie Jener Berg’ urew’ge Kette, Die nie bricht und endet nie.
Lässt der Lüfte Vorhang rollend Undurchdringlich niederziehn, Spannt des Meers Sahara grollend Endlos zwischen beiden hin.
Lächlend ob dem schlechten Schwank, Winkt mit seiner Zauberrute, Sternefunkelnd, goldesblank.
Sieh, auf Taubenfitt’chen, fächelnd, Von der fernsten Luft geküsst, Schifft die Liebe, kundig lächelnd; Wie sich Ost and Westen grüsst!
Blütenduft und Tau und Segen Saugt im Osten Menschengeist, Steigt als Wolke, die als Regen Mild auf Westens Flur dann fleusst!
Und die Brücke hat gezogen, Die vom Ost zum West sich schwingt, Phantasie als Regenbogen, Der die Berge überspringt.
Durch die weiten Meereswüsten, Steuernd, wie ein Silberschwan, Zwischen Osts und Westens Küsten Wogt des Lieds melod’scher Kahn.
Anastasius Grün (1806-1876). [The poem that follows demonstrates the English sense of delicacy and restraint, and the subtle humour to which the language was in its own way particularly suited – perhaps especially around Marvell’s time: ON A DROP OF DEW
See how the Orient Dew, Shed from the Bosom of the Morn Into the blowing Roses, Yet careless of its Mansion new; For the clear Region where ’twas born Round in its self incloses: And in its little Globes Extent, Frames as it can its native Element. How it the purple flow’r does slight, Scarce touching where it lyes, But gazing back upon the Skies, Shines with a mournful Light; Like its own Tear, Because so long divided from the Sphear. Restless it roules and unsecure, Trembling lest it grow impure; Till the warm Sun pitty it’s Pain, And to the Skies exhales it back again. So the Soul, that Drop, that Ray Of the clear Fountain of Eternal Day, Could it within the humane flow’r be seen, Remembring still its former height, Shuns the sweat leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own Light,
The greater Heaven in an Heaven less. In how coy a Figure wound, Every way it turns away; So the World excluding round, Yet receiving in the Day. Dark beneath, but bright above: Here disdaining, there in Love. How loose and easie hence to go: How girt and ready to ascend. Moving but on a point below, It all about does upwards bend. Such did the Manna’s sacred Dew destil; White, and intire, though congeal’d and chill. Congeal’d on Earth: but does, dissolving, run Into the Glories of th’ Almighty Sun.
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678).] NÄCHTLICHE REGUNG
Horch, der Tanne Wipfel Schlummertrunken bebt, Wie von Geisterschwingen Rauschend überschwebt. Göttliches Orakel In der Krone saust, Doch die Tanne selber Weiss nicht, was sie braust.
Mir auch durch die Seele Leise Melodien, Unbegriffne Schauer, Allgewaltig ziehn: Ist es Freudemahnung Oder Schmerzgebot? Sich allein verständlich Spricht in uns der Gott.
VOR EINER GENZIANE Einsam erblüht tief unten in kühler Waldschlucht. O wie sie durchs Föhrengestrüpp Heraufschimmerte mit den blauen, prächtigen Glocken: Gewohnten Waldespfad Komm’ ich nun Tag um Tag Gewandelt und steige hinab in die Schlucht Und blicke der schönen Blume tief ins Aug’...
Schöne Blume, was schwankst du doch Vor mir in unbewegten Lüften so scheu, So ängstlich? Ist denn ein Menschenaue nicht wert Zu blicken in ein Blumenantlitz? Trübt Menschenmundes Hauch Den heiligen Gottesfrieden dir, In dem du atmest?
Ach, immer wohl drückt Schuld, Drückt nagende Selbstanklage Die sterbliche Brust und du, Blume, du wiegst In himmlischer Lebensunschuld Die wunderbaren Kronen: Doch blicke nicht allzu vorwurfsvoll mich an! Sieh, hab’ ich doch Eines voraus vor dir: Ich habe gelebt: Ich habe gestrebt, ich habe gerungen, Ich habe geweint, Ich habe geliebt, ich habe gehasst, Ich habe gehofft, ich habe geschaudert; Der Stachel der Qual, des Entzückens hat In meinem Fleische gewühlt; Alle Schauer des Lebens und des Todes sind Durch meine Sinne geflutet, Ich habe mit Engelchören gespielt, ich habe Gerungen mit Dämonen.
Du ruhst, ein träumendes Kind, Am Mantelsaum des Höchsten, ich aber; Ich habe mich emporgekämpft Zu seinem Herzen, Ich habe gezernt an seinen Schleiern, Ich habe ihn beim Namen gerufen, Emporgeklettert Bin ich auf einer Leiter von Seufzern, Und hab’ ihm ins Ohr gerufen: ‘Erbarmung!’ O Blume, heilig bist du, Selig und rein; Doch heiligt, was er berührt, nicht auch Der zündende Schicksalsblitz? O, blicke nicht allzu vorwurfsvoll mich an, Du stille Träumerin; Ich habe gelebt, ich habe gelitten!
Robert Hamerling (1830-1889).
[Something of the same fusion of lyric flight and precision of form can be felt in the following poem: THE MORNING-WATCH
O Joyes! Infinite sweetnes! with what flowres, And shoots of glory, my soul breakes, and buds! All the long houres Of night, and Rest Through the still shrouds Of Sleep, and Clouds, This Dew fell on my Breast; O how it Blouds, And Spirits all my Earth! heark! In what Rings, And Hymning Circulations the quick world Awakes, and sings; The rising winds, ‘And falling springs, Birds, beasts, all things Adore him in their kinds. Thus all is hurl’d In sacred Hymnes, and Order, The great Chime And Symphony of nature. Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit-voyce, And vocall joyes Whose Eccho is heav’ns blisse. O let me climbe When I lye down! The Pious soul by night Is like a clouded starre, whose beames though said To shed their light Under some Cloud Yet are above, And shine, and move Beyond that mistie shrowd So in my Bed That Curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide My lamp, and life, both shall in thee abide.
Henry Vaughan (1621-1695).] And to close, we shall introduce part of the Seventh Scene from my Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation. One is in a unique position when trying to give poetic form to the life of the super-sensible. For, to begin with, one seems to be withdrawing far from the solid ground of external reality. One is thus exposed to the additional danger, that anyone not readily familiar and quick with spiritual matters takes our intention to be allegorical or symbolic. Neither symbol nor allegory has any place in the aesthetic viewpoint arising from the sort of perception we advocate here. It is assuredly no more the abstractions of symbolism than it is a straw-stuffed allegory that we attempt, but a living portrayal of perceptions actually more distinct than our ordinary sense-perceptions, because apprehended by the soul directly, unmediated by bodily organs. Only for someone unable to rouse these perceptions to life in himself do they seem abstract or hollow. I hope to limit my remarks on this subject to a few words, for it does not do to dwell over much on one’s own accomplishments. These Mystery Plays concern the spiritual and soul development of Johannes Thomasius, who is to be brought little by little to a direct super-sensible experience of the spiritual world. This has to a certain extent been achieved when once he has succeeded in overcoming a range of inner obstacles, and made various advances. There then comes a moment at which he finds, in what has hitherto been known to him as the external world of the senses and the intellect (which infiltrates the senses only as the thinnest and most abstract spirituality), he comes upon a pervading activity of concrete spiritual beings and concrete spiritual events. The occurrences in a human soul who reaches this stage of initiation are complex. Everything so far experienced in light or sound, or in the other elements of the external world, figures for the higher mode of experience in a different guise. It is actually like a transformation in which the world is experienced as a drawing together and struggling up of the soul-forces of thinking, feeling and willing to another form of existence. As to how these soul-forces share in such a transformation of man, and how this participation stands in intimate relation to the entire cosmos – that is what is presented in the scene from the Mystery Drama. One of the characters – Maria – who has raised her life up into the spiritual, describes first how those forces come together which are to inspire the soul’s individual forces. Philia, Astrid and Luna are seen as the powers of the soul which hold sway in real, living people, and play a part in inspiring the man Johannes Thomasius. What the human soul may come to be, out of the whole world, out of the totality of the world what it can become in the moment that true understanding of spiritual life arises there: that is the subject of this representation. While one apparently withdraws in such a representation more than ever from the ground of reality, yet (as who should know better than their creator?) the characters formed in this way actually stand before the soul no less concretely than any external thing. Many people, of course, will not be drawn into such matters: they call everything allegorical that leads beyond sense-perception. In defence, Hamerling asked in his Ahasver: Can anyone help me out of this predicament – that Nero stands here and symbolizes cruelty? We introduce symbolism only to the extent that reality itself is a kind of symbol. It is exactly when we come to shape spiritual forms that we feel how every detail, down to the minuter shades, has been directly experienced. And we perceive a spiritual entity of this kind not in concepts, but in words, in nuances of sound. No-one, I believe, could create out of the energies of the spirit and attain to that degree of life who cannot himself enter vitally into language. He may then employ the spirit of language, with its wonderful inner wisdom, its wonderful formation of feeling and its impulses of will, to that end – so as to grasp things in their particularity. If he cannot put to use those unconscious spiritual pulsations which proceed from everyday life, he will not be able to avail himself of the language to present the spiritual world. We need not grow less poetic because our presentations take us into the spiritual world. For there we enter the native country of poetry and art. All poetry has originated from the soul and spirit. Since, therefore, man finds himself confronted by the spiritual essences of things, the lyric flight, the epic power and the dramatic form that live in him can never be lost. These cannot be destroyed if the art of poetry returns, as to its own proper home, to the realm of the spirit. From The Soul’s Probation, Scene 2: [Note 28] MARIA: Ihr, meine Schwestern, die ich In Wesenstiefen finde, Wenn meine Seele sich erweitet, Und in die Weltenfernen Sich selbst geleitet, Entbindet mir die Seherkräfte Aus Aetherhöhen, Und führet sie auf Erdenpfade; Dass ich im Zeitensein Mich selbst ergründe, Und die Richtung mir geben kann Aus alten Lebensweisen Zu neuen Willenskreisen.
PHILIA: Ich will erfüllen mich Mit strebendem Seelenlicht Aus Herzenstiefen; Ich will eratmen mir Belebende Willensmacht Aus Geistestrieben; Dass du, geliebte Schwester, In alten Lebenskreisen Das Licht erfühlen kannst.
ASTRID: Ich will verweben Sich fühlende Eigenheit Mit ergebenem Liebewillen; Ich will entbinden Die keimenden Willensmächte Aus Wunschesfesseln Und dir das lähmende Sehnen Verwandeln in findendes Geistesfühlen; Dass du, geliebte Schwester, In fernen Erdenpfaden Dich selbst ergriinden kannst.
LUNA: Ich will berufen entsagende Herzensmächte, Und will erfestigen tragende Seelenruhe; Sie sollen sich vermählen Und kraftendes Geistesleuchten Aus Seelengründen heben; Sie sollen sich durchdringen, Und lauschendem Geistgehör Die Erdenfernen zwingen; Dass du, geliebte Schwester, In weitem Zeitensein Die Lebensspuren finden kannst.
MARIA (after a pause): Wenn ich mich entreissen kann Verwirrendem Selbstgefühl, Und mich euch geben darf: Dass ihr mein Seelensein Mir spiegelt aus Weltenfernen: Vermag ich zu lösen mich Aus diesem Lebenskreise Und kann ergründen mich In andrer Daseinsweise.
(a longer pause and then the following)
In euch, ihr Schwestern, schau’ ich Geisteswesen, Die Seelen aus dem Weltenall beleben. Ihr könnt die Kräfte, die in Ewigkeiten keimen Im Menschen selbst zur Reife bringen. Durch meiner Seele Tore dürft’ ich oft Den Weg in eure Reiche finden, Und Erdendaseins Urgestalten Mit Seelenaugen schauen. Bedürftig bin ich eurer Hilfe jetzt, Da mir obliegt, den Weg zu finden Von meiner gegenwärtigen Erdenfahrt In langvergangne Menschheitstage. Entbindet mir das Seelensein vom Selbstgefühl In seinem Zeitenleben. Erschliesset mir den Pflichtenkreis Aus meiner Vorzeit Lebensbahnen.
From The Soul’s Probation, Scene 2: MARIA: You, my sisters, I find when in the depths of being my soul, expanding, guides itself into the reaches of the universe. Release for me the powers of seeing out of etheric heights and lead them down to earthly paths so that I may explore and find myself in course of time and give direction to myself to change old ways of life into new spheres of will.
PHILIA: I will imbue myself with striving light of soul out of the heart’s own depths; I will breathe in enlivening power of will out of the spirit’s urging; that you, beloved sister, within old spheres of life may feel and sense the light.
ASTRID: I will weave into one a selfhood’s feeling of itself with love’s forebearing will; I will release the burgeoning powers of will from fetters of desire, transform your languid yearning to certainty of spirit sensing; that you, beloved sister, on paths of earth far distant explore and find your Self.
LUNA: I will call forth renouncing strength of heart and will confirm enduring soul-repose. These shall unite and raise empowering spirit light out of the depths of soul; they shall pervade each other and shall subdue far distances of earth to the listening spirit ear; that you, beloved sister, in time’s wide ranges may find the traces of your life.
MARIA (after a pause): When I can tear myself away from the bewildering sense of Self and give myself to you so that you reflect to me my soul from world-wide distances: then I can free myself out of this sphere of life and can explore and find myself in other states of being.
(a long pause, then the following)
In you, my sisters, I see spirit beings that quicken souls out of the cosmos’ life. You bring to full maturity in man himself Through portals of my soul I often could find my way into your realm and could behold with inner eyes the archetypes of earth existence. I now must ask your help: it has become my duty to find the way that leads from present life on earth to long past ages of mankind. Release my soul-life from its sense of self in time-enclosed existence. Open for me the sphere of duty, brought from my life journey in ancient days.
Trans. R. and H. Pusch. |
the forces germinating in eternities.| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VII
29 Mar 1923, Stuttgart Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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| And in our day an attempt is quite justifiably made to make art the bearer of our ideal of knowledge, so that some possibility may once more be found of our rising upward with our understanding from the realm of substance, of matter, into the spiritual. I have tried to show how art is the way to gain a true knowledge of man, in that artistic creativity and sensitivity are the organs for a genuine knowledge of man. |
| Thereby religion is grasped in its widest sense, in which it does not only embrace what we today rightly regard as explicitly religious – the quality of reverence in man – but also includes humour, as understood in the highest sense. [Note 29] A sort of religious feeling must always prepare the mood for art. |
| The moment we arrive by means of logic at a prose sentence we must feel the solid earth under our feet. For the spiritual does not speak in human words. The spiritual world goes only as far as the syllable, not as far as the word. |
| 281. Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VII
29 Mar 1923, Stuttgart Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
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I hope you will permit me to insert into today’s proceedings at this Pedagogical and Artistic Congress an example taken from the art of recitation and declamation, and to make some observations of an interpolated nature. Art is always a particularly difficult theme on which to speak, in that art is conveyed through immediate sensation – through immediate perception. It must be received as a direct impression. We are thus in a quite special position in speaking about art at a Congress where our aim is a clarification that is reached both through knowledge and through a whole style of education and teaching-practice. Certainly all the lectures that have been held here have stressed the necessity, in the case of Waldorf education, of introducing an artistic quality into the art of education and teaching in general. But when confronting art itself, one would prefer, as I hinted in a former lecture, to preserve a chaste silence. Now every argument, every show of feeling, every human volition ultimately passes over to form the ongoing stream of human civilisation. They are contained in the three greatest impulses behind all human evolution and all historical events: the ideals of religion, art and knowledge. And in our day an attempt is quite justifiably made to make art the bearer of our ideal of knowledge, so that some possibility may once more be found of our rising upward with our understanding from the realm of substance, of matter, into the spiritual. I have tried to show how art is the way to gain a true knowledge of man, in that artistic creativity and sensitivity are the organs for a genuine knowledge of man. Nature herself becomes a true artist the moment she ascends from the multiplicity of facts and beings of the universe to bring about man. This is not said merely as a metaphor, but as a deeper knowledge of the universe and of man. And again, confronted with art, it may be said that it is an intrusion when we want to speak artistically about art. To speak about art is to lead what is spoken back to a sort of religious perception. Thereby religion is grasped in its widest sense, in which it does not only embrace what we today rightly regard as explicitly religious – the quality of reverence in man – but also includes humour, as understood in the highest sense. [Note 29] A sort of religious feeling must always prepare the mood for art. For when we speak about art we must speak out of the spirit. How can we find words for works of art of the sublimest kind, such as Dante's Commedia, if our language does not embody moments of religious insight? This was indeed felt, and rightly felt, when art came into being. Art originated at a time when science still formed a unity, a common whole along with religion and art. At the beginning of certain great works of art we hear words which, I would say, seem like a confirmation of these comments from world-history. It is truly out of a cosmic awareness that Homer begins his poem with the words:
Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles.
Homer himself does not sing: Homer is conscious that he must raise his soul to the superhuman, the super-sensible; that he must place his words as a sacrificial gift before the higher powers he serves, if he is to become a truly artistic poet. (Of course, the question of Homer’s identity has nothing to do with this.) And if we survey a longer period, and come to one of the modern poets, we hear how Klopstock begins his Messiah with words that are indeed different, but formally sound quite similar:
Sing, immortal soul, of sinful man’s redemption, Which the Messiah on earth in human form accomplished.
When we begin from the one poem and progress to the other, we pass through the period in which man traversed the great, immeasurable distance from complete surrender to the divine spiritual powers, whose earthly sheath he felt himself to be, to the point where man in his freedom started to feel himself a sheath only of his own soul. But there too, at the beginning of the great epoch of German poetry, Klopstock appealed to the invisible – as Goethe constantly did, even if he did not overtly say so. Thus among poets themselves we can observe the consciousness of a sort of translation into the super-sensible. The super-sensible, however, does not speak in words. Words are in every instance prose. Words are in every instance components of a discourse, components of a psychic act which submits to the conditions of logic. Logic exists in order that we may become aware of external beings and occurrences in their external sense-reality; logic must not, therefore, intrude upon spiritual reality. The moment we arrive by means of logic at a prose sentence we must feel the solid earth under our feet. For the spiritual does not speak in human words. The spiritual world goes only as far as the syllable, not as far as the word. Thus we can say that the poet is in a curious position. The poet has to make use of words, since these are after all the instruments of human speech: but in making use of words he necessarily deserts his proper artistic domain. He can only achieve his aim if he leads the word back to syllable-formation. In the quantities, metres and weight of syllable-formation – this is the region where the word has not yet become word, but still submits to the musical, imaginative and plastic, to a speech-transcendent spirituality – there the poet holds sway. And when the poet has to make use of words, he feels inwardly how he has to lead word-formations back to the region that he left under the necessity of passing from syllable to word. He feels that through rhyme, through the entire configuration of the verse, he must again make good what is lost when the word abandons the concrete quantities and weight that belong to the syllable, and round it out artistically, imparting form and harmony. Here we are vouchsafed a glimpse into the intimacies of the poet’s soul. This disposition is truly felt by a real poet. Platen is not alone in having left us some remarkable comments on what I have just attempted to describe:
Only to rambling dilettantes Are formal strictures ‘senseless’. Necessity: That is thy sacrificial gift, O Genius.
Platen invokes Genius, observing that it is inherent in Genius to fashion the syllables in accordance with quantity, metre and weight. Rambling off into prose is merely the foolishness of the half-talented. (Although, as I have mentioned, these make up ninety-nine per cent of our versifiers.) And not only Platen, but Schiller, too, puts it rather beautifully when he says:
It is the peculiar property of an untainted and purely quantitative verse that it serves as the sensible presentation of an inner necessity of thought; and conversely, any licence in the treatment of syllable quantities makes itself felt in a certain arbitrariness. From this perspective it is of particular importance, and touches upon the most intimate laws of art.
It is to the necessity inherent in syllable-quantities that Schiller refers in this pronouncement. The declaimer or reciter, as the interpreter of the poet’s art, must give special attention to what I have just described. He has to conduct what comes before him as a poetical composition, which obviously communicates through words, back to quantity, metre and the weight of the syllables. What then flows out into the words has to be consciously rounded out so as to accord with the verse-structure and rhyme. In our own age, with its lack of artistic feeling, there has arisen a curious kind of declamatory-recitative art – a prosaic emphasis on the prose-sense, something quite unartistic. The real poet always goes back from the prosaic or literal to the musical or plastic. Before he committed the words of a poem to paper, Schiller always experienced a wordless, indeterminate melody, a soul-experience of melody. As yet without words, it flowed along melodically like a musical theme, onto which he then threaded the words. One might conjecture that Schiller could have conjured the most varied poems, as regards verbal content, out of the same musical theme. And to rehearse his iambic verse-dramas, Goethe stood in front of his actors with a baton, like a conductor, considering the formation of sound, the balance of the syllables, the musical rhythm and time-signature to be the essential, rather than the literal meaning. For this reason it has become necessary for our own spiritual stream to return to a true art of recitation and declamation, where what has been debased through the means of expression imposed upon the poet to the level of mere prose can once again be raised, so as to regain the level of a super-sensible formative and musical experience. This work was taken in hand by Frau Dr. Steiner, who over the last decades has tried to develop an art of recitation and declamation in which something that transcends prose to become inwardly eurythmic, the imaginative and musical configuration of syllable-quantities, the imaginative quality of the sound, whether plastic or musical – in which all this is once more made apparent. This comes out differently in lyric, epic and drama – I shall deal with that presently. But we would first like to show how what is indicated here can in general be derived from poetry that is truly artistic. As a first example you will hear “Ostern”, by Anastasius Grün, a poem particularly suited to such a passing-beyond-the-content and approach to the aesthetic form. It is a somewhat old-fashioned poem that is (in a rather narrow sense) topical, in being a poem dedicated to Easter. On the other hand it is not topical, in the sense that it dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century, an age when the poet still felt bound to acknowledge the necessity of plastic and rhythmical formative power. Let us accept the poem as it is – though it will nowadays be found tedious by those who attend to the prose content alone, as being rather antiquated in its imagery. Even allowing for its tediousness as prose, however, a genuine poet has here attempted to comply with the inner aesthetic necessity of the poem. We shall then continue with a modern poet, with “An Eine Rose”, a sonnet by Albert Steffen. It is precisely in the sonnet that, with good will, we can discern how the verbal presentation is compensated by the strictly bounded form – this atones for the sin committed with regard to the words, and the whole is then rounded out and rendered euphonious. In the case of a poet like Albert Steffen, whose explorations extend into the hidden depths of his view of the world, it is interesting to observe how he simultaneously feels the necessity of transmuting what comes to light as a way of knowledge into the strictest aesthetic forms. In the “Terzinen” of Christian Morgenstern we shall see how a peculiar poetic form – free terzetti – subsists on the basis of a feeling for continuity, for openness of form, in contrast to the sonnet which is based on a rounding-off of feeling. We shall see how the terzetti, albeit towards the end of the poem, have a quality of openness, while yet constituting a bounded whole from what flows into the words. And then perhaps I may adduce three poems of my own: “Frühling”, “Herbst”, and “Weltenseelengeister”, in which I have tried to bring into strict forms the most inward experiences of the human soul – not the forms of conventional prosody or metrics, but forms which stem from the actual emotion, while at the same time they try to contain the amorphous, fluctuating, glittering life within the soul in internally strict forms. Frau Dr. Steiner will now demonstrate these six, more lyrical poems. (“Ostern” is, of course, a long poem of which we will present only Part V.) OSTERN
Und Ostern wird es einst, der Herr sieht nieder Vom Ölberg in das Tal, das klingt und blüht; Rings Glanz und Fühl’ und Wonn’ und Wonne wieder, So weit sein Aug’ – ein Gottesauge – sieht!
Ein Ostern, wie’s der Dichtergeist sieht blühen, Dem’s schon zu schaun, zu pflücken jetzt erlaubt Die Blütenkränze, die als Kron’ einst glühen Um der noch ungebornen Tage Haupt!
Ein Ostern, wie’s das Dichteraug’ sieht tagen, Das überm Nebel, der das Jetzt umzieht, Die morgenroten Gletscherhäupter ragen Der werdenden Jahrtausende schon sieht!
Ein Ostern, Auferstehungsfest, das wieder Des Frühlings Hauch auf Blumengräber sät; Ein Ostern der Verjüngung, das hernieder Ins Menschenherz der Gottheit Atem weht!
Sieh, welche Wandlung blüht auf Zions Bahnen! Längst hält ja Lenz sein Siegeslager hier; Auf Bergen wehn der Palmen grüne Fahnen, Im Tale prangt sein Zelt in Blütenzier!
Längst wogt ja über all’ den alten Trümmern Ein weites Saatenmeer in goldner Flut, Wie fern im Nord, wo weisse Wellen schimmern, Versunken tief im Meer Vineta ruht.
Geworfen frischer Triften grünes Kleid, Gleichwie ein stilles, freundliches Vergessen Sich senkt auf dunkler Tag’ uraltes Leid.
Längst stehn die Höhn umfahn von Rebgewinden, Längst blüht ein Rosenhag auf Golgatha. Will jetzt ein Mund den Preis der Rose künden, Nennt er gepaart Schiras und Golgatha.
Längst alles Land weitum ein sonn’ger Garten; Es ragt kein Halbmond mehr, kein Kreuz mehr da! Was sollten auch des blut’gen Kampfs Standarten? Längst ist es Frieden, ew’ger Frieden ja!
Der Kedron blieb. Er quillt vor meinen Blicken Ins Bett von gelben Ähren eingeengt, Wohl noch als Träne, doch die dem Entzücken Sich durch die blonden, goldnen Wimpern drängt!
Das ist ein Blühen rings, ein Duften, Klingen, Das um die Wette spriesst und rauscht und keimt, Als gält’ es jetzt, geschäftig einzubringen, Was starr im Schlaf Jahrtausende versäumt,
Das ist ein Glänzen rings, ein Funkeln, Schimmern Der Städt’ im Tal, der Häuser auf den Höhn; Kein Ahnen, dass ihr Fundament auf Trümmern, Kein leiser Traum des Grabs, auf dem sie stehn!
Die Flur durchjauchzt, des Segens freud’ger Deuter, Ein Volk, vom Glück geküsst, an Tugend reich, Gleich den Gestirnen ernst zugleich und heiter, Wie Rosen schön, wie Cedern stark zugleich
Begraben längst in des Vergessens Meere, Seeungetümen gleich in tiefer Flut, Die alten Greu’l, die blut’ge Schergenehre, Der Krieg und Knechtsinn und des Luges Brut.
Auf Golgatha, in eines Gärtchens Mitte, Da wohnt ein Pärlein, Glück und Lieb’ im Blick; Weit schaut ins Land, gleich ihrem Aug’ die Hütte, Es labt ja Glück sich gern an fremdem Glück!
Einst, da begab sich’s, dass im Feld die Kinder Ausgruben gar ein formlos, eisern Ding; Als Sichel däuchtis zu grad und schwer die Finder, Als Pflugschar fast zu schlank und zu gering.
Sie schleppen’s mühsam heim, gleich seltnem Funde, Die Eltern sehn es, – doch sie kennen’s nicht, Sie rufen rings die Nachbarn in der Runde, Die Nachbarn sehn es, – doch sie kennen’s nicht.
Da ist ein Greis, der in der Jetztwelt Tage Mit weissem Bart und fahlem Angesicht Hereinragt, selbst wie eine alte Sage; Sie zeigen’s ihm, – er aber kennt es nicht.
Wohl ihnen allen, dass sie’s nimmer kennen! Der Ahnen Torheit, längst vom Grab verzehrt, Müsst’ ihnen noch im Aug’ als Träne brennen. Denn was sie nimmer kannten, war ein Schwert!
Als Pflugschar soll’s fortan durch Schollen ringen, Dem Saatkorn nur noch weist’s den Weg zur Gruft; Des Schwertes neue Heldentaten singen Der Lerchen Epopeein in sonn’ger Luft!
Einst wieder sich’s begab, dass, als er pflügte, Der Ackersmann wie an ein Felsstück stiess, Und, als sein Spaten rings die Hüll’ entfügte, Ein wundersam Gebild aus Stein sich wies.
Er ruft herbei die Nachbarn in der Runde, Sie sehn sich’s an, – jedoch sie kennen’s nicht! – Uralter, weiser Greis, du gibst wohl Kunde? Der Greis besieht’s, jedoch er kennt es nicht.
Ob sie’s auch kennen nicht, doch steht’s voll Segen Aufrecht in ihrer Brust, in ewigem Reiz, Es blüht sein Same rings auf allen Wegen; Denn was sie nimmer kannten, war ein Kreuz!
Sie sahn den Kampf nicht und sein blutig Zeichen, Sie sehn den Sieg allein und seinen Kranz! Sie sahn den Sturm nicht mit den Wetterstreichen, Sie sehn nur seines Regenbogens Glanz!
Das Kreuz von Stein, sie stellen’s auf im Garten, Ein rätselhaft, ehrwürdig Altertum, Dran Rosen rings und Blumen aller Arten Empor sich ranken, kletternd um und um.
So steht das Kreuz inmitten Glanz und Fülle Auf Golgatha, glorreich, bedeutungsschwer: Verdeckt ist’s ganz von seiner Rosen Hülle, Längst sieht vor Rosen man das Kreuz nicht mehr. Anastasius Grün.
[In a similar way, Vaughan here transmutes a religious meditation into haunting poetry:
THE NIGHT (John, ii.)
Through that pure Virgin-shrine, That sacred vail drawn o’r thy glorious noon That men might look and live as Glo-worms shine, And face the Moon: Wise Nicodemus saw such light As made him know his God by night.
Most blest believer he! Who in that land of darkness and blinde eyes Thy long expected healing wings could see, When thou didst rise, And what can never more be done, Did at mid-night speak with the Sun:
O who will tell me, where He found thee at that dead and silent hour: What hallow’d solitary ground did bear So rare a flower, Within whose sacred leafs did lie The fulness of the Deity.
No mercy-seat of gold, No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carv’d stone, But his own living works did my Lord hold And Lodge alone; Where trees and Kerbs did watch and peep And wonder, while the Jews did sleep. Dear night! this worlds defeat; The stop to busie fools; cares check and curb; The day of Spirits; my souls calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ’s progress, and his prayer time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
Gods silent, searching flight: When my Lords head is fill’d with dew, and all His locks are wet with the clear drops of night; His still, soft call; His knocking time; The souls dumb watch, When Spirits their fair kindred catch.
Were all my loud, evil days Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent, Whose peace but by some Angels wing or voice Is seldom rent; Then I in Heaven all the long year Would keep, and never wander here.
But living where the Sun Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tyre Themselves and others, I consent and run To ev’ry myre, And by this worlds ill-guiding light, Erre more than I can do by night.
There is in God (some say) A deep, but dazzling darkness; As men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear O for that night! where I in him Might live invisible and dim. Henry Vaughan.] Sonnet:
AN EINE ROSE
Ich schaue mich in dir und dich in mir: Wo ich die Schlange bin, bist du die Blume, wir assen beide von der irdischen Krume, in dir ass Gott, in mir ass noch das Tier.
Die Erde ward für dich zum Heiligtume, du wurzelst fest, du willst nicht fort von ihr. Ich aber sehne mich, ich darbe hier, ich such im All nach meinem Eigentume.
Du überwächst den Tod mit deinen Farben und saugst dir ewiges Leben aus dem Boden. Ich kehre immer wieder, um zu sterben.
Denn ach: Nur durch mein Suchen, Sehnen, Darben, nur durch die Wiederkehr von vielen Toden, darf ich um dich, O rote Rose, werben.
Albert Steffen (1884-1963). TO A ROSE
I see myself in thee, and thee in me: But where I am the serpent, thou’rt the flower – In both consumes and grows by earthly power A god in thee, alas! mere beast in me.
To thee the Earth was given for thy shrine, Thou clungst to her, nor wouldst uprooted be. But I, I yearn, I hanker to be free, And seek in the great All to grow divine.
Thou with thy shooting hues outleapst corruption, Drawing eternal life from out of the soil, Whilst I fall back, fall even to death’s repose.
Yet still I seek and I yearn – and after disruption, And only through manifold deaths’ laborious toll Dare court your deathless beauty, rose, red rose! Trans. A.J.W. Terzetti:
Was ist das? Gibt es Krieg? Den Abendhimmel verfinstern Raben gleich geschwungnen Brauen des Unheils und mit gierigem Gekrächz. Südöstlich rudern sie mit wilder Kraft, und immer neue Paare, Gruppen, Völker... Und drüber raucht’s im Blassen wie von Blut.
Wie Sankt Franciscus schweb ich in der Luft mit beiden Füssen, fühle nicht den Grund der Erde mehr, weiss nicht mehr, was das ist. Seid still! Nein, – redet, singt, jedweder Mund! Sonst wird die Ewigkeit ganz meine Gruft und nimmt mich auf wie einst den tiefen Christ.
Dies ist das Wunderbarste, dieses feste, so scheint es, ehern feste Vorwärtsschreiten – und alles ist zuletzt nur tiefer Traum. Von tausend Türmen strotzt die Burg der Zeiten (so scheint’s) aus Erz und Marmor, doch am Saum Der Ewigkeit ist all das nur noch Geste.
Dämmrig Blaun im Mondenschimmer Berge...gleich Erinnerungen ihrer selbst; selbst Berge nimmer. Träume bloss noch, hinterlassen von vergangnen Felsenmassen: So wie Glocken, die verklungen, noch die Luft als Zittern fassen. Christian Morgenstern What is that – is it war? The evening skies are dark with ravens, like a congested brewing of evil, and gasping horrible, envious croaks.
Southward and east they steer with reckless force, shifting in constellations, pairs and groups... and over all the smoke – so pale, like blood.
I, like St. Francis, rise upon airy wave, and feel beneath my feet earth’s solid ground no more, no longer knowing what that is...
Be still! – No, rather let each voice resound! lest all Eternity, become my grave, enclose me like the depth that in Christ is.
Most wonderful is this: the fast‑ as-iron (it seems to me) forward advance – and yet, all is a dream in which we sink.
Time prides herself (apparently) on all her forts of stone and iron – yet, from the brink of Endlessness, mere gestures all at last!
Dusky, blue, in moonlight quiver mountains...self-remembrances themselves, as they were mountains never.
Mere dreams! the last, abandoned fragment of some primeval, vast escarpment: like stopped bells, whose resonances in the vibrant air augment. Trans. A.J.W. after V. Jacobs. [Stevens has made extensive use of this form, as in his “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”. This example comes from the section “It Must Give Pleasure,” part VIII: What am I to believe? If the angel in his cloud, Serenely gazing at the violent abyss, Plucks on his strings to pluck abysmal glory,
Leaps downward through evening’s revelations, and On his spredden wings, needs nothing but deep space, Forgets the gold centre, the golden destiny,
Grows warm in the motionless motion of his flight, Am I that imagine this angel less-satisfied? Are the wings his, the lapis-haunted air?
Is it he or is it I that experience this? Is it I then that keep saying there is an hour Filled with expressible bliss, in which I have
No need, am happy, forget need’s golden hand, Am satisfied without solacing majesty, And if there is an hour there is a day,
There is a month, a year, there is a time In which majesty is a mirror of the self: I have not but I am and as I am, I am.
These external regions, what do we fill them with Except reflections, the escapades of death, Cinderella fulfilling herself beneath the roof?
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955).] Lyric poems by Rudolf Steiner. FRÜHLING
Der Sonnenstrahl, Der lichterfunkelnde, Er schwebt heran.
Die Blütenbraut, Die farberregende, Sie grüsst ihn froh.
Vertrauensvoll Der Erdentochter Erzählt der Strahl,
Wie Sonnenkräfte, Die geistentsprossenen, Im Götterheim Dem Weltentone lauschen;
Die Blütenbraut, Die farberglitzernde, Sie höret sinnend Des Lichtes Feuerton. HERBST
Der Erdenleib, Der Geistersehnende, Er lebt im Welken.
Die Samengeister, Die Stoffgedrängten, Erkraften sich.
Und Wärmefrüchte Aus Raumesweiten Durchkraften Erdensein.
Und Erdensinne, Die Tiefenseher, Sie schauen Künft’ges Im Formenschaffen.
Die Raumesgeister, Die ewig-atmenden, Sie blicken ruhevoll Ins Erdenweben. SPRING
The Sun’s bright beam – a gash of light, he soars above.
His blossom-bride showered with colour, greets him with joy.
And trustfully the beam instructs the daughter of earth
how solar powers (the spirit’s progeny!) in the heavenly spheres eavesdrop on their harmonies;
the blossom-bride – sprinkled and bright with colour – she hears the light’s cadence of flame! AUTUMN
The world’s body – its life for spirit yearns amidst the shrivelling.
The germinal sprites, crushed with matter, gather their power.
And fruits of warmth from far expanses saturate earthly being.
And worldly senses (ah, deeply seeing!) behold the future in forming power.
The daemons of space – eternal breathings! – they gaze reposefully at the world’s unceasing weft.
Trans. A.J.W. WELTENSEELENGEISTER
Im Lichte wir schalten, Im Schauen wir walten, Im Sinnen wir weben.
Aus Herzen wir heben Das Geistesringen Durch Seelenschwingen.
Dem Menschen wir singen Das Göttererleben Im Weltengestalten. SPIRITS OF THE ANIMA MUNDI
In light is our being, and human seeing, sensations weaving;
from deep hearts upheaving through soul’s wide wending the spirit’s contending;
our song to men sending of gods’ true perceiving, world-forms decreeing. Trans. A.J.W. |
| Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VIII
Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
| The only conceivable possibility is that the psychic and spiritual stand as abstract as can be in well-worn conceptual forms over against the solid material facts (to adopt an expression from the German classical period) – and those include the human organs and their functions in the human being. A true understanding of the close collaboration between the spiritual-super-sensible and the physical-perceptible is reached, however, only by one who everywhere sees spiritual events still vibrating on in material events. |
| This, however, underlies particularly the art of poetry. |
| Poetry and the Art of Speech: Lecture VIII
Translated by Julia Wedgwood, Andrew Welburn Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
Before we essay the second part of our programme, I shall permit myself to point briefly to the genesis of poetry – in man’s inner nature. For what ought to lie at the foundation of a knowledge of man is the following perception: in the first instance, the world, the universe, the cosmos is artistically active in man; but man then brings forth from himself again what the aesthetic activity of the cosmos has inlaid in him, as art. Two elements must collaborate in a man, working through the powers of his spirit and soul, in order for poetry (in the general way of things) to be engendered and given form. It is not thought – even in the most intellectual poetry it is not thought as such – that is shaped by the artist. It is the collaboration, the wonderful interaction between breathing and blood-circulation. In breathing, the human being is entirely conjoined with the cosmos. The air which I have just breathed in was formerly an ingredient in the cosmos, and it will afterwards become an ingredient in the cosmos once more. In breathing I absorb into myself the substantiality of the cosmos, and then release to the cosmos once more what was briefly within me. Anyone who experiences this – anyone with a real feeling for this breathing-process – will find in it one of the most marvellous mysteries of the whole formation of the world. And this interchange between man and the world finds its inner formation in something closely bound up with the breathing-rhythm: the rhythm of blood-circulation. In a mature man the ratio expressed in the relation between respiration and pulse beat is an average one to four: eighteen breaths (or thereabouts) and seventy-two pulse-beats per minute. Between the two is generated that inner harmony which constitutes man’s entire inner life of plastic and musical creativity. The following remarks are not advanced as exact knowledge, but by way of a picture. We see engendered before us a spirit of light who, on the waves of the air, plays into man through his breathing. The breath takes hold of the blood-circulation, as of the occult workings of the human organism. We see Apollo, the god of light, carried on the billows of air in the breathing-process, and in his lyre the actual functioning of the blood-circulation. Every poetic act, every forming act of poetry ultimately rests on this ratio between breathing, as inwardly experienced, and the inner experience of the circulation of the blood. Subconsciously our breath counts the pulse-beats; and subconsciously the pulse-beats count the breaths dividing and combining, combining and dividing to mark out the metre and the syllable-quantities. It is not that the manifestations of poetry in speech adapt themselves so as to conform either to respiration or to the circulation of the blood: but rather the ratio between the two. The configuration of syllables may be quite irregular, but in poetry they stand in a certain ratio to one another, essentially similar to that between breathing and circulation. We can see this in the case where poetry first comes before us, in what is perhaps the most congenial and readily comprehensible form – the hexameter. Here we can see how the first three verse-feet and the caesura stand in a mutual ratio of four to one. The hexameter repeats this ratio of blood‑circulation to breathing a second time. Man receives the spiritual into his own inner processes and inner activities when he creates poetry out of what he is at every moment of his earthly life: a product of breathing and blood-circulation. He articulates this artistically through the syllables in quantity and metre. And we approach intensification and relaxation, tension and release, in a properly artistic way when we allow fewer or more syllables to the unit of breath. And these will then balance each other out in accordance with their inherent natural proportions. In other words, we must adjust the timing of the verse in the right way. If we let the verse proceed according to the proportion ordained by the cosmos itself, which subsists between breathing and blood-circulation, we arrive at epic. If we ascend towards an assertion of our own inner nature; i.e., let the breathing recede, refrain from activating the life of the breath, do not allow it to count up the pulse-beats on the ‘lyre’ of the blood-circulation – when we recede with our breathing into ourselves and make the pulsation of the blood the essential thing, reckoning up the notches (so to speak) scored onto the blood-stream, we arrive at an alternative form of metrical verse. If we are concerned with the breathing, which calculates, as it were, the blood-circulation, we have recitation: recitation flows in conformity with the breathing-process. If the pulsation of the blood is our criterion, so that the blood engraves its strength, weakness, passion, emotion, tension and relaxation onto the flux of the breath – then declamation arises: declamation pays more attention to the force or lightness, strength or weakness of emphasis given to the syllables, with a high or low intonation. Recitation, in accordance with the quietly flowing breath-stream, reckons only the blood-circulation, and this is communication in poetry – whereas declamation is poetry as description. And in fact everyone who practises speech-formation must ask himself when confronted with a poem: Have I to recite here or declaim? They are two fundamentally different nuances of this art-form. We realise this when we see how the poet himself differentiates in a wonderful way between declamation and recitation. Compare in this respect the Iphigeneia Goethe composed in Weimar, before he became acquainted in Italy with the Greek style. Observe the Iphigeneia he wrote at that time: it is entirely declamatory. Then he comes to Italy and grows absorbed in his own way in what he terms Greek art (it was not really still Greek art, but he does feel in it an after-effect of Greek art): he rewrites his Iphigeneia in the recitative mode. And while declamation, as stemming from the blood, passes over into recitation, which stems from the breathing, here that inwardly more Nordic, that Germanic disposition of feeling comes to adopt an outward artistic form that works through quantities and metre in this play which Hermann Grimm has aptly christened the “Roman Iphigeneia”. For someone with artistic sensibility there is the greatest conceivable difference between Goethe's German and his Roman Iphigeneia. We do not wish today to manifest a special sympathy or antipathy for one version or the other, but to indicate the tremendous difference, which should be apparent upon hearing a passage from the Iphigeneia either in recitation or declamation. Examples from both versions are now to be presented. As for the hexameter, we shall encounter this in Schiller’s “Der Tanz”. A correct, regular metre – not necessarily the hexameter – we will come upon this in some poems by Mörike, a lyricist who inclines toward the ballad-form. If we survey the aesthetic evolution of mankind, we may experience decisively how in ancient Greece everything became recitative and man lived altogether more in his natural surroundings. The life of recitation lies in the breathing-process, in quantitative metres. The declamatory emerges out of the northern sense of inwardness, the depths of feeling we find in the soul and spiritual life of Central Europe. It relies more upon weight and metre. And if, in his process of creation, the Divinity holds sway over the world through quantity, weight and proportion, then the poet is seeking through his declamatory and recitative art to hearken to the regency of the Divine – to do so in a poetic intimacy, through observing the laws of quantity and metre in recitation, and through an intimate feeling for metre and weight in the high and low tones of declamation. In this context we will now present Schiller’s “Tanz” to exemplify the hexameter; then Mörike’s “Schön – Rohtraut” and “Geister am Mummelsee”, which are in a ballad-style; and lastly a short passage from Goethe’s German and Roman Iphigeneia. [Note 30]
DER TANZ Siehe, wie schwebenden Schritts im Wellenschwung sich die Paare Drehen! Den Boden berührt kaum der geflügelte Fuss. Seh ich flüchtige Schatten, befreit von der Schwere des Leibes? Schlingen im Mondlicht dort Elfen den luftigen Reihn? Wie, vom Zephyr gewiegt, der leichte Rauch in die Luft fliesst, Wie sich leise der Kahn schaukelt auf silberner Flut, Hüpft der gelehrige Fuss auf des Takts melodischer Woge, Säuselndes Saitengetön hebt den ätherischen Leib. Jetzt als wollt es mit Macht durchreissen die Kette des Tanzes, Schwingt sich ein mutiges Paar dort in den dichtesten Reihn. Schnell vor ihm her entsteht ihm die Bahn, die hinter ihm schwindet, Wie durch magische Hand öffnet und schliesst sich der Weg. Sieh! jetzt schwand es dem Blick; in wildem Gewirr durcheinander Stürzt der zierliche Bau dieser beweglichen Welt. Nein, dort schwebt es frohlockend herauf; der Knoten entwirrt sich; Nur mit verändertem Reiz stellet die Regel sich her. Ewig zerstört, es erzeugt sich ewig die drehende Schöpfung, Und ein stilles Gesetz lenkt der Verwandlungen Spiel. Sprich, wie geschiehts, dass rastlos erneut die Bildungen schwanken, Und die Ruhe besteht in der bewegten Gestalt? Jeder ein Herrscher, frei, nur dem eigenen Herzen gehorchet Und im eilenden Lauf findet die einzige Bahn? Willst du es wissen? Es ist des Wohllauts mächtige Gottheit, Die zum geselligen Tanz ordnet den tobenden Sprung, Die, der Nemesis gleich, an des Rhythmus goldenem Zügel Lenkt die brausende Lust und die verwilderte zähmt. Und dir rauschen umsonst die Harmonien des Weltalls? Dich ergreift nicht der Strom dieses erhabnen Gesangs? Nicht der begeisternde Takt, den alle Wesen dir schlagen? Nicht der wirbelnde Tanz, der durch den ewigen Raum Leuchtende Sonnen schwingt in Kühn gewundenen Bahnen? Das du im Spiele doch ehrst, fliehst du im Handeln, das Mass.
Friedrich Schiller. [Though by different means, Sir John Davies also managed to devise a highly-polished, regular metre to reproduce in English the classical .stateliness of a courtly dance. The following section treats of “The Antiquitte of Dancing,” and is taken from his “Orchestra, or A Poeme of Dauncing”:
Dauncing (bright Lady) then began to be, When the first seedes whereof the world did spring, The Fire, Ayre, Earth and Water did agree, By Loves perswasion, Natures mighty King, To leave their first disorder’d combating; And in a daunce such measure to observe, As all the world their motion should preserve.
Since when they still are carried in a round, And changing come one in anothers place, Yet doe they neyther mingle nor confound, But every one doth keepe the bounded space Wherein the daunce doth bid it turne or trace: This wondrous myracle did Love devise, For Dauncing is Loves proper exercise.
Like this, he fram’d the Gods eternall bower, And of a shapelesse and confused masse By his through-piercing and digesting power The turning vault of heaven formed was: Whose starrie wheeles he hath so made to passe, As that their movings doe a musick frame, And they themselves, still daunce unto the same.
(As idle Morpheus some sicke braines hath taught) Of undevided Motes compacted bee, How was this goodly Architecture wrought? Or by what meanes were they together brought? They erre that say they did concur by chaunce, Love made them meete in a well-ordered daunce.
As when Amphion with his charming Lire Begot so sweet a Syren of the ayre, That with her Rethorike made the stones conspire The ruines of a Citty to repayre, (A worke of wit and reasons wise affayre) So Loves smooth tongue, the motes such measure taught That they joyn’d hands, and so the world was wrought. Sir John Davies (1569-1626).] Two Ballads: SCHÖN-ROHTRAUT
Wie heisst König Ringangs Töchterlein? Rohtraut, Schön-Rohtraut. Was tut sie denn den ganzen Tag, Da sie wohl nicht spinnen und nähen mag? Tut fischen und jagen. O dass ich doch ihr Jäger wär’! Fischen und Jagen freute mich sehr. – – Schweig stille, mein Herze!
Und über eine kleine Weil’, Rohtraut, Schön-Rohtraut, So dient der Knab’ auf Ringangs Schloss In Jägertracht und hat ein Ross, Mit Rohtraut zu jagen. O dass ich doch ein Königssohn wär’! Rohtraut, Schön-Rohtraut lieb’ ich so sehr. – Schweig stille, mein Herze!
Einstmals sie ruhten am Eichenbaum, Da lacht Schön-Rohtraut: ‘Was siehst mich an so wunniglich? Wenn du das Herz hast, küsse mich!’ Ach erschrak der Knabe! Doch denket er: mir ist’s vergunnt, Und küsset Schön-Rohtraut auf den Mund. – Schweig stille, mein Herze!
Darauf sie ritten schweigend heim, Rohtraut, Schön-Rohtraut; Es jauchzt der Knab’ in seinem Sinn: Und würdst du heute Kaiserin, Mich sollt’s nicht kränken: Ihr tausend Blätter im Walde wisst, Ich hab’ Schön-Rohtrauts Mund geküsst! – Schweig stille, mein Herze! DIE GEISTER AM MUMMELSEE
Vom Berge was kommt dort um Mitternacht spät Mit Fackeln so prächtig herunter? Ob das wohl zum Tanze, zum Feste noch geht? Mir klingen die Lieder so munter. O nein! So sage, was mag es wohl sein?
Das, was du da siehest, ist Totengeleit, Und was du da hörest, sind Klagen. Dem König, dem Zauberer, gilt es zuleid, Sie bringen ihn wieder getragen. O weh! So sind es die Geister vom See!
Sie schweben herunter ins Mummelseetal, Sie haben den See schon betreten, Sie rühren und netzen den Fuss nicht einmal, Sie schwirren in leisen Gebeten – O schau! Am Sarge die glänzende Frau!
Jetzt öffnet der See das grünspiegelnde Tor; Gib acht, nun tauchen sie nieder! Es schwankt eine lebende Treppe hervor, Und – drunten schon summen die Lieder. Hörst du? Sie singen ihn unten zur Ruh.
Die Wasser, wie lieblich sie brennen und glühn! Sie spielen in grünendem Feuer; Es geisten die Nebel am Ufer dahin, Zum Meere verzieht sich der Weiher. – Nur still! Ob dort sich nichts rühren will?
Es zuckt in der Mitten – O Himmel ach hilf! Nun kommen sie wieder, sie kommen! Es orgelt im Rohr und es klirret im Schilf; Nur hurtig, die Flucht nur genommen! Davon! Sie wittern, sie haschen mich schon!
Eduard Mörike (1804-1875). [For something similar in English we need look no further than the authors of the celebrated Lyrical Ballads: LUCY GRAY;
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray: And, when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see at break of day The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wide moor, – The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door!
You yet may spy the fawn at play, The bare upon the green; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen.
‘To-night will be a stormy night – You to the town must go; And take a lantern, Child, to light Your mother through the snow.’
‘That, Father! will I gladly do: ’Tis scarcely afternoon – The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!’
At this the Father raised his hook, And snapped a faggot-band; He plied his work; – and Lucy took The lantern in her hand.
Not blither is the mountain roe: With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke.
The storm came on before its time: She wandered up and down; And many a hill did Lucy climb: But never reached the town.
The wretched parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide.
At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door.
They wept – and, turning homeward, cried, ‘In heaven we all shall meet;’ – When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy’s feet.
Then downwards from the steep hill’s edge They tracked the footmarks small; And through the broken hawthorn hedge, And by the long stone-wall;
And then an open field they crossed: The marks were still the same; They tracked them on, nor ever lost; And to the bridge they came.
They followed from the snowy bank Those footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank; And further there were none!
– Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild.
O’er rough and smooth she traps along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850). From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Part V:
And soon I heard a roaring wind: lt did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain poured down from one black cloud; The Moon was at its edge.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Yet never a breeze up-blew; The mariners all ’gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools – We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me.
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’ Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! ’Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again, But a troop of spirits blest:
For when it dawned – they dropped their arms, – And clustered round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning!
And now ’twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel’s song, That makes the heavens be mute.
It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). In a further attempt to make clear the distinction between a recitative and declamatory treatment of the same subject matter in English, we present an additional example of a Psalm in the Authorized Version and the Countess of Pembroke’s translation – in this instance the ninety-eighth Psalm: O Sing unto the LORD a New song, for hee hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arme hath gotten him the victorie. The LORD hath made knowen his salvation: his righteousnesse hath hee openly shewed in the sight of the heathen. Hee hath remembred his mercie and his trueth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seene the salvation of our God. Make a joyfull noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a lowd noise, and rejoyce, and sing praise. Sing unto the LORD with the harpe: with the harpe, and the voice of a Psalme. With trumpets and sound of cornet: make a joyfull noise before the LORD, the King. Let the sea roare, and the fulnesse thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their handes: let the hills be joyfull together Before the LORD, for he commeth to judge the earth: with righteousnesse shall hee judge the world, and the people with equitie.
CANTATE DOMINO
O sing Jehova, he hath wonders wrought, A song of praise that newnesse may commend: His hand, his holy arme alone hath brought Conquest on all that durst with him contend. He that salvation doth his ellect attend, Long hid, at length hath sett in open view: And now the unbeleeving Nations taught His heavinly justice, yelding each their due.
His bounty and his truth the motives were, Promis’d of yore to Jacob and his race Which ev’ry Margine of this earthy spheare Now sees performed in his saving grace. Then earth, and all possessing earthy place, O sing, O shout, O triumph, O rejoyce: Make lute a part with vocall musique beare, And entertaine this king with trumpet’s noise.
Hore, Sea, all that trace the bryny sands: Thou totall globe and all that thee enjoy: You streamy rivers clapp your swymming hands: You Mountaines echo each at others joy, See on the Lord this service you imploy, Who comes of earth the crowne and rule to take: And shall with upright justice judg the lands, And equall lawes among the dwellers make. Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.] It was once remarked by someone who had listened very superficially to what we have tried to demonstrate here – of how the art of poetry must be traced back to an interplay, exalted and interfused with super-sensible forces, between the spirit of breathing and the spirit of blood-circulation – it was once remarked: Well, the art of poetry will be mechanised! will be reduced to a purely mechanical system: A materialistically-minded verdict typical of our age! The only conceivable possibility is that the psychic and spiritual stand as abstract as can be in well-worn conceptual forms over against the solid material facts (to adopt an expression from the German classical period) – and those include the human organs and their functions in the human being. A true understanding of the close collaboration between the spiritual-super-sensible and the physical-perceptible is reached, however, only by one who everywhere sees spiritual events still vibrating on in material events. Anyone who follows the example of that critic who spoke against our intimations of the truly musical and imaginative qualities of poetry is really saying something – and very paradoxical it sounds – like this: There are theologians who affirm that God’s creative power is there to create the solid material world. But God’s creative power is materialised, if one says that God does not refrain from creating the solid material world. It is quite as clever to say that we materialise the art of poetry if we represent the super-sensible spirit as sufficiently powerful, not only to penetrate into materiality, but even into a rhythmical-artistic moulding of the breathing-process and circulatory-process – like Apollo playing on his lyre. The bodily-corporeal nature of man is again made one with the psychic-spiritual. This does not generate super-sensible abstractions in a Cloudcuckooland, but rather a genuine Anthroposophy, and an anthroposophical art sustained by Anthroposophy. We see how the spiritual holds sway and weaves within corporeal man, and how artistic creation means making rhythmical, harmonious and plastic that which is spiritual in the bodily-physical functions. The age-old, intuitive saying is once more seen to be true: the heart is more than this physiological organ situated in the breast, as known to external sight; the heart is connected with man’s entire soul-life, as being the centre of the blood-circulation. It must be felt anew that just as the heart is connected with the soul, so the essence of breathing is connected with the spiritual. There was a time when man felt this and still saw in the last departing breath the soul abandoning the body. For a clever, enlightened age which disregards such matters, a science of abstractions that is cut off from reality and inwardly dead may have a certain validity. But for a knowledge that is at the same time (in the sense of a Goethean perception) the foundation of true art – it must be said that this knowledge not only has to win through to the unity of the psychic-spiritual and physical corporeality in man, but has also to bring it to life artistically. A dead, abstract science can indeed be grounded on the dichotomy of matter and spirit. On this path it is not possible to create life-giving art. Hence our science, however appropriate it may be in all technical matters, however well-qualified to form the groundwork for everything technological, is eminently inartistic. Hence it is so alien to man; for Nature herself becomes an artist at the point where she produces man. This, however, underlies particularly the art of poetry. |
