Appendix to the Public Lectures
GA 85
16 March 1902, Berlin
Translated by Steiner Online Library
53. Social Poetry
[ 1 ] On Sunday evening, the Workers’ Educational School held a celebration in the large hall of the Trade Union House, with the aim of introducing the attendees to social literature. In an enthusiastic keynote address, the school’s active patron, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, demonstrated how, with the rise of industrialism, the social question has become a subject of literature in all civilized countries. He aptly sketched the most outstanding writers who deal with the depiction of social misery, and after a reflection on recent German poetry and the reaction that has taken hold within it, Dr. Steiner expressed the view that from the proletariat itself would emerge men who knew how to sing and speak not only of the sufferings of the working people, but also of their hopes, their love, and their joys. Recitations and choral performances based on the poems of Henckell, Preczang, Heine, Liliencron, and others brought the evening to a fitting close.