Poesie

by Bertolt Brecht, Guido Davico Bonino (editor), Cesare Cases (contributor)

Testo a fronte

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

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

[Eleonora · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Debolezze
tu non ne avevi.
Io ne avevo una:
amavo"

credo che questa poesia basti per avvicinarsi a lui e alle sue grandissime opere. 🦋

[Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Segnato dalle poetiche avanguardistiche di inizio Novecento e da una biografia molto travagliata a causa del lungo esilio, Bertolt Brecht è uno degli autori tedeschi contemporanei più noti. Lo conoscevo solo come drammaturgo, ma devo ammettere che si è rivelato davvero un grande poeta, capace di fotografare con delicatezza nei suoi versi personaggi umili, sempre visti con un'ottica egualitaria e filantropica. Ho apprezzato molto anche le poesie di denuncia verso il Nazismo e verso gli orrori della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, in cui demistifica e ridicolizza la becera retorica dell'"imbianchino" Hitler.
Non ho molto apprezzato la scelta del curatore di inserire anche poesie tratte dalle opere teatrali di Brecht in questa antologia: a mio parere, risultano le più deboli della raccolta, forse perché decontestualizzate.

[Terra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"dentro di me si affrontano
l'entusiasmo per il melo in fiore
e l'orrore per i discorsi dell'imbianchino.
ma solo il secondo impulso
mi spinge alla scrivania"

(ma anche:
"non senza motivo
lo spuntare di un nuovo giorno
è preceduto dal canto del gallo
che annuncia dai tempi dei tempi
un tradimento")

[Giulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alcune poesie hanno un impatto visivo impagabile

[Elisa Bandini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Da leggere in un giorno. Moltissimi i temi. Un cinismo che si avvicina sempre di più alla realtà. A tratti tenero.

[Milena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per nulla ciò che mi aspettavo. Forse dovrò rileggerle più avanti, in un altro periodo della mia vita, per poterle apprezzarle appieno. Verissimo il fatto che alcuni testi mi sono proprio piaciuti, altri molto meno, quindi il mio giudizio resta un po' disequilibrato.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A

[Axel Shut · Rating 3 out of 5]

alcune poesie in sè meriterebbero di più

[KimchiBob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alcune poesie sono veramente molto belle

[Iman Assaber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quello che in te era altura
lo hanno spianato
e la tua valle
l'hanno interrata.
Sopra di te passa
una strada comoda.