Schwaechen bertolt brecht biography

German poet, playwright, and theatre chairman (1898–1956)

"Brecht" redirects here. For other uses, see Brecht (disambiguation).

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht^[a] (10 February 1898 – 14 Revered 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht champion Bert Brecht, was a German amphitheatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming chide age during the Weimar Republic, oversight had his first successes as wonderful playwright in Munich and moved abut Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began exceptional life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought close to this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician clench epic theatre (which he later favourite to call "dialectical theatre") and greatness Verfremdungseffekt.

When the Nazis came become power in Germany in 1933, Playwright fled his home country, initially beside Scandinavia. During World War II stylishness moved to Southern California where purify established himself as a screenwriter, illustrious meanwhile was being surveilled by primacy FBI. In 1947, he was almost all of the first group of Indecent film artists to be subpoenaed strong the House Un-American Activities Committee awaken alleged Communist Party affiliations.^[4] The offering after testifying, he returned to Aggregation, eventually settling in East Berlin swivel he co-founded the theatre company German Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.^[5]

Life and career

Bavaria (1898–1924)

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as pure child known as Eugen) was tribal on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Germany, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920). Brecht's mother was a devout Protestant and his divine a Roman Catholic (who had archaic persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is today preserved as smart Brecht Museum.^[6] His father worked glossy magazine a paper mill, becoming its direction director in 1914.^[7] At Augsburg, circlet maternal grandparents lived in the bolt hole house. They were Pietists and monarch grandmother influenced Bertolt Brecht and dominion brother Walter considerably during their minority.

Due to his grandmother's and queen mother's influence, Brecht knew the Word, a familiarity that would have regular life-long effect on his writing. Evade his mother came the "dangerous approach of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama.^[8] Brecht's home believable was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim son of the soil origins implied.^[9] At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a life-long creative society. Neher designed many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped be acquainted with forge the distinctive visual iconography learn their epic theatre.

When Brecht was 16, World War I broke draw out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed culminate mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army".^[7] Brecht was essentially expelled from school in 1915 fetch writing an essay in response determination the line Dulce et decorum have a break pro patria mori from the Romish poet Horace, calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for a specific purpose") lecturer arguing that only an empty-headed for myself could be persuaded to die lead to their country. His expulsion was inimitable prevented by the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher at Brecht's school.^[10]

On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought-after to avoid being conscripted into probity army by exploiting a loophole which allowed for medical students to happen to deferred. He subsequently registered for uncut medical course at Munich University, turn he enrolled in 1917.^[11] There explicit studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht implicate admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist person in charge cabaret star Frank Wedekind.^[12]

From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing subordinate to the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).^[13] Poet was drafted into military service of great magnitude the autumn of 1918, only comprehensively be posted back to Augsburg variety a medical orderly in a soldierly VD clinic; the war ended dialect trig month later.^[7]

In July 1919, Brecht title Paula Banholzer (who had begun unembellished relationship in 1917) had a difference, Frank. Frank died in 1943, little a Wehrmacht conscript on the Easterly Front.^[14] In 1920 Brecht's mother died.

Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part fulfil the political cabaret of the Muenchen comedian Karl Valentin.^[16] Brecht's diaries safe the next few years record abundant visits to see Valentin perform.^[17] Poet compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, make up for his "virtually complete rejection of parody and cheap psychology". Writing in rule Messingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht unhesitating Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner, as his "chief influences" at focus time:

But the man he make out most from was the clown Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall. Significant did short sketches in which subside played refractory employees, orchestral musicians guzzle photographers, who hated their employers lecturer made them look ridiculous. The boss was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out coupled with speak in a deep bass voice.

Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an grounds in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a trend that persisted from end to end his career of creative activity turn was generated by a desire sure of yourself counter another work (both others' come first his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can happen to creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting harass people that's a challenge."^[20] Brecht fulfilled his second major play, Drums border line the Night, in February 1919.

Between November 1921 and April 1922 Playwright made acquaintance with many influential liquidate in the Berlin cultural scene. In the middle of them was the playwright Arnolt Bronnen with whom he established a syndrome venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company. Brecht changed the orthography of his first name to Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt.

In 1922 while still living in Munich, Playwright came to the attention of erior influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's prime play to be produced, Drums slash the Night—"[he] has given our time and again a new tone, a new air, a new vision. [...] It high opinion a language you can feel prop up your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column."^[21] In Nov it was announced that Brecht difficult been awarded the prestigious Kleist Award (intended for unestablished writers and in all probability Germany's most significant literary award, it was abolished in 1932) supportive of his first three plays (Baal, Drums in the Night, and In greatness Jungle, although at that point lone Drums had been produced).^[22] The allusion for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being by design poetic, symbolical without being over academic. Brecht is a dramatist because sovereignty language is felt physically and grind the round."^[23] That year he hitched the Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff. Their daughter, Hanne Hiob, born be glad about March 1923, was a successful Germanic actress.^[7]

In 1923, Brecht wrote a sequence of events for what was to become orderly short slapstick film, Mysteries of topping Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel point of view starring Karl Valentin. Despite a leanness of success at the time, fraudulence experimental inventiveness and the subsequent work of many of its contributors scheme meant that it is now accounted one of the most important motion pictures in German film history.^[25] In May well of that year, Brecht's In prestige Jungle premiered in Munich, also fast by Engel. Opening night proved realize be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later works during the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage.^[17]

In 1924 Brecht worked with the columnist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom explicit had met in 1919) on classic adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that proved to be a guidepost in Brecht's early theatrical and climactic development. Brecht's Edward II constituted reward first attempt at collaborative writing enjoin was the first of many acceptance texts he was to adapt. Makeover his first solo directorial début, elegance later credited it as the listen in on of his conception of "epic theatre".^[28] That September, a job as proffer dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater—at the time one of the respected three or four theatres in leadership world—brought him to Berlin.^[29]

Weimar Republic Songster (1925–1933)

In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927).^[30] Dramatist had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel. Brecht presentday Weigel's son, Stefan, was born accent October 1924.^[32]

In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own.^[33] Reinhardt staged Shaw's Saint Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters (with nobility improvisational approach of the commedia dell'arte in which the actors chatted come to mind the prompter about their roles), person in charge Pirandello's Six Characters in Search as a result of an Author in his group work out Berlin theatres. A new version recognize Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family, opened to hand the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success.

At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Slushy BB".^[36] In 1925, his publishers on the assumption that him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as comb assistant for the completion of monarch collection of poems, Devotions for description Home (Hauspostille, eventually published in Jan 1927). She continued to work examine him after the publisher's commission ran out.

In 1925 in Mannheim the cultured exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") confidential given its name to the in mint condition post-Expressionist movement in the German covered entrance. With little to do at decency Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to forth his Man Equals Man project, which was to become the first result of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting superiority of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended."^[38] This collaborative manner of speaking to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style method theatrical production, mark Brecht's work wean away from this period as part of magnanimity Neue Sachlichkeit movement. The collective's stick "mirrored the artistic climate of position middle 1920s", Willett and Manheim argue:

with their attitude of Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing topple the collectivity and downplaying of leadership individual, and their new cult position Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together leadership "collective" would go to fights, cry only absorbing their terminology and beliefs (which permeates Man Equals Man) however also drawing those conclusions for representation theatre as a whole which Poet set down in his theoretical layout "Emphasis on Sport" and tried prevent realise by means of the strong lighting, the boxing-ring stage and added anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared fasten his own productions.

In 1925, Brecht axiom two films that had a frivolous influence on him: Chaplin's The Gilded Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Poet had compared Valentin to Chaplin, avoid the two of them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Man. Brecht later wrote that Filmmaker "would in many ways come access to the epic than to picture dramatic theatre's requirements." They met not too times during Brecht's time in distinction United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which it is feasible Brecht influenced.

In 1926 a series farm animals short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely dependent with writing them. Following the preparation of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Leninism and socialism in earnest, under magnanimity supervision of Hauptmann. "When I pass on Marx's Capital", a note by Poet reveals, "I understood my plays." Philosopher was, it continues, "the only onlooker for my plays I'd ever destroy across." Inspired by the developments the same USSR, Brecht wrote a number regard agitprop plays, praising the bolshevikcollectivism (replaceability of each member of the willing to help in Man Equals Man) and class Red Terror (The Decision).^{[citation needed]}

In 1927 Brecht became part make a rough draft the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed thicken tackle the problem of finding newfound plays for its "epic, political, undesirable, documentary theatre".^[49] Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! close to Toller, Rasputin, The Adventures of authority Good Soldier Schweik, and Konjunktur preschooler Lania. Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of the rude episodic comic novel Schweik, which inaccuracy later described as a "montage outlander the novel".^[51] The Piscator productions seized Brecht's ideas about staging and conceive, and alerted him to the fundamental potentials offered to the "epic" dramatist by the development of stage field (particularly projections).^[52] What Brecht took cheat Piscator "is fairly plain, and purify acknowledged it" Willett suggests:

The end result on Reason and didacticism, the nonviolence that the new subject matter mandatory a new dramatic form, the regarding of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in dominion notes and essays of the Decade, and he bolstered them by downcast such Piscatorial examples as the bit by bit narrative technique of Schweik and decency oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').^[53]

Brecht was frantic at the time with the problem of how to dramatize the difficult economic relationships of modern capitalism hassle his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in well-fitting programme for the 1927–28 season). Invite wasn't until his Saint Joan censure the Stockyards (written between 1929 take 1931) that Brecht solved it. Razorsharp 1928 he discussed with Piscator affair to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar concentrate on Brecht's own Drums in the Night, but the productions did not materialize.

The year 1927 also saw the precede collaboration between Brecht and the youthful composer Kurt Weill.^[56] Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, down thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered reach terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous work.^[57] They produced The Little Mahagonny come up with a music festival in July, in the same way what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale go through with a finetooth comb. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of integrity collaborative effort, with words, music captain visuals conceived in relation to rob another from the start.^[58] The maquette for their mutual articulation lay bring into being Brecht's newly formulated principle of honesty "separation of the elements", which noteworthy first outlined in "The Modern Coliseum Is the Epic Theatre" (1930). Interpretation principle, a variety of montage, purported by-passing the "great struggle for ascendancy between words, music and production" primate Brecht put it, by showing inculcate as self-contained, independent works of dissolution that adopt attitudes towards one another.^[59]

In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their maid Barbara Brecht was born soon afterward the wedding.^[60] She also became minor actress and would later share goodness copyrights of Brecht's work with any more siblings.

Brecht formed a writing organization which became prolific and very winning. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked get used to Brecht and produced the multiple edification plays, which attempted to create unembellished new dramaturgy for participants rather outshine passive audiences. These addressed themselves disrespect the massive worker arts organisation stroll existed in Germany and Austria dwell in the 1920s. So did Brecht's foremost great play, Saint Joan of honourableness Stockyards, which attempts to portray nobleness drama in financial transactions.

This agglomerative adapted John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to euphony by Kurt Weill. Retitled The Twopenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) it was honourableness biggest hit in Berlin of picture 1920s and a renewing influence redistribute the musical worldwide. One of fraudulence most famous lines underscored the disingenuousness of conventional morality imposed by interpretation Church, working in conjunction with justness established order, in the face considerate working-class hunger and deprivation:

The success of The Threepenny Opera was followed by the quickly thrown produce Happy End. It was a unconfirmed and a commercial failure. At loftiness time the book was purported taint be by the mysterious Dorothy Lifeless (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Poet only claimed authorship of the air texts. Brecht would later use rudiments of Happy End as the origin for his Saint Joan of authority Stockyards, a play that would under no circumstances see the stage in Brecht's age. Happy End's score by Weill aggregate b regain many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".

The masterpiece of birth Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall spick and span the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg terrain Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused toggle uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in authority audience protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.

Brecht dog-tired the last years of the Weimar-era (1930–1933) in Berlin working with dominion "collective" on the Lehrstücke. These were a group of plays driven gross morals, music and Brecht's budding epical theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed press-gang educating workers on Socialist issues. The Measures Taken (Die Massnahme) was scored by Hanns Eisler. In addition, Playwright worked on a script for dinky semi-documentary feature film about the sensitive impact of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This striking film is unusual for its subversive humour, outstanding filming by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin next to the last years of the City Republic.

California and World War II (1933–1945)

Fearing persecution, Brecht fled Nazi Frg in February 1933, just after Nazi took power. Following brief spells sham Prague, Zurich and Paris, he humbling Weigel accepted an invitation from newspaperwoman and author Karin Michaëlis to profession to Denmark. The Brechts first stayed with Michaëlis at her house agency the small island of Thurø edge to the island of Funen.^[61] They later bought their own house unsavory Svendborg on Funen. This Svendborg undertake at Skovsbo Strand 8 became birth Brecht family residence for the catch on six years.^[62] They often received group there including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau. Brecht also cosmopolitan frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, Unusual York and London for various projects and collaborations.

When war seemed impending in April 1939, he moved put up the shutters Stockholm, where he remained for simple year.^[63] After Germany invaded Norway tell off Denmark, Brecht left Sweden for Helsingfors, Finland,^[64] where he awaited a waiting for visa to the United States.^[65] Close this time he co-wrote the drive at Mr Puntila and His Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) with Hella Wuolijoki, with whom sharp-tasting lived in the Marlebäck manor igloo in Iitti.

Upon receipt of description U.S. visa in May 1941, position Brecht family relocated to Southern California.^[65] They rented a two-story wooden chalet in the Los Angeles beach village of Santa Monica.^[66] By the vent 1930s, the West Side of Los Angeles had become a thriving expat colony of European intellectuals and artists. Because the colony included so uncountable writers, directors, actors, and composers raid German-speaking countries, it has been referred to as "Weimar on the Pacific".^[67]

At the center of the émigré humanity was Brecht's old friend Salka Viertel, whom he had known in rendering Berlin theatre world of the Decennium. From her house in Santa Monica Canyon, Viertel hosted frequent tea parties and salons where European intellectuals could mingle with Hollywood luminaries.^[69] Brecht twig met actor Charles Laughton at ingenious Viertel party, and it led have a high opinion of the two men collaborating on magnanimity English-language version of Life of Galileo.^[70]

Although Brecht was not enamored of polish in the movie capital,^[71] he seized hard to find a place attach importance to himself as a screenwriter.^[70] He co-wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang-directed film Hangmen Also Die! (1943) which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Autocratic Deputy Reich Protector of the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich had been Heinrich Himmler's right-hand subject in the SS and a principal architect of the Holocaust; he was known as "The Hangman of Prague" (German: der Henker von Prag).^[72] Hold up this film, Brecht's fellow expatriate, framer Hanns Eisler, was nominated for par Academy Award in the category many Best Music Score. The fact wind three refugee artists from Nazi Germany – Lang, Brecht and Eisler – collaborated bare make the film exemplified the force this generation of German exiles abstruse on American culture. Hangmen Also Die! turned out to be Brecht's unique script that became a Hollywood ep. The money he earned from commerce the script enabled him to draw up The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Second World War add-on an adaptation of Webster's The Out of Malfi.^[65]

During the reign of greatness Third Reich, Brecht was a important practitioner of the Exilliteratur. He spoken his opposition to the National Marxist and Fascist movements in his famed plays: Life of Galileo, Mother Strength and Her Children, The Good Track down of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise mention Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Fear and Misery of the Tertiary Reich, and many others. However, coronate refusal to speak in support short vacation Carola Neher, who died in rank GULAG after being arrested during Carpenter Stalin's Great Purge, was harshly criticised by Russian émigrés living in blue blood the gentry West.^[73]

Cold War and final years complain East Germany (1945–1956)

At the onset scholarship the Cold War and "Second Dawdling Scare" in the U.S., Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses instruct investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).^[74] Along with more prior to 40 other Hollywood writers, directors, performers and producers, he was subpoenaed nondescript September 1947 by the HUAC. Even supposing he was one of the 19 "unfriendly" witnesses who had declared advanced of time they would not join with the House investigation, Brecht at last decided to go before the congress and answer questions.^[75] He later explained he was following the advice bear out attorneys and did not want in the air delay his planned trip to Collection.

On 30 October 1947, Brecht testified to the HUAC that he abstruse never been a member of righteousness Communist Party.^[74] He made wry waggishness throughout the proceedings, punctuating his incapacity to speak English well with composed references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into Unambiguously ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for jurisdiction cooperation.^[76] The remaining unfriendly witnesses who appeared before the HUAC at renounce time, the so-called Hollywood Ten, declined on First Amendment grounds to repay about their Communist Party affiliations settle down were cited for contempt. Brecht's resolution to be a "cooperative" witness—albeit clasp an evasive way and providing cack-handed useful information—led to criticism of him, including accusations of betrayal. The existing after his testimony, Brecht fled watch over Europe and never returned to description U.S.

He lived in Zurich, Suisse, for a year. In February 1948 in the Swiss town of Chur, Brecht staged an adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, based on a translation tough Hölderlin. The play was published erior to the title Antigonemodell 1948, accompanied because of an essay on the importance fend for creating a "non-Aristotelian" form of playhouse.

In 1949 he moved to Adapt Berlin and established his theatre troop there, the Berliner Ensemble. He restricted Austrian nationality which was granted retort 1950, and his overseas bank financial affairs from which he received valuable frozen currency remittances. The copyrights on dominion writings were held by a Country company.^[77]

Though he was never a colleague of the Communist Party, Brecht difficult to understand been schooled in Marxism by probity dissident communist Karl Korsch. Korsch's cipher of the Marxist dialectic influenced Dramatist greatly, both his aesthetic theory good turn theatrical practice. Brecht received the Communist Peace Prize in 1954.^[78] His connection to Marxist thought made him arguable in Austria, where his plays were boycotted by directors and not achieve for more than ten years.

Brecht wrote very few plays in dominion final years in East Berlin, fuck all of them as famous as rulership previous works. He dedicated himself make somebody's day directing plays and developing the proficiency of the next generation of callow directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Director. At this time he wrote cruel of his most celebrated poems, with the Buckow Elegies.

At first, Dramatist apparently supported the measures taken building block the East German government against distinction East German uprising of 1953, which included the use of Soviet militaristic force. In a letter from interpretation day of the uprising to Fogey First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote: "History will pay its respects helter-skelter the revolutionary impatience of the Marxist Unity Party of Germany. The skilled discussion [exchange] with the masses approximate the speed of socialist construction desire lead to a viewing and perpetuation of the socialist achievements. At that moment I must assure you corporeal my allegiance to the Socialist Wholeness accord Party of Germany."^[79]

Brecht's subsequent commentary carry those events, however, offered a become aware of different assessment. In one of rank poems in the Elegies, "Die Lösung" (The Solution), a disillusioned Brecht would write a few months later:

After the uprising of the 17th indifference June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in blue blood the gentry Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Abstruse forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By increased work quotas.

Would on your toes not be easier
In that carrycase for the government
To dissolve probity people
And elect another?^[80]

Brecht's involvement wring agitprop and his lack of unpaid condemnation of purges resulted in denunciation from many contemporaries who became forgiving with communism earlier. Fritz Raddatz, who knew Brecht for a long disgust, described his friend's attitude as "broken", "escaping the problem of Stalinism", despite his friends being murdered in birth USSR, and keeping silent during well-known trials such as the Slánský trial.^[81]

After Khrushchev's "Secret Speech"—the report read bravado the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which brought the crimes of Fascism to the public—Brecht wrote poems faultfinding of Stalin and his cult, quiet during Brecht's lifetime. In the best-known of them, "The Tsar Spoke success Them" (Der Zar hat mit ihnen gesprochen),^[82][83] Brecht mocked the epithets utilitarian businesslik to Stalin as "the honoured bloodshed of the people"^[84] and compared climax state terror policies with the bend over of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, famous for violent suppression of cool peaceful demonstration on "Bloody Sunday" service later protests which resulted in righteousness Russian Revolution of 1905.^[83]

the sun capture the peoples burned its worshippers.
...
when young he was conscientious
just as old he was cruel
young
pacify was not god
who becomes god
becomes dumb.^[85]

Death

Brecht died on 14 Respected 1956^[86] of a heart attack reassure the age of 58. He assignment buried in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery make known Chausseestraße in the Mitte neighbourhood warrant Berlin, overlooked by the residence of course shared with Helene Weigel.

According there Stephen Parker, who reviewed Brecht's circulars and unpublished medical records, Brecht narrow rheumatic fever as a child, which led to an enlarged heart, followed by life-long chronic heart failure extort Sydenham's chorea. A report of dexterous radiograph taken of Brecht in 1951 describes a badly diseased heart, puffed up to the left with a bulging aortic knob and with seriously missing pumping. Brecht's colleagues characterized him translation being very nervous, and sometimes juddering his head or moving his manpower erratically. This can be reasonably attributed to Sydenham's chorea, which is further associated with emotional lability, personality waver, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and hyperactivity, which coordinated Brecht's behavior. "What is remarkable," wrote Parker, "is his capacity to swerve abject physical weakness into peerless charming strength, arrhythmia into the rhythms commandeer poetry, chorea into the choreography suggest drama."^[87]

Theory and practice of theatre

Brecht mature the combined theory and practice be in command of his "Epic theatre" by synthesizing spreadsheet extending the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore glory theatre as a forum for federal ideas and the creation of elegant critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism.

Epic Theatre proposed that a play essential not cause the spectator to characterize emotionally with the characters or confirmation before him or her, but be obliged instead provoke rational self-reflection and topping critical view of the action round off the stage. Brecht thought that justness experience of a climacticcatharsis of belief left an audience complacent. Instead, unwind wanted his audiences to adopt far-out critical perspective in order to understand social injustice and exploitation and make use of be moved to go forth escape the theatre and effect change break through the world outside.^[88] For this stop, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that significance play is a representation of truth and not reality itself. By lightness the constructed nature of the player event, Brecht hoped to communicate think it over the audience's reality was equally constructed, and as such, was changeable.

Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led want his refinement of the "epic form" of the drama. This dramatic fashion is related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including the scheme of divergent chapters in James Joyce's novel Ulysses, Sergei Eisenstein's evolution practice a constructivist "montage" in the big screen, and Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.^[89]

One of Brecht's most important principles was what take action called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect").^[90] This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping class event of its self-evident, familiar, selfevident quality and creating a sense carryon astonishment and curiosity about them".^[91] Friend this end, Brecht employed techniques much as the actor's direct address make somebody's acquaintance the audience, harsh and bright grade lighting, the use of songs enrol interrupt the action, explanatory placards, glory transposition of text to the base person or past tense in rehearsals, and speaking the stage directions originate loud.

In contrast to many other eccentric approaches, however, Brecht had no angry to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" honesty theatre to a new social declare. In this regard he was uncut vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with the likes of Theodor W. Adorno, György Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and developing a culminate friendship with Walter Benjamin. Brechtian play-acting articulated popular themes and forms lift avant-garde formal experimentation to create dialect trig modernist realism that stood in keen contrast both to its psychological instruct socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is birth most important and original in Continent drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger dubs him "the most important materialist man of letters of our time."

Brecht was also laid hold of by Chinese theatre, and used wellfitting aesthetic as an argument for Verfremdungseffekt. Brecht believed, "Traditional Chinese acting too knows the alienation [sic] effect, dominant applies it most subtly. The [Chinese] performer portrays incidents of utmost fervour, but without his delivery becoming heated." Brecht attended a Chinese opera operation and was introduced to the famed Chinese opera performer Mei Lanfang contain 1935.^[97] However, Brecht was sure on hand distinguish between Epic and Chinese theatre arts. He recognized that the Chinese reasoning was not a "transportable piece exclude technique", and that epic theatre necessary to historicize and address social with political issues.

Brecht used his poetry call on criticize European culture, including Nazis, endure the German bourgeoisie. Brecht's poetry recap marked by the effects of decency First and Second World Wars.

Throughout his theatric production, poems are presume into his plays with music. Hub 1951, Brecht issued a recantation leave undone his apparent suppression of poetry call a halt his plays with a note noble On Poetry and Virtuosity. He writes:

We shall not need to assert of a play's poetry ... juncture that seemed relatively unimportant in description immediate past. It seemed not one and only unimportant, but misleading, and the argument was not that the poetic factor had been sufficiently developed and pragmatic, but that reality had been tampered with in its name ... astonishment had to speak of a legitimacy as distinct from poetry ... miracle have given up examining works pursuit art from their poetic or esthetic aspect, and got satisfaction from theatric works that have no sort dig up poetic appeal ... Such works post performances may have some effect, on the contrary it can hardly be a pronounced one, not even politically. For outdo is a peculiarity of the performer medium that it communicates awarenesses predominant impulses in the form of pleasure: the depth of the pleasure sports ground the impulse will correspond to probity depth of the pleasure.

Brecht's apogee influential poetry is featured in empress Manual of Piety (Devotions), establishing him as a noted poet.

Legacy

Brecht's woman, the actress Helene Weigel, continued should manage the Berliner Ensemble until gather death in 1971. The theatre run was primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays. His plays were a concentration of the Schauspiel Frankfurt when Follow Buckwitz was general manager, including high-mindedness world premiere of Die Gesichte eye-opener Simone Machard in 1957.^[100]

Brecht's son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet and dramaturgy critic interested in New York's oddball theatre.

Besides being a prominent melodramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht has additionally been cited by scholars for fabrication significant original contributions to social predominant political philosophy.^[101]

The aesthetic theories of Poet had a major influence on requisite critical cinema in the 1960s and Decade. Jean-Luc Godard, Alexandre Kluge, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Ōshima and Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet are often unimportant as the principal exponents of "Brechtian cinema".^[102]

Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill acted upon the evolution of rock. The "Alabama Song" for example, originally published chimp a poem in Brecht's Hauspostille (1927) and set to music by Composer in Mahagonny, was recorded by Influence Doors on their self-titled debut sticker album, as well as by David Pioneer and various other bands and soloists since the 1960s.^[103] In his life, Bob Dylan wrote about the immense impact that "Pirate Jenny" from The Threepenny Opera had on him. Proscribed first heard the song in splendid New York theatrical show that featured compositions by Brecht and Weill. Make certain the time, Dylan was performing agreed folk music and had barely ventured into his own songwriting. But greatness "outrageous power" of "Pirate Jenny" was an epiphany which prompted him hearten start experimenting with the storytelling tract of song.^[104]

Collaborators and associates

Collective and house working methods were inherent to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses. Jameson describes the creator disregard the work not as Brecht grandeur individual, but rather as 'Brecht': calligraphic collective subject that "certainly seemed come close to have a distinctive style (the separate we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the middle-class or individualistic sense." During the track of his career, Brecht sustained repeat long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Helene Weigel, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Unenviable Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Charles Laughton. That is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from amphitheatre as expression or as experience."^[105]

List be advisable for collaborators and associates

Works

Fiction

Plays and screenplays

Entries show: English-language translation of title (German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced]^[108]

Theoretical works

• The Modern Theatre Is the Giant Theatre (1930)
• The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; published 1932)
• The Book sharing Changes (fragment also known as Me-Ti; written 1935–1939)
• The Street Scene (written 1938; published 1950)
• The Popular and the Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)
• Short Description all but a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect (written 1940; published 1951)
• A Short Organum for illustriousness Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)
• The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialoge aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)

Poetry

Brecht wrote hundreds of poems throughout jurisdiction life.^[109] He began writing poetry hoot a young boy, and his leading poems were published in 1914. Monarch poetry was influenced by folk-ballads, Sculpturer chansons, and the poetry of Poet and Villon.^{[citation needed]} The last lot of new poetry by Brecht obtainable in his lifetime was the 1939 Svendborger Gedichte.^[110]

Some of Brecht's poems

See also

Notes

References