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Poems 1913-1956
First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
564 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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1372 people want to read
About the author
Bertolt Brecht
1,604 books1,922 followersEugen 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
November 3, 2015
Very socially aware and political and also pretty funny at times. The chronology also makes it an interesting read, as you turn the pages, the years keep adding up, poems about the german revolution and the 1920's give way to poems about the rise of fascism, his exile, WWII and finally his return to Germany.
She saw that I was wicked, and she loved me.
----
BORN LATER
I admit it: I
Have no hope.
The blind talk of a way out.
I See
When the errors have been used up
As our last companion, facing us
Sits nothingness.
----
What of the skyscrapers?
We observe them more coolly.
What contemptible hovels skyscrapers are
when they no longer yield rents!
Rising so high, full of poverty?
Touching the clouds, full of debt?
----
The engineers who thought up mass production
To milk the workers of their energy
I praise them for their technical perfection.
It's such sheer mastery it makes me cry
----
Rich man and his poorer brother
Stood and looked at one another
Till the poor one softly swore:
You'd not be rich if I weren't poor
----
The headlong stream is termed violent
But the river bed hemming it in is
Termed violent by no one.
The storm that bends the birch trees
Is held to be violent
But how about the storm
That bends the backs of the roadworker?
----
It is night
The married couples
Lie in their beds.
The young women
Will bear orphans
----
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect: He can think.
----
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.
She saw that I was wicked, and she loved me.
----
BORN LATER
I admit it: I
Have no hope.
The blind talk of a way out.
I See
When the errors have been used up
As our last companion, facing us
Sits nothingness.
----
What of the skyscrapers?
We observe them more coolly.
What contemptible hovels skyscrapers are
when they no longer yield rents!
Rising so high, full of poverty?
Touching the clouds, full of debt?
----
The engineers who thought up mass production
To milk the workers of their energy
I praise them for their technical perfection.
It's such sheer mastery it makes me cry
----
Rich man and his poorer brother
Stood and looked at one another
Till the poor one softly swore:
You'd not be rich if I weren't poor
----
The headlong stream is termed violent
But the river bed hemming it in is
Termed violent by no one.
The storm that bends the birch trees
Is held to be violent
But how about the storm
That bends the backs of the roadworker?
----
It is night
The married couples
Lie in their beds.
The young women
Will bear orphans
----
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect: He can think.
----
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.
April 26, 2021
Nolitovo izdanje iz 1979. godine sa izborom i prevodom Slobodana Glumca. Svako domaćinstvo treba da ima po jedan primerak.
April 5, 2017
As a way of living together we merely thought of capitalism.
Thinking of physics, we thought up rather more:
A way of dying together.
This is an epic collection of verse, one which haunts, beguiles and reveals the horror of 20C darkness. No saint, Brecht certainly bled, confounded by the turns of history and sought poetic reflection when able. Too often, he wasn't able. Consider his hymns to Stalin.
His vision is concerned with justice, his voice appears shaken with empathy. Images of hunger and despair abound.
There are also reflections on theater, his more famed milieu. These stir with a minimum of action.
He devoted a poem to a postwar encounter with WH Auden.
Lunching me, a kindly act
In an alehouse, still intact
He sat looming like a cloud
Over the beer-sodden crowd
And kept harping with persistence
On the bare fact of existence
I.e. a theory built around it
Recently in France propounded.
Auden apparently had no recollection of this meeting, which is just as well.
Thinking of physics, we thought up rather more:
A way of dying together.
This is an epic collection of verse, one which haunts, beguiles and reveals the horror of 20C darkness. No saint, Brecht certainly bled, confounded by the turns of history and sought poetic reflection when able. Too often, he wasn't able. Consider his hymns to Stalin.
His vision is concerned with justice, his voice appears shaken with empathy. Images of hunger and despair abound.
There are also reflections on theater, his more famed milieu. These stir with a minimum of action.
He devoted a poem to a postwar encounter with WH Auden.
Lunching me, a kindly act
In an alehouse, still intact
He sat looming like a cloud
Over the beer-sodden crowd
And kept harping with persistence
On the bare fact of existence
I.e. a theory built around it
Recently in France propounded.
Auden apparently had no recollection of this meeting, which is just as well.
September 22, 2017
Espécie de resumão poético do que aconteceu sociopoliticamente na primeira metade do século XX, é um livro pra se carregar debaixo do braço enquanto clamas por teus direitos. Livrão.
September 23, 2023
deixei esse livro na minha cabeceira pelos últimos meses. algumas vezes lia só um ou dois, achava chato e ia direto dormir. outras vezes me empolgava e lia vários e vários na sequência (principalmente quando chegou na parte mais política dele). vários poemas bonitos salvos na galeria de fotos do meu celular para serem reencontrados em outro momento.
acho que podiam ter mais notas de rodapé e contextualizações feitas pelo tradutor, que optou por não fazê-lo.
"Laura, espero que as páginas comunistas deste livro sejam tão valiosas pra você como foram em certos momentos para mim [...]" é o que meu amigo escreveu na dedicatória. Foram sim.
acho que podiam ter mais notas de rodapé e contextualizações feitas pelo tradutor, que optou por não fazê-lo.
"Laura, espero que as páginas comunistas deste livro sejam tão valiosas pra você como foram em certos momentos para mim [...]" é o que meu amigo escreveu na dedicatória. Foram sim.
January 3, 2021
Um pequeno livro sobre o grande acervo de poemas do escritor alemão. Este representa aproximadamente 25% de toda a sua produção em poesia.
Esta maravilhosa antologia está dividida em períodos históricos com temas variados como: a luta contra o fascismo, a Alemanha, finitude da vida, poemas para crianças (incluindo o belíssimo e pujante A Cruzada das Crianças), a lírica da natureza entre tantos outros.
Um grande livro pra ser lido e relido. Um maravilhoso presente para algum amigo querido.
Esta maravilhosa antologia está dividida em períodos históricos com temas variados como: a luta contra o fascismo, a Alemanha, finitude da vida, poemas para crianças (incluindo o belíssimo e pujante A Cruzada das Crianças), a lírica da natureza entre tantos outros.
Um grande livro pra ser lido e relido. Um maravilhoso presente para algum amigo querido.
October 6, 2025
51/2025
a poesia é sempre política — querendo ou não
mas na obra de brecht, sinto que outra coisa acontece
a política é poesia
e é bonito, mesmo quando é feio
a poesia é sempre política — querendo ou não
mas na obra de brecht, sinto que outra coisa acontece
a política é poesia
e é bonito, mesmo quando é feio
December 19, 2007
THE Brecht poetry collection. Don't bother with anything else until you've spent a decade with it.
The clarity of thought here is magnificent, especially since that clarity doesn't come at the expense of radical doubt and formal experiment. What a writer--from teenage surreal prose poems that are better than the poems they imitate, to harsh and cynical satires of urban life, to political and philosophical meditations (some of the best dialectical thinking anywhere), to compact elegies and haiku-like crystals. Nothing to compare it to anywhere.
The clarity of thought here is magnificent, especially since that clarity doesn't come at the expense of radical doubt and formal experiment. What a writer--from teenage surreal prose poems that are better than the poems they imitate, to harsh and cynical satires of urban life, to political and philosophical meditations (some of the best dialectical thinking anywhere), to compact elegies and haiku-like crystals. Nothing to compare it to anywhere.
September 24, 2020
"(...) Quando pela primeira vez foi relatado que nossos amigos estavam sendo mortos, houve um grito de horror. Centenas foram mortos então. Mas quando milhares foram mortos e a matança era sem fim, o silêncio tomou conta de tudo.
Quando o crime acontece como a chuva que cai, ninguém mais grita 'alto!'.
Quando as maldades se multiplicam, tornam-se invisíveis.
Quando os sofrimentos se tornam insuportáveis, não se ouvem mais os gritos.
Também os gritos caem como a chuva de verão."
Quando o crime acontece como a chuva que cai, pp. 128, 1933-1938
Não estou gostando de todos os poemas. Mas alguns são extraordinários. E parece que falam sobre o nosso tempo. Na verdade o mais impressionante do Brecht é sua abertura para falar dos acontecimentos. Ele faz caber tudo na poesia. Eu ouvi uma vez que o romance era o gênero onde qualquer outra forma textual podia ser incorporada, mas Brecht faz o mesmo com a poesia.
Ideias tradicionais sobre natureza são questionadas, e o poema em suas mãos ganha uma força comunicativa impressionante. Mesmo que às vezes a mensagem não funcione para mim, admiro sua coragem, suas escolhas e coerência. E quando funciona, como acima, é muito poderoso.
Não gosto da falta de questionamento com o próprio comunismo, com o futuro inevitável que viria etc. Como em "Cometemos um erro". Acho que ele muda no final da vida mas, não sei se pela coletânea ou no total, é pouco. Sendo sua poesia tão política, essas questões são inevitáveis.
December 30, 2016
Sem palavras. Como ler esses poemas e não se comover?
PERGUNTAS DE UM TRABALHADOR QUE LÊ
Quem construiu a Tebas de sete portas?
Nos livros estão nomes de reis:
Arrastaram eles os blocos de pedra?
E a Babilônia várias vezes destruída
Quem a reconstruiu tantas vezes?
Em que casas da Lima dourada moravam os construtores?
Para onde foram os pedreiros, na noite em que a Muralha da China ficou pronta?
A grande Roma está cheia de arcos do triunfo:
Quem os ergueu?
Sobre quem triunfaram os Césares?
A decantada Bizâncio
Tinha somente palácios para os seus habitantes?
Mesmo na lendária Atlântida
Os que se afogavam
gritaram por seus escravos
Na noite em que o mar a tragou?
O jovem Alexandre conquistou a Índia.
Sozinho?
César bateu os gauleses.
Não levava sequer um cozinheiro?
Filipe da Espanha chorou,
quando sua Armada naufragou.
Ninguém mais chorou?
Frederico II venceu a Guerra dos Sete Anos.
Quem venceu além dele?
Cada página uma vitória.
Quem cozinhava o banquete?
A cada dez anos um grande Homem.
Quem pagava a conta?
Tantas histórias.
Tantas questões
PERGUNTAS DE UM TRABALHADOR QUE LÊ
Quem construiu a Tebas de sete portas?
Nos livros estão nomes de reis:
Arrastaram eles os blocos de pedra?
E a Babilônia várias vezes destruída
Quem a reconstruiu tantas vezes?
Em que casas da Lima dourada moravam os construtores?
Para onde foram os pedreiros, na noite em que a Muralha da China ficou pronta?
A grande Roma está cheia de arcos do triunfo:
Quem os ergueu?
Sobre quem triunfaram os Césares?
A decantada Bizâncio
Tinha somente palácios para os seus habitantes?
Mesmo na lendária Atlântida
Os que se afogavam
gritaram por seus escravos
Na noite em que o mar a tragou?
O jovem Alexandre conquistou a Índia.
Sozinho?
César bateu os gauleses.
Não levava sequer um cozinheiro?
Filipe da Espanha chorou,
quando sua Armada naufragou.
Ninguém mais chorou?
Frederico II venceu a Guerra dos Sete Anos.
Quem venceu além dele?
Cada página uma vitória.
Quem cozinhava o banquete?
A cada dez anos um grande Homem.
Quem pagava a conta?
Tantas histórias.
Tantas questões
October 1, 2008
This is a very comprehensive collection of Brecht poetry and a standard reference work.As one reviewer said -- it's fire cracker exploding in German literature. I agree despite my limitation to English translation.These are powerful poems...
November 8, 2020
"In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, about the dark times."
A whistleblower, a refugee, a man delighting in tree and water and earthly pleasures, and feeling guilty and torn about that. Watch lazy gliding down the river transform into a scarce, busy city. Watch the city begin to run with putrescence and blood; watch the man flee; watch him come to America. Watch him come back.
As always, pity about the Soviet sympathies, but Brecht has a genre named after him for a reason.
Yes, about the dark times."
A whistleblower, a refugee, a man delighting in tree and water and earthly pleasures, and feeling guilty and torn about that. Watch lazy gliding down the river transform into a scarce, busy city. Watch the city begin to run with putrescence and blood; watch the man flee; watch him come to America. Watch him come back.
As always, pity about the Soviet sympathies, but Brecht has a genre named after him for a reason.
April 9, 2022
a poética de Brecht é especialíssima - e igualmente belíssimo é o trabalho de tradução que seus versos sofreram para moldarem-se em esta língua portuguesa. quanta beleza, quanta maravilha, quanto sentimento pude sentir em seus sonetos e versos livres! tudo me encantou. esta poesia é preciosa e de valor imenso.
February 22, 2021
A poesia de Brecht é urbana, é camponesa, é universal: é do povo oprimido da Europa e do povo oprimido de todo o mundo, do povo que luta e reage.
De tudo isso, surge um novo aprendizado: A poesia ou é concretamente combativa, ou ela já nascerá no Velho.
De tudo isso, surge um novo aprendizado: A poesia ou é concretamente combativa, ou ela já nascerá no Velho.
December 26, 2025
um dos poemas de que gostei bastante:
A MÁSCARA DO MAL
Em minha parede há uma escultura de madeira japonesa
Máscara de um demônio mau, coberta de esmalte dourado.
Compreensivo observo
As veias dilatadas da fronte, indicando
Como é cansativo ser mau.
A MÁSCARA DO MAL
Em minha parede há uma escultura de madeira japonesa
Máscara de um demônio mau, coberta de esmalte dourado.
Compreensivo observo
As veias dilatadas da fronte, indicando
Como é cansativo ser mau.
October 16, 2017
3 1/4 poems
June 24, 2019
Brecht. Sempre necessário.
October 30, 2020
Lindoooooo
January 6, 2021
Translated poetry is always disappointing.
October 28, 2021
Pra ler despretensiosamente e no ritmo que quiser. Eu adoro poemas e Bertolt foi uma pessoa política - isso transpõe na sua escrita e eu gosto disso.
August 13, 2022
Read this off of how blown away I was by War Primer and War Primer remains imo the high water mark.
Oddly enough, I think his most evocative poems were the seafaring ones of his youth.
Oddly enough, I think his most evocative poems were the seafaring ones of his youth.
March 8, 2024
é a minha bíblia.
May 26, 2025
Em muitos momentos parecia mais uma coleção de planfetos políticos do que de poemas, mas a riqueza das ideias me abalaram de uma forma que apenas Brecht conseguiria.
August 20, 2009
Fantástico, embora confesse que fiquei desiludida com a ausência de um dos meus poemas preferidos de Bertolt Brecht, "Sobre a violência", onde se pode ler, numa das traduções mais bem conseguidas, "Do rio que tudo arrasta / se diz que é violento / mas ninguém diz violentas / as margens que o comprimem".
Gostei muito de encontrar Chico Buarque nos poemas "A jenny-dos-piratas" e "A canção do não e do sim".
Aconselho vivamente.
Gostei muito de encontrar Chico Buarque nos poemas "A jenny-dos-piratas" e "A canção do não e do sim".
Aconselho vivamente.
July 18, 2012
Brecht approaches the reader without the arrogance of a theorist interested in instructing the audience how to think. He is more candid, both personally and politically, willing to condemn his own weaknesses and, in his later years, those of the movement that he had defended at any cost. And, most importantly, his poetry is fresh, direct, cutting and beautiful, even in translation. This is a volume that those who are interested in writing poetry should have.
Want to read
November 27, 2011Stephen King recommended author as noted in Chapter 9 of Berkley's 1983 paperback edition of Danse Macabre.
February 12, 2007
اگر شعر رسالته تنها کسی است که دیدم رسالتش رو درست انجام داده
July 16, 2017
Epic! Simply brilliant.
December 4, 2014
بريشت شاهر موهوب ،بيرفض استخدام موهبته بحرية ككاتب .. بشكل شخصي بقيت بفضل هذا النوع من الاقتصاد ...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews