The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Robert Hamerling: A Poet, a Thinker, and a Human Being

[ 1 ] It was July 15, 1889. I was standing in the cemetery at St. Leonhard near Graz with the poet Rosegger and the Austrian sculptor Hans Brandstetter when the body of the Austrian poet Robert Hamerling was lowered into the grave. Robert Hamerling had been called from the physical plane a few days earlier, following unspeakable suffering—one might say lasting for decades—which had ultimately intensified to the point of becoming unbearable. The body had previously been laid out in the small, exquisite Stiftinghaus on the outskirts of the Austrian-Styrian city of Graz. Hamerling lay there—that is, the earthly form, now abandoned by this great soul, lay there—a marvelous reflection in its form of a life that had striven for the highest heights of the spirit. So expressive, so eloquent was this form, left only to the earthly elements, yet also so deeply imprinted with the unspeakable sufferings that this poet’s soul had to endure in this life! — At that time, one could see among those who were the closest to bear the burden, a little girl, ten years old, Robert Hamerling’s ward, who, through her promising—at that time, so promising—childishness, had so greatly refreshed and brightened the poet’s final years; that girl to whom the poet dedicated those verses that, in essence, lead so infinitely deep into the mood of Robert Hamerling in his final years. And because they delve so deeply into what was in Hamerling’s soul, please allow me to read these very verses right here.

To B. (ertha)

Child, now fluttering harmlessly like a butterfly
Past the sick, the pain-tormented,
When you saw me returning home after long suffering,
Do not remember me in the fervor of youth:
You would remember me only fleetingly;
Nor in the happiness of love, marriage, and motherhood:
Your memory would be but a faint echo in the turmoil.
Only when you are sixty years old, remember me:
Of the poor, sick man whom you saw
Year after year on his bed of suffering,
And who, tortured by unceasing torment,
Spoke but little, groaning with effort,
Who was nothing to you and could be nothing to you.
At sixty years of age, child, remember him:
Then you will think of him thoughtfully, thinking long and hard,
And late, deep compassion will overcome you
For him who has long since rested from all torment.
And a tear will well up from your eye
As an offering to the long-dead,
Who was nothing to you and could be nothing to you.

[ 2 ] There is no need to describe the circumstances of the poet who was able to write these lines, which speak so powerfully of the suffering—one might say—of the entire second half of his life. The world had all sorts of stories circulating, even when Hamerling was confined to his bed for a large part of his life, about a sybaritic life that the author of “Ahasver” was said to lead; it was even said that he lived in a magnificent house in Graz, that he amused himself with a whole host of girls who had to perform Greek dances day after day, and the like. All of this could be said during the days of his illness, which confined the poet to his bed, at times when the most glorious sun was shining outside. He had to lie in bed in his little room, knowing that outside the sun was shining over the green meadows, in the magnificent nature where he so loved to enjoy himself whenever he had even a brief moment to spend away from his bed. And this glorious sun shone so beautifully as we laid the deceased to rest on July 15, 1889. Rarely will there be a life that, while spent in such an outward manner, could be so devoted with every fiber of the soul to what is great, beautiful, gigantic, glorious, and joyful in the world.

[ 3 ] I remember a scene in which I was sitting in Vienna with a young musician who was a close friend of Hamerling’s. This young musician was, in essence, a poor soul who succumbed to mental anguish at an early age. He was a profound pessimist who never tired of lamenting life. And since he loved Hamerling so much, he would have loved to be able to refer to the poet Robert Hamerling whenever he complained about life. But on one occasion, the good young musician wanted once again to invoke the poet Hamerling as a pessimist. And I was able to produce a newspaper—we were sitting together in a café—which contained a short occasional poem by Hamerling, titled “Personal Request,” and show it to the young musician:

A Personal Request

Say I write bad poetry—
Say I steal silver spoons—
Say I am not a good German,
Because out of necessary consideration
I do not eat Jewish meat
Nor Slavic meat—
Or that I betray Austria,
Because I sing of Bismarck—
Say that grief consumes me,
Because I am praised too rarely,
And am sometimes cruelly slandered —
But one thing, I beg you, one thing
Do not say: that I am a pessimist —
That in my song the final
Word belongs to the smugly modern,
Stupid, dull aversion to life!
Would the poet therefore be a pessimist,
Because he indulges in lamentations?
Precisely because the world seems so beautiful to him
And life so charming,
He will regret it bitterly,
If his share were denied him.
Must whoever laments be a pessimist,
then a pessimist is also he,
from whom an “O woe” escaped,
when a tooth was pulled!
Believe the critics everything,
just not that I am a pessimist!
I hate this word—to me it smells
just like its last syllable.

[ 4 ] Hamerling’s state of mind is also characterized by such words—words that show how one can groan and live in the depths of pain, just as he—as he wrote to Rosegger—was living at the very time when this “Personal Request” might have been written. He wrote to Rosegger: “I do not fear becoming a pessimist, but I fear, since I can sometimes find relief from the ever-persisting pain for only a few moments, that I might go mad or become senile!” He might have feared going mad or becoming foolish, but he could not have feared becoming a pessimist—he who began his poetic journey through the world with words that truly seem like a program for a whole life. For when Robert Hamerling sent his first major poem, “Venus in Exile,” out into the world, it bore the motto:

Go forth, O holy messenger,
And sing in joyful tones
Of the dawning morning light,
Of the coming realm of beauty.

[ 5 ] And that is essentially how he was his entire life. However, one scene remains deeply etched in one’s memory—a scene one must recall if one wishes to truly understand Hamerling, the Austrian poet, in all his uniqueness. It was a few months, a few weeks before his death, when he moved from his apartment in the city of Graz—on the street that was then called Realschulstraße, which is now called Hamerlingstraße—to his little summer cottage, which was so cozily situated on the outskirts of the city. Two servants had to carry the sick man down three flights of stairs; that is how high his apartment was situated. Several times he was on the verge of fainting. But on either side, wrapped in a wide ribbon that hung down from his neck like a sash, he had two bundles hanging: the wrapped manuscripts of his last work, *Atomistik des Willens*. It is characteristic of the way this poet lived and what he loved. Not for a single moment did he want to hand this manuscript of his philosophical work from his own hands into another’s! He was so ill that he had to be carried down by two servants, yet he wanted to keep what he lived for. And now he was carried down and driven out to the Stiftinghaus, in the most beautiful sunshine, and groaned: “Ah, how pleasant to ride like this, only not so sick, not so sick!” — But out of this external situation, a soul, a spirit turned toward all that is great, beautiful, and spiritual in the world, worked from the source of the great, beautiful, and spiritual, that what he said about the pessimistic mood sounds, in essence, quite natural to us; yet at the same time it sounds such that in Hamerling a spirit appears to us who is a living testament to the cosmos, proving that in every human situation the victory of the spiritual forces within man over the material and sensual forces—no matter how strongly they resist—is possible.

[ 6 ] Fifty-nine years earlier, in 1830, Robert Hamerling was born in the Austrian Waldviertel, that part of the Waldviertel whose unique natural landscape was so well suited—and perhaps even more so than today, when it is already crisscrossed by railroads — is suited to concentrating the souls within themselves, to deepening the souls within themselves, once they are awakened. It is, in essence, a region largely neglected by civilization, this Waldviertel, although a figure hailing from there—in the part of Austria situated on this side of the Leitha—who was famous far and wide lived there in the first half of the 19th century. This figure is now likely forgotten, but probably lives on at least in the memory of the people in the Waldviertel region, in numerous folk legends. I must say, I have often heard stories about the fame of this figure, for both my parents came from the Waldviertel, and so I was at least able to hear the echoes of this peculiar fame, which is characteristic of the entire culturally isolated atmosphere of the Waldviertel. This famous figure was, in fact, one of the “most famous” robbers and murderers of that time: Grasel. Grasel is certainly more famous than anyone else who has come from the Waldviertel.

[ 7 ] In his later years, Hamerling wrote a bit about the Waldviertel, and I would like to read just a few lines from what he wrote about the Waldviertel, his homeland, where he grew up during the first decade or the first fifteen years of his life. I want to read it because I believe that such a description sheds much more light on who Hamerling is than any professorial characterization. He writes: “I do not know how much the construction of a railroad passing through the Waldviertel has changed its seclusion from the world. In 1867, the appearance of a stranger there was still an event. If such a person came along the path on foot or by carriage, the plowing oxen would stop in the field to stare at the new arrival with their heads turned sideways. The farmer made a few feeble attempts to drive them on with his whip—in vain; in the end, he did as they did, and the plow came to a standstill until the stranger had disappeared behind the next hill or grove. What an idyllic scene!”

[ 8 ] But how a soul grows out of its surroundings and becomes an individual is particularly evident in Hamerling. He was the son of a poor weaver. And before Hamerling could even say “I,” his parents were driven from their home because they had fallen into utter poverty. His father had to move away, while his mother remained in the Schönau Waldviertel with little Hamerling. There, the child experienced the beauties of the Waldviertel. And from that time, a scene remained in the memory of the future Hamerling, which he believed had actually shaped his very being. As a seven-year-old boy, he once walked down a hill. It was evening; the sun was setting in the west. A golden glow met him from the golden sunlight, and what shone out of that golden radiance in Hamerling’s eyes, he describes as follows: “Among the most significant, though admittedly the most difficult to convey, memories of my boyhood are the often strange moods that passed through the soul of the wandering boy—partly as vivid impressions and inspirations of the moment, mostly arising from the natural world around me, and partly as waking dreams and premonitions. The mystic Jakob Böhme recounted that the higher sense, the mystical life of the spirit, was miraculously awakened in him at the very moment when, as if in a dream, he became absorbed in the sight of a pewter bowl sparkling in the bright sunlight. Perhaps every spiritual person has had a Jakob Böhme-like pewter bowl of some kind, from which their actual inner awakening derives. I remember very vividly a certain evening when—I must have been seven years old— as I was walking down a mountain slope, the sunset in the west shone out toward me like a miraculous and ghostly apparition and filled my mind with an unforgettable, strange mood, with a premonition that today seems to me like a calling and in which my entire future destiny was reflected. I hurried toward an unknown destination with my chest held high, and at the same time a melancholy lay upon my soul that made me want to weep. Had that moment been one that could be explained by its immediate circumstances, rather than being unique in its kind, it certainly would not have etched itself so indelibly into my memory.”

[ 9 ] Such was the case in the poet’s seventh year; such was the case when the muse of poetry and the spirit drew near to him. At that time, one might say, the seed of all that would later blossom from within him was planted in his soul by the cosmos itself. It is beautiful when Hamerling attributes his poetic calling to such an apparition, as if it were a miracle that the cosmos itself had wrought upon him.

[ 10 ] Due to his parents’ poverty, the boy had to be raised at the Cistercian monastery in Zwettl. In exchange for receiving his first secondary education there, he was required to sing in the monastery’s choir of young boys. Hamerling was between ten and fourteen years old at the time he was at this monastery. He had formed a close bond with a remarkable figure in the monastery, Father Hugo Traumihler. Father Traumihler was an ascetic, a man wholly devoted to mystical contemplation and a life of strict asceticism. One can imagine how the boy, who even then was already, deep down, thirsting for the beauty of the universe, yet in whom the urge for spiritual deepening was always alive, could be inspired by the inner experiences that the peculiar Father Traumihler could recount to him—of the inner immersion into the heart and soul secrets of a mystic, a mystic of a very elemental, primitive sort, who nevertheless made a profound impression on Hamerling’s soul. But one cannot describe Hamerling as a poet without pointing out what was so uniquely great in him: the longing to be a great man. When he later, long after he had left the Waldviertel, made a return trip there, the people who knew he was from there asked him what he wanted to become. But Hamerling, although he was already well past twenty, had not yet decided what he wanted to become. And it struck him that in those years people approach the question: What do you want to become? — And he always had to tell himself: Yes, what I want to become, I can’t tell people that, because they wouldn’t understand. For when I am asked: “What do you want to be?”—I would like to answer: “I want to become a human being!”—And so he would sometimes say he wanted to become a philologist, sometimes that he wanted to become an astronomer or the like. People understood that. But that one could have the intention—Hamerling was already a college-educated young man at the time—of becoming a human being, that they could not have understood.

[ 11 ] There is much to be said about the life of the poet Hamerling, and above all, there is much to be said about how a threefold reality came to life within his soul. The first thing that came fully alive within him was what he later expressed in simple terms in his “Atomistics of the Will”: that the Greeks named the universe “cosmos,” a term associated with beauty. To him, this was characteristic of the Greek spirit; for his soul was intoxicated by the beauty that pulses through the universe. And to see humanity once again intoxicated by beauty—that was all his heart longed for and what he wished to pour out in poetic tones. And so everything within him strove toward beauty, toward the beauty-intoxicated Greek world, and he saw so much that has crept into human life, that hangs like a gloomy veil over what is intended in nature, over what is intended by nature in beauty. And for Hamerling, beauty was one with spirituality. Thus his gaze often reached beyond all that he knew of Greek culture, and at the same time looked with melancholy into the modern culture for which he wished to write poetry. But he wished to write poetry for this modern culture in order to infuse it with all the tones that could lift people’s spirits again, to bring beauty and spirituality into life, and thus to return to a happy existence on earth. It was impossible for Hamerling to conceive of a discrepancy between the world and beauty in human life. That beauty must permeate life, that beauty must live in the world—this was what inspired him completely, for which he would have loved to live entirely, from his youth onward. It was like an instinct in his soul. But he had to immerse himself in many things that showed him how modern times had to struggle through the many things in life that thwart ideals.

[ 12 ] As a student, Hamerling took part in the events of 1848. And he, who had himself been involved in the liberal movement, was brought before the police for this “great crime” and, like many others in Vienna who had participated in the liberal movement at the time, was subjected to a special punishment. They were taken to the barber, and their hair was cut as a sign that one was a “democrat” if one had gone beyond the police’s limits of what was permitted. The other thing that was not permitted back then—we have certainly made progress in this regard today, for today one’s hair is not cut off simply for holding liberal views—was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, which was again considered a sign of democratic sentiment; instead, one was required to wear a so-called “tube of fear,” the top hat. This was fully justified by the police. Hamerling had to navigate his way through this and many other such obstacles. As a small indication of how the world treated this great poet, let me cite just one more example, which I believe provides a better characterization than an abstract description.

[ 13 ] It was after Hamerling had completed his university studies and was now about to take the teacher certification exam. He passed the exam with good grades in Greek, Latin, and mathematics. The report card he received for Greek and Latin was nothing short of brilliant. But then we read that, although he had claimed to have read several books on grammar, what he demonstrated in the exam did not indicate that he had thoroughly engaged with the German language and its study. Such a report was issued to a man who, through the very peculiarity, through the uniqueness of his style, has so infinitely enriched the German language!

[ 14 ] I would like to highlight another experience Hamerling had in 1851. At that time, he got to know a family, and on one occasion he would have liked to stay for an evening party there, but he was unable to attend. But then the daughter of the house sent a small glass of punch over to his little student room. And how did he feel? He felt such that he suddenly had the urge to take paper and pencil, and then he suddenly felt as if he were in another world. At first he saw, as if drawn in a large tableau, images of world history. Then these images gave way to a chaos of blossoms, mold, blood, newts, golden fruits, blue eyes, harp music, the ravages of life, cannon fire, and quarreling people. Historical scenes alternated with blossoms and salamanders, then, as if crystallizing out of the whole, a pale, serious figure with piercing eyes. The sight of this figure brought Hamerling to his senses. He looked at his paper. And on his paper stood what had not been there before the vision appeared: the name Ahasver, and below it the outline for a poem titled “Ahasver.”

[ 15 ] What is remarkable about Hamerling is that he had a rare and profound interest in everything that can stir the human soul in its highs and lows, combined with—one might say—an intoxication with beauty. That is also why it must be considered such a stroke of good fortune for him that, for a period of ten years, he held a position as a high school teacher in Trieste and was able to spend that time on the magnificent Adriatic and then enjoy his vacations in neighboring Venice, He came to know this Venice so intimately that in later years he still remembered the individual corners and alleyways he had walked time and again on those beautiful evenings. There, nature shone out to him—beauty, southern beauty—for which his soul so deeply yearned. This southern beauty still blossoms forth from the poems which, as in his early works, already reveal Robert Hamerling’s unique talent, such as the “Song of Greeting from the Adriatic.” Then came his poem “Venus in Exile,” Venus conceived not merely as the embodiment of earthly love, but as the bearer of beauty that reigns and weaves through the cosmos, yet remains, as it were, in exile for humanity today. And to liberate beauty and love from this exile—this Robert Hamerling regarded as his poetic yearning, the yearning of a poet. Hence this motto read to you:

Go forth, O holy messenger,
And sing in joyful tones
Of the dawning morning light,
Of the coming realm of beauty.

[ 16 ] But this soul of Hamerling could not sing of the “dawning morning light, of the coming realm of beauty” without delving into all the depths of the human soul. And the vision of Ahasver revealed how these depths of the human soul presented themselves to Robert Hamerling. Poetically, it stood before his soul again and again until he found a poetic form for the personality of Ahasver. Thus it appeared before his soul in such a way that Ahasver became for him the seed that remained in life, passing through the whole of human existence as the personification of a human individuality that wishes to escape life but cannot, a human individuality that is then contrasted with the figure of Nero in Rome, that figure who always seeks life and cannot find it in the sensual abundance, and who must therefore always seek.

[ 17 ] One can see how the contradictions of life confronted Robert Hamerling. This is even more evident in his poem “The King of Zion,” in which he portrays a figure who seeks to bring spiritual salvation down from the spiritual heights to his fellow human beings, but in doing so succumbs to human weakness, sensuality, and so on. How the contrasts of life intersect was a recurring theme in Hamerling’s mind. And he sought to embody it poetically. Greece stood before his soul, as he wished to restore it. In his “Aspasia,” he depicts it—that Greece as he had a mental image of it—depicting the land of his longing, the world of beauty with all that the world of beauty may also carry within itself as its dark sides. “Aspasia” becomes a wonderful cultural-historical poem, a novel in three parts. That Robert Hamerling could not be understood struck me as symptomatic when, in a secluded corner, I encountered a man whose eyes radiated envy and whose mouth expressed ugliness. — Of course, this does not refer to physical ugliness, for that can even be beautiful to the highest degree. — This person was one of the most scathing critics of “Aspasia.” He behaved, as it were, just as the “ugliest person” would toward the poet intoxicated by beauty, and it is understandable that the scathing soul could not understand the poet intoxicated by beauty!

[ 18 ] Such was the essence of Robert Hamerling’s entire endeavor. I would have much to say if I were to recount the full course of Robert Hamerling’s journey through history. He sought to portray figures like Danton and Robespierre, right up to the Homunculus, in which he aimed to embody the full grotesqueness of modern culture. I would also have much to say if I were to describe how Robert Hamerling’s lyrical muse sought, on the one hand, time and again from all the beauty of nature, from all the magnificent colors of nature, and on the other hand, from all the spirit of nature, to find the contemplative tones that pervade his poetry. And again, I would have much to say if I were to even hint at how, in these lyrical poems of Hamerling, everything lives that through which the human soul can find comfort in the small within the great, how from these poems the invincible faith can flow that, no matter how the demons of discord and ugliness may assert their dominion, the realm of beauty can still come upon the human soul. Hamerling’s soul was one that could suffer in life and yet rejoice, even in the midst of the deepest, most painful suffering, in the beauties of spiritual activity; a soul that could look around at the disharmonies of the day and, when the starry sky rose above the waters, be deeply immersed, inwardly, in the beauties of the night. Hamerling was able to let this mood flow into meaningful tones.

[ 19 ] The mental image I would have liked to create through words intended to characterize Hamerling more symptomatically is that Robert Hamerling appears as the poet of the last third of the 19th century who carries within himself an unshakable conviction of a better future for humanity, because he is completely imbued with the truth of beauty in the universe, that he is the poet who can simultaneously depict how the spirit within man can triumph over all the material obstacles and hindrances that stand in the way of man’s spiritual nature. I wanted to characterize this solely through individual aspects of Hamerling’s life.

[ 20 ] One cannot understand Hamerling, the poet, without pointing out how, throughout his entire life, he was preoccupied with answering the question: How do I become a human being? — Everything he created possesses human greatness, though not always poetic greatness, for in Hamerling’s case, poetic greatness is merely a consequence of his human greatness. It was always the case for Hamerling’s soul that whenever he looked here and there and saw disharmony in life, an invincible urge lived within his soul to find the corresponding harmony, to discover how all that is ugly must dissolve into beauty before the true gaze of human nature. Because this is so characteristic of Hamerling, I would like to read a small, insignificant little poem at the end, one that actually sprang from the spirit and thoughts of his earliest youth, but which, even in its primitive poetic simplicity, characterizes the mood that ran through his entire life.

The Lion and the Rose

In his rage, the lion
Stepped on a red rose;
And in his paw
The delicate flower’s thorn remained.

His paw swelled and ached,
The fierce lion is dead;
Freshly refreshed by the morning dew
The rose is red!

No matter how fine the fine,
No matter how coarse the coarse,
The fine, the tender, the pure,
Beauty still prevails!

[ 21 ] That was Hamerling’s spirit—as is evident from everything he created—which permeated his entire life:

No matter how fine the fine,
No matter how coarse the coarse,
The fine, the delicate, the pure,
Beauty prevails in the end!