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POETRY WRITTEN IN HEXAMETER
Hexameter was first written in the heroic epics of
Homer (‘The Iliad’ etc.) in the times of ancient Greece. It was
later taken up by J. W. Goethe, Charles Kingsley, H. W. Longfellow
and others.
Primary students in the 5th Class (at the
time when the lungs have grown to adult capacity) are ready to
speak hexameter, and from that time on into old age it can have a
harmonising effect on the soul. The ‘in-breath’ becomes enhanced,
which brings the outside world into the consciousness.
Therapeutically, hexameter has been proven to be a help
to stutterers. People who need to come out of introversion,
experience the sense world and perceive in pictures are also
benefited.
In hexameter the breathing and the pulse-beat are
brought into balanced proportion. In it lives a musicality that
bears witness to the extraordinary cosmic lawfulness out of which
the human being is built.
In Art and Artistic Cognition , pages 178-179,
Rudolf Steiner says:
‘We breathe in 18 times a minute on the average. That is 25920
times in 24 hours or one day. If the average life expectancy is
70-71 years, although many people live to be older-- a day in the
world for human beings – it makes 25920 days. The world breathes us
in and out and we are born and die.
Look at the Platonic year of the sun. The sun enters
into a certain Zodiac sign. ancient days the sun started off
in Taurus, then in Aries, now in the Fishes. The spring equinox
appears to go ( I must say ‘appears’, but that isn’t the point)
around the whole heavens , shifts around and comes back again
in precisely 25920 years. …You see, we are a part of the world
rhythm…’
Not without reason does one speak of ‘the feet’ in a
line of verse. The hexameters included here are marked, so
that the lines can be ‘walked’ and ‘spoken on the breath’ according
to the two variations in the classical rhythm. e.g. :
1) When he had opened the closet,/ out
came Faithful John and his children.
(_.._.._. / ._.._.._. )
/ or
:
2)Then her own husband rejoiced / that
she’d made the same sacrifice he had./
( _.._.._ / .._.._.._.)/
Composed from the Grimm’s ‘Faithful John’
One can step with each of the ‘long syllables’ (as
underlined) breathing at each caesura as well as at the beginning
of each line. A step can be taken between each line. In such a way,
one can step in harmony with cosmic breathing. This is an
intrinsically healing experience that strengthens the human being,
especially benefiting specific speech disturbances, characters, and
dispositions of soul.
Katherine Rudolph
© Copyright 2011 Katherine Rudolph Exploring The Word in
Colour and Speech
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