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Image copyright 2003 by Michael R. Meyer. Drawing by Dane Rudhyar

THE ESSENTIAL RUDHYAR
An outline and an evocation
by Leyla Raël
1983



I. FOUNDATIONS
II. CONCEPTUAL FORMULATIONS
III. RUDHYAR'S
INTEGRATION OF
EXPERIENCE AND CONCEPTS

1. The Arts
  A. Poetry
  B. Literature
  C. Music
  D. Painting
2. Astrology
3. Psychology

APPENDIX 1: Selected Poems
APPENDIX 11: Bibliography









III. RUDHYAR'S INTEGRATION OF EXPERIENCE AND CONCEPTS

1. THE ARTS

B. LITERATURE

Rudhyar's two main novels are Rania (written in 1929 but not published until 1974) and Return from No-Return (written in 1953 but not published until 1973):
      Rania is the "epic narrative" of a woman's life, from "passionate spring" through "spiritual flowering" and the "sacrifice of the seed" (quoted are the subtitles of the book's three sections or "movements").
      Rania was written during three intense weeks in Chicago in January 1929. It incorporates experiences Rudhyar had in Carmel and in Hollywood's motion picture world – he had been an extra and bit player in silent and early sound pictures. The plot is centered around magnified features in which are telescoped and integrated features of people he had known; as he wrote it he intuited that he was on the threshold of a new period of his life – he met the woman who became his first wife shortly thereafter.
      These personal experiences and memories are magnified into archetypal images operating within an equally archetypal plot: the inter-and-intrapersonal struggle between forces of light and darkness, resolved by the redeeming sacrifice. To give the narrative an epic quality, Rudhyar used the device of poetic stanzas with repeated lines; the stanzas become longer as the action develops, gradually coalescing into prose paragraphs – but the poetic device returns at the end.
      Return from No-Return is a metaphysical science fiction novel. It is set in the twenty-second century, on earth and in intergalactic and "interincarnational" space. It weaves together the drama of a global crisis, an intense story of transpersonal love, and a presentation of an esoteric concept of space and the possibility of integral existence beyond physical death.
      Common to both novels are heroic, spiritually-oriented female protagonists whose spiritual triumphs and failures are portrayed sympathetically, and the redemptive power of unselfish, transpersonal love. Many young women have especially identified with Rania, and a professor of literature once commented that it read as if it had been written by C. G. Jung, M. Esther Harding, and D. H. Lawrence – then rewritten by Madame Blavatsky!
      Attempts have been made to make feature films of both novels. Return from No-Return was especially considered after the phenomenal success of "Star Wars," but as there seemed no possibility of making a commercially viable film without losing the work's essential qualities, the project was stopped.



By permission of Leyla Rudhyar Hill
Copyright © 1983 by Leyla Raël
All Rights Reserved.



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