The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Shakespeare and the New Ideals

[ 1 ] Perhaps some of you expected, based on the announcement of the topic of my lecture today—“Shakespeare and the New Ideals”—that I would speak about specific new ideals. However, it is my conviction that today it is not so much necessary to speak of new ideals as it is to speak specifically about how humanity today can regain the strength to pursue ideals at all. Talking about ideals, after all, does not require much strength, and it is sometimes the case that those who speak most about such grand questions—lofty, beautiful ideals—in abstract terms drawn from the intellect are precisely those who actually lack the strength to live up to those ideals. Sometimes talking about ideals is merely a way of clinging to, or holding on to, illusions in order to escape the realities of life. But this celebration here provides an occasion to speak very deeply about the reality of the spiritual, for this celebration is a commemoration of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare, with all his work, lives entirely in the spiritual realm, yet at the same time in an ideal world. And so it may well be, above all else, the absorption of Shakespeare into our own minds, into our own souls, that gives people today the strength and the inner impulse—if I may use that expression—to pursue ideals. And we can then truly grasp such ideals when we remember how fleeting many modern ideals were and are, and how firmly and magnificently many old ideals stand in the world through their effectiveness. We see ever-widening circles of adherents to this or that religion, this or that worldview—adherents who derive their innermost spiritual life and their inner spiritual vitality entirely from what has passed, and who draw the strength for spiritual elevation from that very past. And we ask ourselves: Why is it that many a beautiful modern ideal dissolves as if into mist—ideals that are indeed met with great enthusiasm by a few people, yet soon fade away—while religious and artistic ideals and styles of bygone times continue to exert their full power upon humanity not only for centuries, but for millennia? - When we ask ourselves why this is so, we come back again and again to the fact that these ideals are drawn from a truly spiritual life, a certain spirituality of humanity. While our ordinary ideals are for the most part merely shadows cast by the intellect—the intellect can never give a person true strength from within their very being—many modern ideals fade in comparison to what speaks to us from ancient religious creeds and artistic styles dating back to the earliest antiquity. On the other hand, when we approach Shakespeare with such a mindset, we know that there is a power in Shakespeare’s drama that not only inspires us anew time and again, but also stimulates our own creative powers, our own imagination, and our own spirituality in the most wonderful way, drawing from our own imagination. We know that Shakespeare is a marvelous force; that today, when we surrender ourselves to it, it appears as modern as any modern force can be. And since I would like to speak specifically from this perspective about the connection between human ideals and Shakespeare, I would like to recall what I already touched upon last Wednesday—the significant influence that Shakespeare had on Goethe.

[ 2 ] An immense amount has been written about Shakespeare, drawing on a very insightful scholarship. And if one were to gather all the scholarly works written about “Hamlet” alone, I believe one could fill a library with them that would stretch across an entire wall. But if one investigates what influence Shakespeare had on Goethe, one comes to the conclusion that it was none of what is contained in these works—absolutely nothing. All of that could have remained unwritten; it is all something the world has attributed to Shakespeare—a certain power of the human intellect that is good, to grasp scientific facts, which is good for explaining and understanding external nature—as we must have it today as the foundation for our technology—but which is never capable of penetrating what stands before us, so vividly, in Shakespeare’s plays,

[ 3 ] Yes, I would like to go even further. Here, too, much could be said about Shakespeare, and many interpretations of *Hamlet* could be offered. One could take the position that everything Goethe said about Shakespeare and *Hamlet* is, at its core, one-sided and wrong. But what matters is not what Goethe said about Shakespeare, but something entirely different: what Goethe meant when he spoke from the depths of his soul—when, for example, he uttered the following words, which are not an explanation but an expression of his innermost spirit. He says: “These are not poems; they are something like the great, mighty pages of fate, which have been opened and through which the stormy wind of life blows, swiftly turning them back and forth, one after the other.” This is expressed from a very different human perspective than when Goethe himself speaks about *Hamlet*. And we may now ask ourselves: Why do intellectualistic explanations come so far short of capturing Shakespeare? I will illustrate this with an image. — When a person is dreaming vividly and the dream figures carry out a specific dream plot, we can say afterward with our intellect: This or that person in the dream acted incorrectly; something is unmotivated; there are contradictions. But the dream will pay little heed to that. Nor will the poet care whether we use our intellect to criticize it when something is unmotivated, when it contradicts itself, and so on. I knew a pedantic critic who found it strange that Hamlet, having just seen his father’s ghost, delivers the “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy and states in the process that no traveler has ever returned from the realm of the dead; he argued that one and the same poet could not possibly have written both. So said the dry scholar. Now, however, I do not mean to say that Shakespeare’s dramatic plots are dream plots. They are ordinary plots; but just as a person is not yet fully present in their physical self or is already slipping away while falling asleep, so it is with Shakespeare: he experiences his plots in full, vivid consciousness, but uses his intellect only to the extent necessary to serve the purpose of shaping the characters, developing the characters, and forming the plots—without making the intellect the master of what is to happen. In drawing your attention to this—since I am speaking from the perspective of the anthroposophical worldview, which I believe embodies the great ideals of humanity—I would like to share an important experience with you that fully explains what one might initially have only as a vague inkling, as I have described it, but explains it in a clairvoyant-artistic sense. I have already had the opportunity to speak twice in recent days about how exact clairvoyance is cultivated at the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, Switzerland. I have described the methods in the books that have been translated into English under the titles *Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment*, *Theosophy*, and *Occult Science—An Outline*. Through certain exercises—which are as precise as learning mathematics—a person comes to strengthen their soul forces to such an extent that they ultimately learn to wield their powers of thought, will, and feeling in such a way that they can, with their soul—consciously, not unconsciously in sleep, nor in a dream— be outside the body—that is, one leaves behind, with full consciousness, the physical body with its intellectual thinking—which remains with the physical body—and one now has imaginations that are not fantasies, as are justified in art, but rather expressions of what exists in today’s world from the spiritual world that surrounds us everywhere. Through imagination, inspiration, and intuition, we learn to perceive the essential nature of the spiritual world, just as we otherwise perceive the physical world. Through our senses—from colors and sounds—we learn to consciously perceive a spiritual world through this precise clairvoyance; not through hallucinations or illusions, which always work their way into a person and dim their consciousness, but rather we come to know the spiritual world in full consciousness, which is as precise as the consciousness I have when I do mathematics. In this way, we can transport ourselves into the higher spiritual regions and have images there that can only be compared to our memories—images that are not comparable to visions, but are nonetheless entirely real spiritual worldviews. Now I consider it my duty to point out that we must embrace what we receive through the spiritual researcher—what we learn to perceive—namely, all the original ideals in science, art, and religion that have emerged from the spiritual world for humanity. All ancient ideals therefore possess such great vitality in contrast to modern intellectualistic ideals precisely because they originate from the spiritual world—through clairvoyance, which at that time was admittedly instinctive and dreamlike—because they were drawn forth from such a spiritual world. May we clearly recognize today that certain religious concepts no longer fit our time: yet they were brought over from ancient times into ordinary life through clairvoyance. We need, once again, open gates through which to look into the spiritual world—not to extract abstract ideals that are spoken of everywhere, but to gain the strength to pursue the ideal, the spiritual, and the transcendent in science, art, and religion.

[ 4 ] When one stands in the spiritual world with such insight and then approaches Shakespeare, a very special experience unfolds. I would like to speak to you about this experience. One can understand Shakespeare from a place of true, deep consciousness, from a place of deep feeling. Of course, one does not need exact clairvoyance to fully experience Shakespeare, but this exact clairvoyance can point to something; it can make it clear to us why Shakespeare will never leave us, why he continually gives us certain impulses. Those who have attained precise clairvoyance through the development of their powers of thought, feeling, and will can carry what they have absorbed from Shakespeare over into the spiritual world. It is entirely possible to have had this experience. One can take what one has experienced here—*Hamlet*, *Macbeth*, and so on—one can carry these over into the spiritual world. But it is only there that one can truly see what lived in the deepest recesses of Shakespeare’s being, when one compares it with something else—with another poet of more recent times whose impressions one can also carry over. I do not wish to name any particular poets—in essence, anyone could be mentioned—since everyone has a preference for a specific one. Any truly naturalistic poet could be named, particularly the naturalistic poets of the past forty to fifty years. When one compares what one has over in the spiritual world with what one has carried over from Shakespeare, one discovers something peculiar: Shakespeare’s characters are alive! When you carry them over, they act differently; but the life they possess here is what you bring over into the spiritual world; whereas, when you carry the characters of some modern idealistic poets over into the spiritual world, they look like wooden puppets: they wither away; they lack any vitality. One can take Shakespeare into the spiritual world just as one might take another well-known poet of more recent times. From Shakespeare, one takes with one those characters who know how to conduct themselves on the other side. The characters of many other poets, however, who stem from mere naturalism, are puppets on the other side; they will then undergo a sort of freezing; one even catches a chill in the spiritual world from this modern poetry. I say this not out of emotion, but out of experience. But once one has this experience, one can ask: What did Goethe feel? With Shakespeare, it is as if the great book of nature were opened, and its pages were being swiftly turned back and forth by the stormy winds of life. Goethe knew that Shakespeare created from the very depths of the spiritual world, and he sensed this. That is what has granted Shakespeare true immortality, what makes Shakespeare ever new. We can experience a Shakespearean drama ten, twenty, or a hundred times, whether we take it in as a whole or in its individual parts.

[ 5 ] You may have seen that scene recently where the monk kneels before Helena, who has been cast aside, and expresses his conviction of her innocence. There is something incredibly profound and true about it that can hardly be compared to anything in modern literature; it is sometimes precisely these intimate moments in Shakespeare that seem so significant and reveal his inner vitality. Or in the play *As You Like It*, where the Duke stands in the Ardennes Forest before the trees and contemplates nature: “These are better advisors than what I have experienced at court,” he says, “for these advisors tell me something about what I am as a human being.” - And what a wonderful view of nature Shakespeare expresses precisely at this point when he says: “The trees speak; the springs become a scripture.” - He learns to understand nature; he learns to read nature. Shakespeare can point this out; a more recent poet can, of course, allude to it as well. With the more recent poet, we sense the secondary; with Shakespeare, we sense that he is fully immersed in his experience, that he has experienced all of this directly and entirely for himself. Even when both say the same thing, it is quite different whether Shakespeare or a more recent poet says it.

[ 6 ] This brings us to the big question: How is it that Shakespeare’s works possess this vitality, which is akin to the supernatural? Where does the life in Shakespeare’s drama come from in the first place? But here we are led to see how Shakespeare, emerging from the 16th and 17th centuries, is able to create something that still maintains a living connection with the life of the earliest drama; and the earliest drama, which speaks to us through Aeschylus and Sophocles, is in turn a product of the Mysteries—those ancient ritual and artistic ceremonies drawn from the most ancient, instinctive, inner, and deepest spiritual insight. We can understand what it is about true art that so inspires us when we seek its origin in the Mysteries.

[ 7 ] If I am now to offer a few aphoristic remarks on the nature of the mysteries and the emergence of artistic sensibility and artistic creation from this nature of the mysteries, it can of course very easily be objected that what is said about this subject from the standpoint of exact clairvoyance is not sufficiently supported by evidence. However, what exact clairvoyance reveals is not only the world of images that surrounds us in the present, but also the world of historical existence, the historical development of humanity, and the cosmos as a whole. Anyone who makes use of this method, as I have described it in my books, can verify for themselves what this exact clairvoyance has to say about the nature of the mysteries. When one speaks of the mysteries, one is referring back to very ancient times in human development, when religion, art, and science did not yet stand so separately side by side as is the case today. People often do not sufficiently realize the transformations, the metamorphoses, that art, religion, and science have undergone until they reached the point of such separation, such differentiation, at which they stand today. I will mention just one example to indicate to some extent how precisely the kind of anthroposophical knowledge referred to here leads back to older forms—not in symbolic, allegorical, or artificial expression, but in true artistry. What the older painters achieved at the end of the 13th and 14th centuries shines forth for us. One need only recall Cimabue. Then something enters into painting that rightly dominates modern painting: what we call spatial perspective. The domes at the Goetheanum in Dornach demonstrate how we return to that perspective inherent in the colors themselves—how one perceives blue, red, and yellow differently; how one simultaneously steps out of the ordinary physical world; and how the third dimension of space ceases to have any significance. One comes to work in only two dimensions. This is the great significance of what is available to the painter in art—what he can express through color. But how he returns to the older, instinctive, spiritual experiences of humanity—this is what modern anthroposophy seeks to convey to us in a very special way through what I have said about exact clairvoyance.

[ 8 ] If we look back at what ancient clairvoyance sought—it is just as closely connected to the artistic, the religious, the scientific, and ancient knowledge in general. There was one thing common to the ancient places of worship in the mystery cults: an understanding of the interconnectedness of religion, art, and science, which were at the same time meant to be a revelation of the divine forces of the world. Because they were a manifestation of the divine forces, they immersed themselves in humanity’s religious sentiments; because they were already what we today cultivate in art, these ritual acts were humanity’s artistic works; and because people were aware that true knowledge can be gained only when human beings do not seek it one-sidedly, the ancient mystery-based cultural development was at the same time the mediator of human knowledge in those days. According to today’s view, people believe they can attain knowledge simply by taking their consciousness and turning it toward what they can observe in nature, thereby forming concepts of natural facts. The way people approach the world today to gain knowledge was not the case in ancient times. Human beings first had to ascend to a higher stage of their humanity in order to then look into the spiritual world in the ancient way—which is not the same as exact clairvoyance. But they did look into it. The ritual acts were not intended to show human beings something with their eyes, but rather to enable them to experience something. These were momentous destinies that were presented to people and that formed the subject matter of these ritual acts, these mystery plays.

[ 9 ] By forgetting his ordinary self, the human being was lifted out of ordinary life, so that he entered a state in which—though it was not as clear as it must be today, but only like a dream—he was outside his body. That was the goal of the mysteries: to lead people, through profound experiences, to the point where they experienced being outside their bodies. So there are certain experiences outside the body. We have one great experience while we live in our bodies, while we are within our organisms, when we experience what is outside of us with our feelings. We share in the experience of that which is outside of us.

[ 10 ] If you have a mental image of a person, with their soul and spirit, existing outside their physical body—and that they are always spiritually experiencing the world around them, not with cold, intellectual faculties, but with the powers of the soul and with emotional feelings—if you have a mental image of what a person then experiences outside their body, you will come to understand something: that is empathy—one also learns it through other people—with lightning and thunder, with the murmur of a stream, the gurgling of a spring, the whistling of the wind, but also with the spiritual entities of the world. Outside one’s body, one also learns to truly experience this. Connected to this, however, is another feeling that overwhelms a person when they face what is initially unknown. It is a certain feeling of fear, of dread. Both feelings played the greatest role in the ancient mysteries: this feeling of experiencing the world firsthand and this feeling of fear. And when a person had strengthened himself so much within that he could now endure this direct experience of the world, that he could also endure the fear without inwardly surrendering or turning away, then he was ready; then he was sufficiently developed to truly look into the spiritual world, to experience the spiritual world firsthand, to pass on insights about spiritual worlds to his fellow human beings, but also—with this very feeling—to influence that spiritual world in turn; that his language revealed a new poetic power, that his hand became capable of mastering colors, that he could wield his inner rhythm in such a way that he became a musician for humanity. He became an artist. He was able to pass on to people what the primordial religions gave to humanity, entirely from within the mystery. — Anyone today who perceives the Catholic Mass with inner human insight knows: this is the last, shadowy image of what was alive in the Mysteries. — What lived in this way in the Mysteries had its artistic and religious aspects. These later separated. When we look at Aeschylus and Sophocles, we have already singled out from the Mysteries the element that was the artistic influence. We have the divine hero Prometheus; he is meant to experience how human beings can go through harrowing experiences, how they can endure inner states of terror and fear. What had been alive in the ancient Mysteries—but which became, in human beings, a dramatic representation—had taken on this form in order to elevate within the human being to a higher level that which was to be initiated in the Mysteries. Thus it had become a reflection of the deepest human experiences. — Aristotle still retained some traditions regarding how ancient drama emerged from the mysteries. Aristotle coined that phrase which scholars have discussed in books found in libraries everywhere; he wrote something that was still an echo of the ancient mysteries, something that lived on in Aeschylus and Sophocles: that drama is the representation of an action that arouses pity and fear, so that the human being might be purified of physical passions, so that he might undergo catharsis. - One cannot understand what this catharsis, this purification, means unless one can look back to the ancient mysteries and see how people were purified of the physical, enabling them to experience the supernatural in powerful experiences outside their bodies.

[ 11 ] Aristotle had already described what had become a staple of drama. This was then passed on to the later playwrights, and we see how Aristotle’s influence is evident in Corneille and Racine; how the dead Aristotle is emulated, how the plot is shaped and clothed in fear and pity—which is nothing other than the earlier experience of the spiritual world when the human being was outside his body. But fear is always present when a person faces the unknown, and the supernatural is, in a sense, always something unknown.

[ 12 ] In more recent developments, the ancient mysteries—in which people were led out of the human world into a higher divine world, and in which the higher divine world penetrated into this human world—are no longer viewed with full understanding. Humanity did not further develop this ancient perspective, which lay at the foundation of that ancient drama; this could no longer be the path of humanity’s later development.

[ 13 ] And Shakespeare was placed within the development of the drama of his time, within that world which was seeking a different kind of drama at the time—one in which something transcending the ordinary human condition would come to life. Shakespeare found his place within this context, and inspired by what people could still sense of the dramatic power of his time, he devoted himself to creating works that give one the feeling that more than a single human personality is at work in Shakespeare—that the spirit of his century is at work in him, and thus, in essence, the spirit of the entire development of humanity. Because there was still something of that ancient sensibility within Shakespeare, he brought to life within himself that which is not merely an intellectual conception of this or that being or this or that person, but rather he himself still lived within these characters. Thus, the characters in his plays became something that did not arise from human intellect, but from the kindled power of the human being—a power we must seek once more if we are to develop true ideals of humanity. But then we must return to intuition.

[ 14 ] This is what is sought at the Goetheanum in Dornach, and it may be said that there, humanity is once again directed toward exact clairvoyance. What still resonates in Shakespeare—what he created in such a marvelous way on the one hand, what the Mystery Playwrights still presented to people in an external form, and what Shakespeare elaborated upon—can be made understandable. It is not merely a superficial detail that one finds about one hundred and fifty plant names in Shakespeare’s plays, or about one hundred bird names: all of this is part of the whole with Shakespeare—a continuous stream that flows from the ancient cult impulses of the Mysteries, which he fully incorporated into human life. This is what makes his plays come alive and feel real—not what people project into them, whether consciously or unconsciously... Just as one must not apply such a standard to *Prometheus* or *Oedipus*, one must not apply it to Shakespeare either. And in a marvelous way, we see the development of the Mysteries in Shakespeare’s own personality. He comes to London, he is immersed in dramatic life, he writes plays like others, he turns to historical traditions for his subject matter, and he is influenced by the dramas of others. We see how, during these years, his true artistic imagination awakens, so that from 1598 onward he is able to imprint the inner essence of his being upon his characters; we see, for example, when he wrote his *Hamlet*, that he cannot do it justice with ordinary consciousness. It is as if one were to sense that he experienced other worlds, that he judged the physical world differently. And such internalization is accompanied by a kind of inner tragedy in Shakespeare. After first experiencing the external dramatic milieu, then the deepest inner life—I would say, the encounter with the spirit of the world, of which Goethe spoke so beautifully—he returns to drama with a certain sense of humor; a humor that embodies the highest powers, just as, for example, in *The Tempest*, one of the most wondrous creations of all humanity, one of the richest developments in the art of drama. In this way, Shakespeare is able to infuse a mature worldview into every aspect of living human creativity.

[ 15 ] However, the fact that we can trace the playwrights back to the ancient mystery traditions—which were aimed at the living development of humanity—makes it clear to us why Shakespeare’s plays possess such educational power. If we are serious about these new ideals, then we can say: We can know how that which has emerged from a kind of self-education—as I have just described—up to its highest spiritual elevation, can now also take effect in schools; how it can penetrate the living educational forces of our youth. This is what, based on the experience of the entire cosmic spirituality, makes Shakespeare’s plays and the great educational questions of our time so relevant to us today. But we must be spiritually active by every means, for we will only be able to answer these questions through Shakespeare if we answer them with the deepest spirituality, out of a full sense of the spiritual. We need this, for these are the very ideals that humanity so desperately needs. We have a magnificent natural science; it gives us a dense, material world, and it can teach us nothing other than the end that will lead to a kind of cosmic death. When we look at natural development—as we have come to view it through the lens of the past centuries—it appears alien to us when we look up toward our ideals. But does the non-religious ideal possess any real power throughout the entire civilized world? No! We must first regain it; we must ascend to the spiritual worlds to acquire this power, which can overcome everything, which can itself become a powerful force of nature—not merely a matter of faith. We must be able to rise to that which, out of religious ideals, creates something that overcomes the material in the cosmos. We can do this only if we devote ourselves to the spiritual worldview. Shakespeare can be a great guide to this spiritual worldview.

[ 16 ] But there is also a strong social need for this spiritual worldview to take effect in the present. Please do not accuse me of wanting this development out of selfishness, simply because it is in Dornach, Switzerland, that what can lead humanity back into reality, into the spiritual realm, and into the true spirituality of the world is being cultivated. Precisely for this reason, however, it has been possible in Dornach to overcome many of the issues that are of concern to humanity today but which, unfortunately, divide humanity—conflicting interests that have given rise to factions in all manner of fields. And perhaps it may be said that—while in Dornach, for the most part, seventeen representatives of contemporary civilization worked in harmony from 1913 until now, throughout the entire war era—we heard the cannons thundering in the neighborhood, in which human strife clashed. And the fact that representatives of seventeen nations were able to work together peacefully during the greatest of human wars seems to me to be a great ideal of education as well. What is possible on a small scale could also be possible on a large scale, and that is what human progress and human civilization need. Therefore, because we desire the progress of human civilization, I must point to a figure who had an impact on all of humanity, who provided great inspiration to all of humanity for those new human ideals that are significant for humanity as a whole. That is why I must point to Shakespeare; that is why, on this festive day, let me conclude with words I have discussed in my reflections—with words of Goethe’s, which he felt as he perceived in Shakespeare a full, total spirituality and intellectual depth. A sentence then sprang from him which, it seems to me, must set the tone for every interpretation of Shakespeare, who must remain an eternal source of inspiration for all civilized people. And with this in mind, Goethe used the following words about Shakespeare, with which we can conclude this reflection: “It is the nature of the spirit that it eternally inspires the spirit.” Therefore, we are right to echo Goethe in saying: “Shakespeare and no end!”