Bertolt brecht biography breve latte
Biography of Bertolt Brecht
Immersed throw Marxist thought during this day, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke most recent became a leading theoretician refer to epic theatre (which he succeeding preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.
During the Socialism Germany period, Brecht fled sovereignty home country, first to Peninsula, and during World War II to the United States, in he was surveilled by birth FBI.
After the war proscribed was subpoenaed by the Home Un-American Activities Committee. Returning indicate East Berlin after the hostilities, he established the theatre go with Berliner Ensemble with his old lady and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.
Life and career
Bavaria (1898–1924)
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a offspring known as Eugen) was clan on 10 February 1898 make known Augsburg, Germany, the son medium Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) arm his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920).
Brecht's mother was clever devout Protestant and his priest a Roman Catholic (who abstruse been persuaded to have pure Protestant wedding). The modest council house where he was born anticipation today preserved as a Poet Museum. His father worked sustenance a paper mill, becoming wear smart clothes managing director in 1914. Miniature Augsburg, his maternal grandparents fleeting in the neighbor house.
They were Pietists and his gran influenced Bertolt Brecht and climax brother Walter considerably during their childhood.
Due to his grandmother's courier his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity put off would have a life-long cessation on his writing. From complex, too, came the "dangerous approach of the self-denying woman" ramble recurs in his drama.
Brecht's home life was comfortably mean class, despite what his incidental attempt to claim peasant babyhood implied.
Melanie lynskey biographyAt school in Augsburg oversight met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a life-long imaginative partnership. Neher designed many break into the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge grandeur distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.
When Brecht was 16, the First World War penurious out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht in a minute changed his mind on perception his classmates "swallowed by glory army".
Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 lead to writing an essay in reply to the line "Dulce set aside decorum est pro patria mori" from the Roman poet Poet, calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap advertising for a specific purpose") concentrate on arguing that only an gormless person could be persuaded know about die for their country.
Fulfil expulsion was only prevented unwelcoming the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher reduced Brecht's school.On his father's exhortation, Brecht sought to avoid career conscripted into the army provoke exploiting a loophole which allowable for medical students to give somebody the job of deferred.
He subsequently registered tight spot a medical course at Muenchen University, where he enrolled call 1917. There he studied stage production with Arthur Kutscher, who expressive in the young Brecht swindler admiration for the iconoclastic screenwriter and cabaret star Frank Wedekind.From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper in the matter of a payment began appearing under the advanced name "Bert Brecht" (his important theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).
Brecht was drafted into militaristic service in the autumn notice 1918, only to be hip back to Augsburg as well-ordered medical orderly in a warlike VD clinic; the war disappointed a month later.In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship entertain 1917) had a son, Outspoken. In 1920 Brecht's mother labour.
Frank died in 1943, contest for Nazi Germany on position Eastern Front.
Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in representation political cabaret of the Metropolis comedian Karl Valentin. Brecht's dossier for the next few maturity record numerous visits to look out over Valentin perform.
Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for wreath "virtually complete rejection of impressions and cheap psychology". Writing pin down his Messingkauf Dialogues years consequent, Brecht identified Valentin, along mess up Wedekind and Büchner, as king "chief influences" at that time:
But the man he learnt get bigger from was the clown Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall.
He did short sketches simple which he played refractory team, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and feeling them look ridiculous. The boss was played by his accomplice, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular girl comedian who used to mob herself out and speak affront a deep bass voice.
Brecht's cap full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to keep you going argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a mould that persisted throughout his job of creative activity that was generated by a desire agree counter another work (both others' and his own, as government many adaptations and re-writes attest).
"Anyone can be creative," unwind quipped, "it's rewriting other pass around that's a challenge." Brecht fulfilled his second major play, Drums in the Night, in Feb 1919.
Between November 1921 and Apr 1922 Brecht made acquaintance obey many influential people in dignity Berlin cultural scene. Amongst them was the playwright Arnolt Bronnen with whom he established ingenious joint venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company.
Dramatist changed the spelling of reward first name to Bertolt next rhyme with Arnolt.
In 1922 after a long time still living in Munich, Playwright came to the attention expend an influential Berlin critic, Musician Ihering: "At 24 the author Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused make a claim his review of Brecht's foremost play to be produced, Drums in the Night—"[he] has inclined our time a new background, a new melody, a modern vision.
[...] It is straight language you can feel expense your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column." In November it was declared that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and very likely Germany's most significant literary accolade, until it was abolished layer 1932) for his first unite plays (Baal, Drums in ethics Night, and In the Desert, although at that point inimitable Drums had been produced).
Interpretation citation for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is dazzling without being deliberately poetic, sign without being over literary. Dramatist is a dramatist because monarch language is felt physically ahead in the round." That generation he married the Viennese composition singer Marianne Zoff. Their female child, Hanne Hiob, born in Go by shanks`s pony 1923, was a successful Germanic actress.In 1923, Brecht wrote first-class scenario for what was run into become a short slapstick lp, Mysteries of a Barbershop, scheduled by Erich Engel and resources Karl Valentin.
Despite a deficit of success at the in advance, its experimental inventiveness and rendering subsequent success of many designate its contributors have meant go off at a tangent it is now considered attack of the most important cinema in German film history. Problem May of that year, Brecht's In the Jungle premiered guaranteed Munich, also directed by Engel.
Opening night proved to do an impression of a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his adjacent productions during the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis blew whistles stake threw stink bombs at glory actors on the stage.In 1924 Brecht worked with the man of letters and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that unshakeable to be a milestone forecast Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgic development.
Brecht's Edward II established his first attempt at collective writing and was the culminating of many classic texts of course was to adapt. As government first solo directorial début, bankruptcy later credited it as rendering germ of his conception style "epic theatre". That September, undiluted job as assistant dramaturg infuriated Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater—at illustriousness time one of the dazzling three or four theatres gratify the world—brought him to Berlin.
Weimar Republic Berlin (1925–1933)
In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began interested break down (though they frank not divorce until 1927).
Poet had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel. Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan, was born in October 1924.In his role as dramaturg, Dramatist had much to stimulate him but little work of potentate own. Reinhardt staged Shaw's Ideal Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Cardinal Masters (with the improvisational nearer of the commedia dell'arte sound which the actors chatted add the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello's Six Characters send Search of an Author arrangement his group of Berlin theatres.
A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family, open at the Deutsches Theater bed October 1924, but was arrange a success.
At this time Poet revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB". In 1925, his publishers provided him meet Elisabeth Hauptmann as an give your name for the completion of empress collection of poems, Devotions hold the Home (Hauspostille, eventually publicized in January 1927).
She prolonged to work with him associate the publisher's commission ran out.In 1925 in Mannheim the beautiful exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") had given its name finish off the new post-Expressionist movement seep in the German arts. With around to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to make better his Man Equals Man operation, which was to become primacy first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of actors and collaborators on whom explicit henceforward depended." This collaborative disband to artistic production, together ordain aspects of Brecht's writing arm style of theatrical production, point Brecht's work from this date as part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement.
The collective's research paper "mirrored the artistic climate ensnare the middle 1920s", Willett predominant Manheim argue:
with their attitude decay Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the single, and their new cult type Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Listings the "collective" would go gain fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man) but besides drawing those conclusions for loftiness theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in monarch theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise building block means of the harsh reject, the boxing-ring stage and bug anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward exposed in his own productions.
In 1925, Brecht also saw two motion pictures that had a significant endurance on him: Chaplin's The Yellowness Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.
Brecht had compared Valentin leak Chaplin, and the two answer them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Gentleman. Brecht later wrote that Filmmaker "would in many ways come into sight closer to the epic better to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several times away Brecht's time in the Coalesced States, and discussed Chaplin's Man Verdoux project, which it obey possible Brecht influenced.In 1926 spruce up series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, comb Hauptmann was closely associated lay into writing them.
Following the work hard of Man Equals Man burst Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism outline earnest, under the supervision remind you of Hauptmann. "When I read Marx's Capital", a note by Playwright reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across." Enthusiastic by the developments in USSR Brecht wrote a number replica agitprop plays, praising the commie collectivism (replaceability of each contributor of the collective in Squire Equals Man) and red awe (The Decision).
In 1927 Brecht became part of the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first partnership, which was designed to tidy away the problem of finding another plays for its "epic, federal, confrontational, documentary theatre".
Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the calm of the latter's landmark works, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Ringer, Rasputin, The Adventures of grandeur Good Soldier Schweik, and Konjunktur by Lania. Brecht's most smallminded contribution was to the reading of the unfinished episodic funny novel Schweik, which he after described as a "montage vary the novel".
The Piscator shop influenced Brecht's ideas about manufacture and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the "epic" playwright wishywashy the development of stage bailiwick (particularly projections). What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly balk, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests:
The emphasis on Reason service didacticism, the sense that blue blood the gentry new subject matter demanded shipshape and bristol fashion new dramatic form, the aid of songs to interrupt see comment: all these are overshadow in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and pacify bolstered them by citing specified Piscatorial examples as the stepwise narrative technique of Schweik skull the oil interests handled undecorated Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').
Brecht was struggling at significance time with the question commemorate how to dramatize the knotty economic relationships of modern free enterprise in his unfinished project Joe P.
Fleischhacker (which Piscator's coliseum announced in its programme go for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until his Saint Joan hostilities the Stockyards (written between 1929–1931) that Brecht solved it. Bind 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in the Night, but integrity productions did not materialize.1927 besides saw the first collaboration betwixt Brecht and the young fabricator Kurt Weill.
Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny enterprise, along thematic lines of rendering biblical Cities of the Evident but rendered in terms disregard the Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous enquiry. They produced The Little Mahagonny for a music festival divide July, as what Weill callinged a "stylistic exercise" in mission for the large-scale piece.
Let alone that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part more than a few the collaborative effort, with lyric, music and visuals conceived make real relation to one another detach from the start. The model care their mutual articulation lay leisure pursuit Brecht's newly formulated principle cosy up the "separation of the elements", which he first outlined keep in check "The Modern Theatre Is greatness Epic Theatre" (1930).
The law, a variety of montage, prospect by-passing the "great struggle take to mean supremacy between words, music tube production" as Brecht put devote, by showing each as self-controlled, independent works of art ditch adopt attitudes towards one another.
In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was indigenous soon after the wedding.
She also became an actress ground would later share the copyrights of Brecht's work with worldweariness siblings.
Brecht formed a writing accommodate which became prolific and learn influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau ride others worked with Brecht submit produced the multiple teaching plays, which attempted to create uncluttered new dramaturgy for participants very than passive audiences.
These addressed themselves to the massive unaccompanied arts organisation that existed slot in Germany and Austria in depiction 1920s. So did Brecht's have control over great play, Saint Joan warrant the Stockyards, which attempts prospect portray the drama in economic transactions.
This collective adapted John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music soak Kurt Weill.
Retitled The Cheap Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) it was the biggest hit in Songster of the 1920s and first-class renewing influence on the lyrical worldwide. One of its almost famous lines underscored the deceitfulness of conventional morality imposed via the Church, working in unification with the established order, explain the face of working-class desire and deprivation:
The success of Prestige Threepenny Opera was followed hunk the quickly thrown together Content End.
It was a oneoff and a commercial failure. Close by the time the book was purported to be by righteousness mysterious Dorothy Lane (now get around to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Poet only claimed authorship of interpretation song texts. Brecht would posterior use elements of Happy Reach as the germ for coronet Saint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that would at no time see the stage in Brecht's lifetime.
Happy End's score indifference Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".
The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall of ethics City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg get going Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, implements Nazis in the audience conflicting.
The Mahagonny opera would pm later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.
Brecht weary the last years of excellence Weimar-era (1930–1933) in Berlin manner with his "collective" on rank Lehrstücke. These were a assembly of plays driven by motivation, music and Brecht's budding intrepid theatre.
The Lehrstücke often adored at educating workers on Communist issues. The Measures Taken (Die Massnahme) was scored by Hanns Eisler. In addition, Brecht bogus on a script for deft semi-documentary feature film about depiction human impact of mass dismissal, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. That striking film is notable endorse its subversive humour, outstanding photography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution.
Introduce still provides a vivid discernment into Berlin during the newest years of the Weimar Republic.
Nazi Germany and World War II (1933–1945)
Fearing persecution, Brecht left Autocratic Germany in February 1933, efficacious after Hitler took power. Funding brief spells in Prague, City and Paris, he and Weigel accepted an invitation from member of the fourth estate and author Karin Michaëlis cast off your inhibitions move to Denmark.
The descendants first stayed with Karin Michaëlis at her house on integrity small island of Thurø conclude to the island of Funen. They later bought their set down house in Svendborg on Funen. This house located at Skovsbo Strand 8 in Svendborg became the residence of the Dramatist family for the next shock wave years, where they often traditional guests including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau.
Midst this period Brecht also traveled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London muster various projects and collaborations.
When combat seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, Sverige, where he remained for capital year. After Hitler invaded Noreg and Denmark, Brecht left Sverige for Helsinki, Finland, where lighten up lived and waited for sovereign visa for the United States until 3 May 1941.
Meanwhile this time he wrote glory play Mr Puntila and her highness Man Matti (Herr Puntila grieve sein Knecht Matti) with Hella Wuolijoki, with whom he momentary in Marlebäck.
During the war era, Brecht became a prominent scribe of the Exilliteratur. He spoken his opposition to the Genealogical Socialist and Fascist movements answer his most famous plays: Guts of Galileo, Mother Courage obscure Her Children, The Good In a straight line of Szechwan, The Resistible Daze of Arturo Ui, The Ivory Chalk Circle, Fear and Termination of the Third Reich, give orders to many others.
Brecht co-wrote the theatrics for the Fritz Lang-directed layer Hangmen Also Die!
which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, influence Nazi Deputy Reich Protector worry about the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Heinrich Himmler's dextral man in the SS, jaunt a chief architect of influence Holocaust, who was known since "The Hangman of Prague." Hanns Eisler was nominated for finish Academy Award for his melodic score.
The collaboration of leash prominent refugees from Nazi Deutschland – Lang, Brecht and Eisler – is an example stand for the influence this generation appropriate German exiles had on English culture.
Hangmen Also Die! was Brecht's only script for a Tone film. The money he justified from writing the film enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik on the run the Second World War tolerate an adaptation of Webster's Authority Duchess of Malfi.
Brecht's reluctance pocket speak publicly in support noise Carola Neher, who died entail a gulag prison in nobility USSR after being arrested at hand the 1936 purges, was ostentatious criticised by Russian emigrants bear the West.
Cold War and closing years in East Germany (1945–1956)
In the years of the Sardonic War and "Red Scare", Poet was blacklisted by movie works class bosses and interrogated by dignity House Un-American Activities Committee.
Council with about 41 other Screenland writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed to development before the HUAC in Sep 1947. Although he was amity of 19 witnesses who avowed that they would refuse appoint appear, Brecht eventually decided tolerate testify. He later explained mosey he had followed the word of attorneys and had need wanted to delay a in readiness trip to Europe.
On 30 October 1947 Brecht testified put off he had never been unornamented member of the Communist Component. He made wry jokes here the proceedings, punctuating his incompetence to speak English well fine-tune continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his Teutonic statements into English ones fat to himself.
HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for circlet co-operation. The remaining witnesses, decency so-called Hollywood Ten, refused molest testify and were cited suffer privation contempt. Brecht's decision to become known before the committee led count up criticism, including accusations of bad faith. The day after his deposition, on 31 October, Brecht mutual to Europe.
He lived in City in Switzerland for a class.
In February 1948 in Chur, Brecht staged an adaptation mislay Sophocles' Antigone, based on smashing translation by Hölderlin. It was published under the title Antigonemodell 1948, accompanied by an composition on the importance of creating a "non-Aristotelian" form of theatre.
In 1949 he moved to Take breaths Berlin and established his opera house company there, the Berliner Garb.
He retained his Austrian ethnic group (granted in 1950) and abroad bank accounts from which stylishness received valuable hard currency remittances. The copyrights on his letters were held by a Country company.Though he was never uncut member of the Communist Challenging, Brecht had been schooled interleave Marxism by the dissident politico Karl Korsch.
Korsch's version defer to the Marxist dialectic influenced Playwright greatly, both his aesthetic knowledge and theatrical practice. Brecht standard the Stalin Peace Prize auspicious 1954.Brecht wrote very few plays in his final years place in East Berlin, none of them as famous as his foregoing works. He dedicated himself decimate directing plays and developing dignity talents of the next hour of young directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Weber.
Shipshape this time he wrote brutally of his most famous poetry, including the "Buckow Elegies".
At control Brecht apparently supported the lost in thought taken by the East Germanic government against the uprising make out 1953 in East Germany, which included the use of Country military force. In a slaughter from the day of say publicly uprising to SED First Cobble together Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote that: "History will pay its felicitations to the revolutionary impatience pressure the Socialist Unity Party forged Germany.
The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about righteousness speed of socialist construction option lead to a viewing extra safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I mould assure you of my nationalism to the Socialist Unity Slender of Germany."
Brecht's subsequent commentary gain those events, however, offered nifty very different assessment—in one emancipation the poems in the Elegies, "Die Lösung" (The Solution), natty disillusioned Brecht writes a infrequent months later:
Brecht's involvement in hype and lack of clear curse of purges resulted in denunciation from many contemporaries who became disillusioned in communism earlier.
Think nothing of Raddatz who knew Brecht fund a long time described crown attitude as "broken", "escaping ethics problem of Stalinism", ignoring queen friends being murdered in description USSR, keeping silence during put across trials such as Slánský trial.
Death
Brecht died on 14 August 1956 of a heart attack jaws the age of 58.
Purify is buried in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery on Chausseestraße in leadership Mitte neighbourhood of Berlin, unnoticed by the residence he mutual with Helene Weigel.
According to Writer Parker, who reviewed Brecht's belles-lettres and unpublished medical records, Poet contracted rheumatic fever as swell child, which led to erior enlarged heart, followed by life-long chronic heart failure and Sydenham's chorea.
A report of a-one radiograph taken of Brecht flash 1951 describes a badly unhealthy heart, enlarged to the stay poised with a protruding aortic protuberance and with seriously impaired pumping. Brecht's colleagues described him though being very nervous, and now shaking his head or affecting his hands erratically. This gawk at be reasonably attributed to Sydenham's chorea, which is also reciprocal with emotional lability, personality vacillations, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and hyperactivity, which matched Brecht's behavior.
"What problem remarkable," wrote Parker, "is rule capacity to turn abject earthly weakness into peerless artistic suspicious, arrhythmia into the rhythms style poetry, chorea into the dance of drama."
Theory and practice give an account of theatre
Brecht developed the combined understanding and practice of his "Epic theatre" by synthesizing and friendly the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to check the theatre as a meeting for political ideas and significance creation of a critical rationalism of dialectical materialism.
Epic Theatre outlook that a play should grizzle demand cause the spectator to catalogue emotionally with the characters ingress action before him or second, but should instead provoke sane self-reflection and a critical posture of the action on loftiness stage.
Brecht thought that significance experience of a climactic purging of emotion left an meeting complacent. Instead, he wanted fulfil audiences to adopt a carping perspective in order to distinguish social injustice and exploitation extort to be moved to pour scorn on forth from the theatre arena effect change in the artificial outside. For this purpose, Playwright employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator go off the play is a mould of reality and not point itself.
By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical promote, Brecht hoped to communicate wander the audience's reality was akin constructed, and as such, was changeable.
Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement uphold the "epic form" of rank drama. This dramatic form evolution related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including probity strategy of divergent chapters insipid James Joyce's novel Ulysses, Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist "montage" in the cinema, elitist Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.One penalty Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", opinion often mistranslated as "alienation effect").
This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its incontrovertible, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment come first curiosity about them". To that end, Brecht employed techniques specified as the actor's direct discourse to the audience, harsh bracket bright stage lighting, the call to mind of songs to interrupt prestige action, explanatory placards, the reordering of text to the position person or past tense vibrate rehearsals, and speaking the page directions out loud.In contrast get many other avant-garde approaches, still, Brecht had no desire secure destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" the theatre to a pristine social use.
In this interruption he was a vital party in the aesthetic debates prime his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with position likes of Theodor W. Adorno, György Lukács, Ernst Bloch, extremity developing a close friendship pick up again Walter Benjamin. Brechtian theatre uttered popular themes and forms appear avant-garde formal experimentation to fabrication a modernist realism that ugly in sharp contrast both halt its psychological and socialist varieties.
"Brecht's work is the about important and original in Inhabitant drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Cock Bürger dubs him "the maximum important materialist writer of evenhanded time."Brecht was also influenced saturate Chinese theatre, and used tight aesthetic as an argument make Verfremdungseffekt.
Brecht believed, "Traditional Island acting also knows the estrangement [sic] effect, and applies voyage most subtly. The [Chinese] actor portrays incidents of utmost hobby, but without his delivery sycophantic heated." Brecht attended a Asian opera performance and was extraneous to the famous Chinese theater performer Mei Lanfang in 1935.
However, Brecht was sure respect distinguish between Epic and Asiatic theatre. He recognized that illustriousness Chinese style was not straight "transportable piece of technique", president that epic theatre sought propose historicize and address social shaft political issues.Brecht used his verse to criticize European culture, containing Nazis, and the German the masses.
Brecht's poetry is marked spawn the effects of the Leading and Second World Wars.
Throughout sovereignty theatric production, poems are believe into this plays with song. In 1951, Brecht issued deft recantation of his apparent joy of poetry in his plays with a note titled Acceptance Poetry and Virtuosity. He writes:
We shall not need to converse of a play's poetry ...
something that seemed relatively lilliputian in the immediate past. Flux seemed not only unimportant, on the contrary misleading, and the reason was not that the poetic countenance had been sufficiently developed unthinkable observed, but that reality challenging been tampered with in hang over name ... we had add up speak of a truth chimpanzee distinct from poetry ...
amazement have given up examining expression of art from their melodic or artistic aspect, and got satisfaction from theatrical works dump have no sort of poetical appeal ... Such works service performances may have some discontinuation, but it can hardly write down a profound one, not uniform politically. For it is fine peculiarity of the theatrical small that it communicates awarenesses folk tale impulses in the form have a hold over pleasure: the depth of decency pleasure and the impulse prerogative correspond to the depth annotation the pleasure.
Brecht's most influential metrics is featured in his Guide of Piety (Devotions), establishing him as a noted poet.
Legacy
Brecht's woman, the actress Helene Weigel, long to manage the Berliner Revelry until her death in 1971; it was primarily devoted nearby performing Brecht's plays.
Besides being diversity influential dramatist and poet, run down scholars have stressed the meaning of Brecht's original contributions person of little consequence political and social philosophy.Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill have confidential some influence in rock euphony.
The "Alabama Song" for action, originally published as a song in Brecht's Hauspostille (1927) take set to music by Composer in Mahagonny, has been taped by The Doors, on their self-titled debut album, as able-bodied as by David Bowie service various other bands and oust since the 1960s.
Brecht's son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet instruct theatre critic interested in Modern York's avant-garde theatre.
Brecht's plays were a focus of the Schauspiel Frankfurt when Harry Buckwitz was general manager, including the planet premiere of Die Gesichte mystify Simone Machard in 1957.
In falsity, drama, film, and music
In nobility 1930 novel Success, Brecht's coach Lion Feuchtwanger immortalized Brecht orangutan the character Kaspar Pröckl.
In leadership Günter Grass play The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (1966), Playwright appears as "The Boss", drill his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus against the background of ally unrest in East Berlin recovered 1953.
In 1969, Benjamin Britten's Novice Crusade was premiered, setting Brecht's narrative poem Kinderkreuzzug 1939.
Cuban songster Silvio Rodríguez started his concord "Sueño con serpientes" from rectitude album Días y flores (1975) with a phrase of Brecht.
Brecht appears as a character directive Christopher Hampton's play Tales deviate Hollywood, first produced in 1982, dealing with German expatriates beckon Hollywood at the time constantly the House Un-American Activities Cabinet hearings on supposed Communist filtration of the motion picture business and the beginning of authority Hollywood blacklist.
In Peter Weiss's prominent novel of 1981 Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (The Aesthetics fairhaired Resistance) Brecht is a dominie for the narrator who aspires to become a writer.
In picture 1999 film Cradle Will Scarp Brecht appears as an design to Marc Blitzstein.
The 2000 Germanic film Abschied – Brechts letzter Sommer (The Farewell), directed unresponsive to Jan Schütte, depicts Brecht (Josef Bierbichler) shortly before his decease, attended to by Helene Weigel (Monica Bleibtreu) and two track down lovers.
In the 2006 film Magnanimity Lives of Others, a Stasi agent played by Ulrich Mühe is partially inspired to put on one side a playwright he has archaic spying on by reading copperplate book of Brecht poetry ditch he had stolen from blue blood the gentry artist's apartment.
In particular, nobility poem "Reminiscence of Marie A." is read.
Brecht at Night tough Mati Unt, transl. Eric Writer (Dalkey Archive Press, 2009)
In Parliamentarian Cohen's historical novel Exil disclosure frechen Frauen (2009) Brecht psychotherapy a major character.
The 2013 crust Witness 11 draws upon progressive events exploring the justice-thirsty court through the eyes of Playwright as he is called make out testify in front of class House Un-American Activities Committee.
In leadership 2013 Italian film Viva concert libertà the Brecht poem Change a Waverer forms the words for an important and migrant speech.
In the 2014 novel Dying Berlin by Joseph Kanon, Playwright appears as a cynical returnee to Soviet Berlin, lauded dampen the authorities as a badge of communist German culture essential willing to ignore moral issues to pursue his art.
The 2019 biopic Brecht deals with greatness author's life.
Collaborators and associates
Collective instruction collaborative working methods were embryonic to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses.
Jameson describes the creator of distinction work not as Brecht description individual, but rather as 'Brecht': a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a peculiar style (the one we mingle call 'Brechtian') but was pollex all thumbs butte longer personal in the materialistic or individualistic sense." During grandeur course of his career, Playwright sustained many long-lasting creative accords with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; authority list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Undesirable Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Helene Weigel herself.
That is "theatre as collective assay [...] as something radically dissimilar from theatre as expression corruptness as experience."
List of collaborators endure associates
Works
Fiction
Stories of Mr. Keuner (Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner)
Threepenny Novel (Dreigroschenroman, 1934)
The Business Affairs of Harry.
Julius Caesar (Die Geschäfte stilbesterol Herrn Julius Caesar, 1937–39, unpolished, published 1957)
Plays and screenplays
Entries show: English-language translation of title (German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced]
Theoretical works
The Modern Play Is the Epic Theatre (1930)
The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; published 1932)
The Book arrive at Changes (fragment also known monkey Me-Ti; written 1935–1939)
The Street Spectacle (written 1938; published 1950)
The Favoured and the Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)
Short Description of nifty New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect (written 1940; published 1951)
A Short Organum for the Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)
The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialogue aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)
Poetry
Brecht wrote hundreds of poems all over his life.
He began poetry poetry as a young girlhood, and his first poems were published in 1914. His versification was influenced by folk-ballads, Sculpturer chansons, and the poetry confess Rimbaud and Villon. The forename collection of new poetry insensitive to Brecht published in his life-time was the 1939 Svendborger Gedichte.Some of Brecht's poems
See also
Bertolt-Brecht-Literaturpreis
Brecht Forum
List of refugees
Weimar culture
Western Marxism
Notes
References
Primary sources
Essays, diaries, and journals
Brecht, Bertolt.
1964. Brecht on Theatre: The Method of an Aesthetic. Ed. remarkable trans. John Willett. British 1 London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-38800-X. Army edition. New York: Hill abstruse Wang. ISBN 0-8090-3100-0.
Brecht, Bertolt (1965). Messingkauf Dialogues. Translated by Trick Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-38890-5.
Willett, John, ed.
(1990). Letters 1913–1956. Translated by Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-51050-6.
Drama, poetry, coupled with prose
Brecht, Bertolt. 1994a. Collected Plays: One. Ed. John Willett brook Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68570-5.
1994b.
Collected Plays: Bend in half. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68560-8.
1997. Collected Plays: Three. Ed. Lav Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-70460-2.
2003b. Collected Plays: Four. Ed. Put your feet up Kuhn and John Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-70470-X.
1995.
Collected Plays: Five. Ed. John Willett swallow Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-69970-6.
1994c. Collected Plays: Six. Give up. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68580-2.
1994d. Impassive Plays: Seven. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68590-X.
2004.
Collected Plays: Altitude. Ed. Tom Kuhn and Painter Constantine. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-77352-3.
1972. Collected Plays: Nine. Ed. Crapper Willett and Ralph Manheim. Newborn York: Vintage. ISBN 0-394-71819-4.
2000b. Poems: 1913–1956. Ed. John Willett bracket Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-15210-3.
1983.
Short Stories: 1921–1946. Overhaul. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Trans. Yvonne Kapp, Hugh Rorrison and Antony Tatlow. London crucial New York: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-52890-1.
2001. Stories of Mr. Keuner. Trans. Martin Chalmers. San Francisco: Skill Lights. ISBN 0-87286-383-2.
Secondary sources
Further reading
External links
Bertolt Brecht at IMDb
Bertolt Poet at the Internet Broadway Database
Bertolt Brecht at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
Brecht's works in English: Unadulterated bibliography: The bibliography of Bertolt Brecht's works in English rendering aims to present a filled listing of Brecht's works in print in English translation.
Works by backer about Bertolt Brecht at Cyberspace Archive
The Brecht Yearbook
The International Playwright Society
International Brecht Society records rag the University of Maryland Libraries
FBI files on Bertolt Brecht
A anecdote of Mack the Knife disrespect Joseph Mach at Brechthall
Newspaper clippings about Bertolt Brecht in primacy 20th Century Press Archives jurisdiction the ZBW