The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1918–1920

GA 277b — 17 April 1920, Dornach

59. Eurythmy Performance

“However” by J. W. v. Goethe
“Epirrhema“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“Antepirrhema” by J. W. v. Goethe
Saying from the Calendar of the Soul (52.) by Rudolf Steiner
Saying from the Calendar of the Soul (1.) by Rudolf Steiner
“Arielszene“ (Charming Area, ‘Faust II’) by J. W. v. Goethe with musical accompaniment by Jan Stuten
“The Swallows” by Christian Morgenstern
Saying from the soul calendar (2.) by Rudolf Steiner
Saying from the soul calendar (3.) by Rudolf Steiner
“Hymn to Nature“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“Narrative of an Antique Gem” by J. W. v. Goethe
“You revile my poetry“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“One thing after another” by J. W. v. Goethe
“To the originals” by J. W. v. Goethe
“Life is a game of tag“ by J. W. v. Goethe
“Barker” by J. W. v. Goethe
Humorous prelude with music by Jan Stuten

Dear all, As always before these rehearsals of our eurythmic art, I would like to take the liberty today of saying a few words about the sources of this eurythmic art and about the new forms of expression in which we attempt to express that which can otherwise only be expressed artistically through song, music or the poetic word. We imagine eurythmy to be a kind of silent language. But it certainly creates an art form that could, in a certain way, open up paths that, it seems to me, are being sought today by a wide variety of artistically thinking and feeling people. It cannot be denied that a large number of our contemporaries are justifiably convinced that the old ways of artistic creation need to be renewed. Everywhere – in the fields of painting, music, and sculpture – a new formal language is being sought in a certain way.

But now it can no longer be denied that all that appears in these fields today as a striving for a new artistic formal language, that most of it still leaves us unsatisfied, simply because, for example, what one wants to express in a new way cannot be achieved with a brush and paint today. Sculpture is equally unsuccessful in expressing what is intended through its forms. If I were to use a word for what many people today may be striving for more or less unconsciously, I would use Goethe's word for the sensual-supersensory. Because in art it is indeed the case that the means of expression must be used to bring the sensual to representation. For that which cannot be perceived by the senses, which can only be grasped in an idea, cannot be considered artistic in any way, not even in terms of an external sign. Therefore, everything symbolic is inartistic, and everything allegorical is inartistic. The artistic must present itself to people in a sensory way, but at the same time, the sensory must appear as supersensory. One must receive such an impression from the sensual as one otherwise only receives from the supersensible. Schiller, in a magnificent way that has not yet been appreciated, expressed this view, which is also that of Goetheanism, in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of the Human Race.

Now, if we start from the language of man, then in language there flow together, firstly, the phonetic element, produced by a certain part of the human body organization, with the mental element, which in poetry is permeated by the phonetic element; in song less so, but still the human soul also strives for expression through song and music. And just as there is a sensual element here, so it is true that especially in poetry, by having to use language, the more advanced a language is, the more difficult it becomes to create poetic and artistic expressions , simply because the civilized languages gradually approach the conceptual element, also approach the conventional element – they become lingua franca, they serve human social coexistence and so on, and so on. The more language becomes a means of expression for social coexistence, the more it becomes a means of expression for thoughts, the less it is suitable for the revelation of the truly poetic.

The truly poetic is that which one experiences in one's soul either with the character of the musical, or with the character of the plastic-pictorial. When thought intrudes – as it always does in art – when thought intrudes, the rhythm, the meter, the form that is to be expressed in poetry becomes overgrown with thought. And then a piece of poetry will no longer have an effect through the purely artistic from the outset. As paradoxical as it sounds, ladies and gentlemen, it must be said that the essential artistic quality of a piece of poetry can actually be felt, felt quite artistically, when it is presented in a language that one does not understand literally, that one does not even master. Because the artistic element is not found in the literal content. Of course, you need it in the literal content to have a kind of ladder to climb up in a poetic way.

But it was not entirely foolish, even in the time when, about a century ago, people were really striving again, especially in Central Europe, to really feel the artistic in poetry, it was not at all foolish for people to sit down together and listen to beautiful poems in languages they did not know, just absorbing intonation, rhythm, meter and so on – in other words, the formative, pictorial, musical element of language. But it is precisely that which underlies the linguistic as the actual artistic that can be brought out of poetry through this silent language, which we are striving for here with eurythmy and which does not consist of arbitrary gestures invented to what is musically based, but is based on a careful study of what happens in the separate organs of the larynx, the palate, and so on when speaking. Of course, the small tremors that are transmitted to the air and then form the basis of tone hearing cannot be expressed in any other way than through speech itself; but the tendencies that lie within, the tendencies of movement, can be transferred to the whole person according to the principle of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis.

You can let the person move in his arms or as a whole body or even groups of people in their mutual interrelations in such a way that the movements represent the movement tendencies that otherwise only come to expression in the speech organ. $o becomes on the stage here in front of you the whole human being to the larynx. Nothing is arbitrary. Just as one can hear oh or oh wherever speech is spoken, and as one can perform nothing but the lawful movements of the larynx instead of o or /h], one can essentially perform nothing but the lawful movements of the larynx here when performing something else – of course one can also shape the sound and so on individually with speech – but essentially, no other movements can be performed than those movements that are read from the speech sounds and transferred to the whole person, so that even if the same thing is represented eurythmically in two different places, the individual difference cannot be greater than if, for example, two different pianists perform the same sonata in their own individual way.

Now eurythmy is actually an art that uses the whole human being as a means of expression, that is, it creates through the formal language of the whole human organization and can thus advance to the very sources of the sensual and supersensible. For we have the human being before us as the most perfect sensual form, and we have speech in such a way before us that the soul is expressed everywhere. By taking the soul as our basis, you will see this person, or groups of people, on stage, accompanied by recitation or music, which are, after all, only a different expression of the same thing, an expression in a different form.

However, the art of recitation must return to what it actually was in more artistic times than our own. In our time, great importance is attached to emphasising the content and stressing the literal meaning when reciting. This is called “introspection” in recitation. This is a deviation from the actual artistry of recitation, which must be based on meter, on musicality, on pictorial imagery. We must return to this ancient art of recitation, which Goethe, for example, used when he rehearsed his “Iphigenia” like a conductor with a baton in his hand – focusing on intonation, iambs, and so on.

In the first part of today's program, you will see a performance of the first scene of the second part of Goethe's “Faust” with the help of eurythmy. This first scene of the second part of Goethe's “Faust” has been misunderstood many times. It was objected that Goethe had made the transition from the first part of Faust to the second part far too easy for himself. Faust has incurred a heavy guilt, has brought people into the deepest misfortune, must have infinitely heavy pangs of conscience. And so he leaves us, if I may say so, in the first part. Now he stands before us again. He is supposed to continue on his path through life. The way Goethe presents it, it is not actually meant symbolically, but rather, it is meant that, indeed, when a person finds himself in such a terrible situation as Faust in this case, he must heal from within. This healing from within cannot, of course, be presented in any other way than by referring to the relationship between the human being and the spiritual world. It is a complete misunderstanding when some people have said in response to this first scene in the second part of Goethe's Faust: Yes, Goethe made things easy for himself. All you have to do is take a refreshing morning walk towards the rising sun after you have incurred a serious guilt, and you are restored to humanity. This is not, however, what is meant by this first scene of the second part of Faust; rather, what is meant by this scene is that a person, when he has so thoroughly ruined his conscience, can actually only recover it through a special connection to the spiritual world.

Of course, this can only be portrayed by depicting the spiritual world itself and its effect on the human being. This is what Goethe tried to do. But something like the penetration of the spiritual world into the sensual world can be well portrayed in eurythmy. And wherever the supersensible world must enter into human life in the dramatic [poetry] — otherwise we present lyric poetry, and you will also see today how we will present lyric poetry — but in the dramatic world, the eurythmic art is particularly suitable. I have not yet succeeded in finding a corresponding eurythmic form for the rest of the drama, but I am working on it and it must be found. It must also be possible to present the dramatic process as the actual artistic element of the dramatic and the tragic in eurythmy.

Until now, when we have attempted such dramatic representations, we have always presented that which simply depicts human life in the physical world in the same way as it is otherwise presented on stage. We depict the intrusion of the supersensible by using eurythmy, as you will see today. But we will also succeed in achieving something for the inner structure of the drama, for the plasticity and musicality of the dramatic action itself, as the eurythmic art develops. For we are still in the early stages of this eurythmic art. I ask you to bear this in mind today. We certainly do not imagine that we are already offering something complete; but those honored spectators who may have been here before and saw something months ago will notice how we have tried in recent months — namely, by forms over larger sentence structures over the construction of a poem, to include the inner form of poetry in the spatial form of movement - how we have in turn made progress in this eurythmic art as a result.

We should always strive to move forward. But then it is our conviction, however strict critics we are in relation to it, what we can already offer, that either through us, probably through others, this eurythmic art, when it is further developed, will become something that can actually lead the way into the other arts, for example into painting: one tries to express the inner life of the human being with color. Here a path is opened up where the human being is used as a means of expression, as a tool. The human being is the most perfect tool that can be developed in art.

Therefore, this eurythmic art will come so far that it will be able to present itself as a fully-fledged art alongside its other, older sisters, who, after all, have the advantage of age over it. But it has, in my opinion, the advantage over the other, older arts that it can really make use of everything that is inherent in the human organization itself as a means of expression. And it is still true what Goethe said: that when “man is placed at the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature, which in turn has to produce a summit. To do this, he rises to the challenge by permeating himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally

to the production of the work of art.” And how can order, measure, harmony and meaning not best be combined in rhythm and tact, to give, as it were, moving sculpture and silent music, silent poetry, when one uses man himself as a tool for artistic formation? From this point of view, I ask you to accept with indulgence what is, however, only in its infancy, but is heading towards perfection, even in its present form.

There will now be a short break. After the break, the program will include Goethe's “Hymn to Nature.” Goethe's prose hymn “To Nature” is like a prefiguration of his worldview. One could say that Goethe conceived of it around the beginning of the 1780s. And it came about in the following way – I tried to describe the entire genesis in the seventh volume of the journal of the Goethe Society many years ago – it came about in the following way: Goethe did not write it down immediately, but he had the thoughts in his soul and discussed them with the Swiss Tobler, who was then living in Weimar. Apparently, while walking with Tobler in the open air, Goethe spoke this prose hymn, and it can be found in Tobler's writing in the Tiefurter Journal in Weimar, which still exists today. Tobler then wrote it down directly from the conversation. I tried to prove that this is the genesis. As I said, you will find a discussion of it in the seventh volume of the writings of the Goethe Society. And I could not be shaken in this recognition of the genesis by anything, not even by what has been written here recently. Goethe himself acknowledged that he proceeded from what he wrote in this prose hymn by then developing everything that is contained in his metamorphosis and so on. And he called everything that came later a kind of comparative of his world view, in contrast to the positive. So we can say that this prose hymn contains everything that is then met by us in the most highly metamorphosed form as the Goethean world view.

In this second part, then, we shall have something else to present besides this prose hymn by Goethe, namely Goethe's – including some in which, as I believe, the truly magnificent humor of Goethe's world view, in which everything is truly experienced with the deepest soul, can reveal itself.