The Art Of Recitation And Declamation

GA 281

From the Sensual and Meaningful to the Spiritual and Moving

The lectures that were added to this book at the last minute contain many valuable additions to what has already been said about the art of recitation and declamation. It rounds off what has been said so far into a whole. Even if some things have to be repeated because the same subject has been discussed in different places and the fundamentals and essential points of the same subject have been given, new insights are nevertheless opened up each time, which enable a deeper penetration and must not be missing in a work that wants to achieve something fundamental. Again and again, light is shed on the area whose reconquest is now made possible for us. Even if some of it seems like mere repetition, perhaps it is only this repetition that makes it possible to fully grasp the subject, since it is a matter of deeper, not merely intellectual, insights. Today it is easy to miss the point because we have the habit of grasping things only with our intellect and as quickly as possible. When it comes to insights that take hold of the whole person, we need more time than today's habit of rushing gives us. Through repetition, however, some things are imprinted more vividly and deeply without our noticing.

We are first presenting the lecture that Rudolf Steiner gave in Darmstadt in July 1921 at the invitation of the Anthroposophical University Federation. Then the one that was held during the West-East Congress in Vienna in June 1922, despite the fact that the transcript of that lecture unfortunately shows quite a few gaps. Some of the texts that were given earlier to illustrate what was said have now been replaced by others that serve the same purpose, in order to provide a greater number of examples. Finally, we include the lecture that Rudolf Steiner gave on the same topic during the artistic-pedagogical conference in Stuttgart at Easter 1923. It was particularly important to him to incorporate art as a fundamental force into education. He saw in it the salvation from the gradual killing of the soul and spirit in man. In words, he sensed the direct weaving of the divine creative powers themselves. For him, “artistically creating meant: rhythmizing, harmonizing, plasticizing that which is spiritual in the soul-physical functions.” From the sensually meaningful to the spiritually moving – this is the path that Rudolf Steiner showed us for the art of recitation and declamation.