Brecht On Art And Politics

by Bertolt Brecht

This volume contains new translations to extend our image of one of the twentieth century's most entertaining and thought provoking writers on culture, aesthetics and politics. Here are a cross-section of Brecht's wide-ranging thoughts which offer us an extraordinary window onto the concerns of a modern world in four decades of economic and political disorder. The book is designed to give wider access to the experience of a dynamic intellect, radically engaged with social, political and cultural processes. Each section begins with a short essay by the editors introducing and summarising Brecht's thought in the relevant year.

Genres: Nonfiction

366 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 6, 2015

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

[Ine Mahiques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precioso y triste

[Leylamaría · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The most important lesson was that a future for man king was becoming visible only ‘from below, from the standpoint of the oppressed and exploited. Only by fighting with them does one fight for mankind. (. . .) Throughout their whole lives, people under capitalism fight for their bare existence—against each other. Parents fight for their children, children for their inheritance, the small retailer fights for his shop with the other small retailers, and all of them fight with the large retailer. The peasant fights with the townsman, the pupils fight with the teacher, the ordinary people fight with the authorities, the factories fight with the banks, the companies fight with companies. How, given all this, are nations to end up not fighting nations?

The nations whose people have fought successfully for a socialist economy have adopted a wonderful position with regard to peace. People’s instincts are becoming peaceful. The struggle of everyone against everyone is being transformed into the struggle of everyone for everyone. Anyone who benefits society benefits himself. Anyone who benefits himself benefits society. The people who have it good are those who are useful, no longer those who are harmful. Progress ceases to mean stealing a march on the competition, and discoveries are no longer kept secret from anyone, but are instead made accessible to all. The new inventions can be received with joy and hope, instead of with horror and fear.

I myself have experienced two world wars. Now, approaching old age, I know that a monstrous war is being prepared anew. But a quarter of the world has now adopted peace, and in other parts socialist ideas are advancing. Ordinary people everywhere have a separate desire for peace. In the intellectual professions many people with different levels of awareness are fighting for peace. That includes the capitalist states. But our best hope for peace lies with the workers and the peasants, in their own states and in the capitalist states.

Long live peace! Long live your great peaceful state, the stare of the workers and peasants.”

—

[delightful to see Brecht grow from a teen Jughead kinnie to a commie. Good for him. 5 stars not bc I agree w all of his analysis but bc I just legitimately enjoyed it enough to warrant 5 stars!! There’s some very good commentary on theory here I think]