The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1912–1918

GA 277a — 20 September 1912, Bottmingen

The Dionysian Course V

The next day, Rudolf Steiner again drew shapes to be performed in space. They show three possibilities. Then came shapes for the “personal pronouns,” for I, you, he, and their plural forms. It is really very appealing to look at lyrical poems to see how many of them can be represented in a fully satisfying way by these shapes. In a comprehensive sense, they express all the soul's relationships to itself, to you, and to the third person who is only observed, revered, or even feared, the “he.” Rudolf Steiner pointed out to us, for example, that almost all of Martin Greif's poems have a distinctly ‘he’ character. Greif rarely addresses a “you”; he mostly describes God and his creation with intimacy and reverence.

How the soul, once standing outside in the sensory world as the I, experiences through hearing and feeling, connects what it experiences with its own being, carries it back into itself and becomes ever richer and broader through this interplay; but how this soul also seeks a relationship with the other soul, the you, without giving up itself – there is no you without an I. And how the soul finally faces a third party, revering or contemplating, observing and describing from the outside.

I

Through every form that touches all the points of the outward journey on the way back, the soul expresses itself as I. He emphasized from the outset that it can really be any form: “Of course, it doesn't always have to be a straight line, but it must run back into itself. That is the essential thing.”

Alone / you

Any form that touches even one point on the way back speaks to a you.

he

Every form that does not touch any point on the outward journey again, but nevertheless returns to the starting point, is the expression of a he, a she, an it—for the essence of Dionysus, for the essence of the goddess Natura, for the essence of the universe and everything in it, even the smallest thing.

Alone / I / you / he / The essence of Dionysus.

And now further: When many selves gather around a common center, each self experiences its own feeling or joy in shared existence more and more strongly and joyfully in this community, as Dr. Steiner also expressed it.

together / Dionysus / his own feeling / we

Over the years, he has indicated many other possibilities — to make them curved is already evident from the drawing for the singular forms. This exercise should also be spoken together, like “I and You.”

For the plural of the You form, for “You all,” he gave a whole number of different possibilities from the outset. They should all be performed after texts spoken together that have a general human content, because these plural forms express the feelings of all humanity. The [following] saying

Boldness, when united with wisdom
Brings you blessings
But if it walks alone
It will bring you ruin.

was to be an example, but with the strict requirement that it be written in an anapaestic rhythm, because all these “your” forms were to be written in anapaestic meter. Since this rewriting was not only permitted but even encouraged, an intensive “rewriting” began after our return, the results of which I later often found, to my horror, as “Rückert's poetry” in various eurythmy magazines. But in his “Angereihten Perlen” (String of Pearls) they sounded completely different! Both lemniscates in the first drawing consist of many small forms clustered around a center point. The first can also be started on the outer head, and then one or two anapaests are needed as a transition for these two variants. The other two, on the second drawing labeled “Planetary Movement,” can be performed without any transitions. I do not know when or if the name “Cheerful Eight” was given by Rudolf Steiner, but we soon came to regard this graceful form as the most cheerful of the planetary movements.

the feeling of all humanity / her / planetary movement / her

The form, which was not originally called the “Harmonious Eight,” belongs to the series of “you” forms. One need only bend the lower “you” form on the first sheet until the axis forms a circle, and it becomes a harmonious ‘you’ and, in the plural, “you.” That is why the anapaestic rhythm belongs to it, and it is certainly a good idea to work out the form in the Dionysian meter (short-short-long, vv-) before using it, as with all the others, to freely create forms for poems, especially of a lyrical nature.

With the last form, Dr. Steiner wanted to show how a kind of elliptical (not specially drawn) form, in which the paths increasingly converge, finally touch each other at the center and finally cross, creates a lemniscate. In a prelude given in 1915, the curve was continued further to two circles into which the lemniscate divided, but without the transitions that can be experienced here.

"You are already familiar with the plural of the Er-form, which I gave you in Kassel [p. 36], and now you know where this form belongs. Just as the [form of] intersecting eights [p. 37] – also given in Kassel as a round dance and as an exercise for striding and running spatial forms – is a Ihr-form."

Dionysus / in praise of the / gods / they

Rudolf Steiner's preparatory notes for this lesson

every crooked line, whether in posture or in movement Will Head straight ahead
Every angular movement and straight line - Korf lowered Movement - Thinking Straight and crooked — Feeling Upward-turned face —
Form in rest has an aesthetic effect - in movement it has a hygienic effect When many do it, it affects the astral body - alone it affects the etheric body
I every form that touches all points of the outward journey on its return journey—

You—A form that touches only one point of the outward journey on the return journey—
You—Many You—The feeling of all humanity is expressed.
We: Many I's—Joy in shared existence.
He—Essence of Dionysus.
She—Small circles within a large circle.

We Old Dionysian exercise—joy in being together—4 steps forward, 4 steps back We say with every / first step
He Worship of the deity

You—
You a.
b. Leading from every point in the circle towards the center
c. The great eight