Ausgewählte Gedichte

by Bertolt Brecht

German

Genres: Poetry

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. A seminal theatre practitioner of the twentieth century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble—the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife and long-time collaborator, the actress Helene Weigel—with its internationally acclaimed productions.

From his late twenties Brecht remained a life-long committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his 'epic theatre', synthesized and extended the experiments of Piscator and Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the 'epic form' of the drama (which constitutes that medium's rendering of 'autonomization' or the 'non-organic work of art'—related in kind to the strategy of divergent chapters in Joyce's novel Ulysses, to Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist 'montage' in the cinema, and to Picasso's introduction of cubist 'collage' in the visual arts). In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to 're-function' the apparatus of theatrical production to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the 'high art/popular culture' dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger insists that he is "the most important materialist writer of our time."

As Jameson among others has stressed, "Brecht is also ‘Brecht’"—collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to his approach. This 'Brecht' was a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."

There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner and Caryl Churchill. In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.

During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur. He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had forgotten how funny Brecht can be!

...remembering mainly the oppressive immediacy of his painful exile poetry, when he was waiting outside his former stage, watching the world rage around him, believing he couldn't possibly write about the beauty of a tree while Hitler's voice cut through the void via the radio...

...remembering his scathing comment on the government in East Germany after the 17th June, which bizarrely claimed "the people" had abused the "trust" of those in power and had to work hard to earn it again. Brecht's suggestion that it would be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect a new one is one of my all time favourite lines of poetry...

... remembering the touching appeal to a happier future generation to judge him and his raging contemporaries kindly: fighting against violence makes voices sound aggressive, even when they argue for peace...

... remembering all that from my school days, I had forgotten Brecht's hilarious self-reflective poetry, making fun of himself and the form and content of what he was writing as well...

So I had an unexpected good laugh, walking down memory lane and discovering forgotten joy!

[Annabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eigentlich tue ich mich ja schwer damit, Gedichtbände am Ende ganz pauschal zu bewerten. Wieder Erwarten gefielen mir jedoch die meisten dieser Gedichte. Während des Lesens der chronologisch angeordneten Gedichte kann man ganz gut - wenn man Brechts Biografie kennt - seine Entwicklungen beobachten und nachvollziehen.

„Das kleine Haus unter Bäumen am See.
Vom Dach steigt Rauch.
Fehlte er
Wie trostlos dann wären
Haus, Bäume und See.“

(-> Ein wundervolles Gedicht, das gleichzeitig ganz repräsentativ für seine sehr kurzen und eher schlichte Gedichte gegen Lebensende sind.)

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brecht las ich vorher nur auf Englisch übersetzt, als ich an der Uni war. Dass er der modernen Theaterkunst von bestimmten Bedeutung war, wusste ich, aber wie er immer noch den Nagel auf dem Kopf trifft, indem er über politische Unrechtigkeiten und die nicht zu ertragen Ausbeutung unsere Gesellschaft, habe ich entweder an der Uni nicht beachtet oder wurde es mir dank einem spießigen mittelmäßigen Professor sogar nicht unterrichtet. Als Ami im Exil, der mir entsetzt anschaut, während meine Heimat in den Griff von Faschismus einfällt, sind die Gedichte dieser Sammlung gleichzeiting etwas tröstend aber auch bestürzend. Brecht dokumentiert eben wie dieser Wahnsinn an die Macht kommt, und damit klarzukommen, weist er zwei Handlungsweise auf: die Zuflucht in den Fantasien und in die intellektuelle Tiefe. Die Jahre der Veröffentlichung dieser Gedichte fassen von 1913 bis 1956 um, also nicht alle Gedichte müssen sich mit den Nazis auseinandersetzen, aberdoch die Mehrheit. Brecht kann beiden Niveaus: hoch, gelehrt, beredsam, sowohl unterschichtig, bauermäßig, aufm Land. Wie er sie zusammenmischt, lässt einen gut unterhalten.

[Mario · Rating 5 out of 5]

dea Typ is so geil, er mochd mei Höschen noss