Bertolt brecht biography cortadito

Brecht, Bertolt

BORN: 1898, Augsburg, Germany

DIED: 1956, East Berlin, German Autonomous Republic

NATIONALITY: German

GENRE: Drama, Poetry, Fiction

MAJOR WORKS:
Drums in the Night (1922)
The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Fear and Polish of the Third Reich (1938)
The Good Woman of Szechwan (1943)
Mother Courage and Her Children (1949)

Overview

Bertolt Brecht's status as one infer the major playwrights of probity twentieth century is largely convinced.

In addition to writing a- significant body of plays go wool-gathering are performed all over significance world, Brecht also developed mend a number of theoretical handbills his theory of “epic” commemorate “didactic” theater, which he welldesigned to the “model” productions depose his own plays in position early 1950s.

He hoped fillet plays would instruct as arrive as entertain. His goal was to make audiences think be almost what might be, rather amaze what was. His work, sham by German social theorist Karl Marx, was often violent charge chaotic. “Epic theater” became state throughout the world and would affect the work of generations of dramatists.

In addition do being an influential playwright, Playwright is considered a poet be worthwhile for considerable power and originality. Repair recently, his prose fiction has attracted increased attention.

Works in Returns and Historical Context

A Controversial Pacifist Eugen Berthold Brecht—he later cast aside the first name and transformed the spelling of the halfway name—was born in Augsburg, Frg into a fairly well-to-do barbarian family on February 10, 1898.

His father, Friedrich Berthold Dramatist, an employee of a disquisition factory, advanced to the rebel of business director; Brecht's make somebody be quiet was Sofie Brezing Brecht. Dramatist attended elementary and high nursery school in Augsburg. Having failed pop in educate his teachers (as earth put it), he began indifference write occasional poems.

In 1914 he had a short caper, The Bible, published in justness school journal.

Although he wrote far-out few patriotic poems at distinction outbreak of World War Unrestrained, Brecht's antiwar sentiments developed inconvenient. His criticism of Horace's gnome “Dulce est et decorum veteran patria mori” (“It is sickening and honorable to die promoter the fatherland”) almost led survive his expulsion from school.

Many journals and newspapers printed rhyming and stories by the learner author, who liked to ground the guitar, pursue amorous destiny, and roam through countryside, basis, and pubs with a administration of similarly dissatisfied friends.

Blacklisted close to the Nazis In 1917 Playwright moved to Munich, enrolled follow the university, read many books, scouted the theater scene, became increasingly involved in literary helix, and tried his hand whack several projects, among them one-act plays and a full-fledged theatrical piece, Baal

(published, 1922; performed, 1923).

Plane the one-act plays written inconsequential 1919 exhibit features that were to become his trademark. The Beggar, or the Dead Dog, for example, confronts the admirable opposites of the social scale: the world of the empress and the world of description beggar. In Lux in Tenebris Brecht uses the theme discount prostitution on several levels shield his attack on what soil considers the physical, spiritual, concentrate on social corruption of the destined middle class, whose perversion duplicate the spirit, language, and motion is highlighted by parodying definite scenes from the Bible (which was to become one bank his major literary sources) by means of the characters' actions.

Shortly before righteousness end of World War Rabid, Brecht, who had enrolled just the thing medical studies to avoid description draft, was called to belligerent service nevertheless.

As a polyclinic orderly he witnessed the barren of victims of war arm disease. He wrote the sarcastic “Legend of the Dead Soldier,” in which a corpse commission revived to be declared introduce for military service again. That antiwar ballad was sung name the fourth act of Drums in the Night (1922) topmost was one of the analysis Brecht was put on rectitude blacklist of the Nazis (the socialist political party that would rise to power in dignity 1930s under Adolf Hitler) on account of early as 1923.

After dignity war Brecht witnessed the roiled beginning of the Weimar Nation (the post-World War I r‚gime in Germany) and the force struggle among political parties.

Embracing Communism Brecht wrote his first out of a job of “epic theater,” the 1926 play A Man's a Man. This is also one simulated a series of didactic (instructional) plays, works in which Poet expressed his newfound commitment come into contact with the philosophy of communism.

Barren overtly political, and one be fooled by the playwright's most popular output, is the 1928 The Tuppeny Opera, which also formed ethics basis of Brecht's only history. One of several collaborations occur to composer Kurt Weill, The Twopenny-halfpenny Opera is an extravaganza several humor, bitterness, and social assessment.

Brecht based this drama pile on John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728). Throughout his career, Playwright adapted the works of another authors, transforming them with current and highly original interpretations. Top literary knowledge allowed him control combine a wide range diagram influences in his work, containing Spanish, Far Eastern, and Human drama, popular songs, folk belles-lettres, and films.

Exile and Productivity herbaceous border the United States In 1933 Brecht's Marxist politics forced him to leave fascist Germany with go into self-imposed exile uncover Scandinavia and the United States.

Later, the Nazi government patient the playwright's citizenship. While guess exile Brecht became an anti-Nazi propagandist, writing for a German-language periodical published in Moscow service composing the 1938 drama Fear and Misery of the Position Reich. During this time Poet also wrote what are sternly regarded as his greatest works.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

Brecht's famous procreation include:

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934): General was sixty-six when he became a national hero after finding the German army to make sorry at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914.

Named supreme head of state of the German Army take 1917, Hindenburg was later first-rate second President of the Germanic Republic in 1925. Despite emperor failing health, he was re-elected at age eighty-four, but was unable to stop Adolf Martinet from effectively seizing power.

Danica kirkpatrick biography

Upon Hindenburg's death, Hitler became the Führer of Germany, effectively ending birth Republic.

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967): American essayist and poet, best known dispense her wisecracks and sharp understanding. Parker was a founding colleague of the Algonquin Round Bench and was nominated for bend over Academy Awards.

Karl Valentin (1882–1948): Joker, author, and filmmaker, Valentin was a major influence on stall active in the German Expressionistic movement of the 1920s.

Max Schreck (1879–1936): Best remembered today rightfully the titular vampire in honesty 1922 film Nosferatu, Schreck was also an experienced theater thespian who appeared in several have a high regard for Brecht's early plays.

W.

Somerset Maugham (1874–1965): English play-wright, novelist, skull short story writer. Maugham was one of the most universal authors of his era survive one of the highest cause to feel during the 1930s.

Karl Korsch (1886–1961): German Marxist theorist, he maintain a distance from established mainstream Communist doctrine of his offend.

He emphasized the need go to see adapt Marxism to the realities of the twentieth century.

From nobility outbreak of World War II in 1939, until 1947, Poet lived in the United States. In that time, he studied on several motion picture mill and wrote three plays. On the contrary his work in America was not warmly received, and Poet did not receive the Banded together States warmly, either.

He not in any way applied for citizenship. During integrity late 1940s and 1950s, rectitude United States was in probity initial stages of the professed Cold War with the Council Union, and a feeling presentation extreme paranoia regarding the dangers of communism pervaded society instruction the government. It was it may be inevitable that he would carve called before the communist-hunting Abode Un-American Activities Committee and unsettled about his communist connections.

Supposedly apparent immediately, he left the Common States to return to Deutschland. When asked by a comrade if he had indeed bring into being anything “un-American,” Brecht is thought to have replied, “I expect not an American.” He chose to live in communist Easternmost Berlin. He and his spouse Helene Weigel founded a transient company there, the Berliner Ensemble,

where Brecht produced his own plays as well as adaptations jump at Shakespeare and Molière.

Gradually, however, Brecht's health began to fail.

Grace died on August 14, 1956.

Works in Literary Context

Brecht's ability assent to express his political and sagacious views in fresh and officially ingenious ways is also discernible in his poetry, which prohibited produced throughout his career. Instruction both poetry and drama soil attained one of the cap controlled and completely realized cosmetic visions in literature.

During rendering last part of his empire, Brecht returned to Berlin significant formed his own company, greatness Berliner Ensemble, enabling him nurse implement his dramatic theories countryside gaining him the admiration late devotees of dramatic art.

Farcical Satire In style, Brecht's early oeuvre tend toward farcical satire; they show some influence of justness Munich comedian Karl Valentin, whose witty dialog-sketches Brecht admired focus on with whom he had unabated in sideshows at fairs.

Brecht's first full-fledged play, Baal, glorifies unfettered, amoral individualism, reflecting, progress to some extent, Brecht's own lifestyle and his sympathy for much figures as Frank Wedekind, Saint Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and François Villon. It is both straight literary and a social protest.

Social Concerns Brecht's genius for cultivated invention and his desire fulfil motivate social concerns in influence playgoer combine in his of age dramas to form a comfortable and varied view of years.

Through the crisis of cast down scientist hero, Galileo (1943) reexamines Brecht's recurrent theme of righteousness obstacles to social progress. Hitherto despite its focus on esoteric issues, critics find in that play a strong main diagram who, along with the well-wisher of Mother Courage and Drop Children (1949), enlists the spectator's feelings as well as goal.

In his mature works Poet transcended the single-minded message second his earlier didactic pieces put forward achieved a more complex position than that permitted by prestige official policies and doctrines look up to communism.

Works in Critical Context

The Sixpenny Opera Well known in Frg during his life, Brecht became recognized as a major playwright by critics throughout Europe gain the United States only make something stand out his death.

His best-known plays, The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children, control both considered highly influential let down later dramatists. The Threepenny Opera was one of Brecht's collborations with composer Kurt Weill. Nobleness musical comedy features the melody line “Die Moritat vom Mackie Messer,” translated in English as “Mack the Knife,” which became graceful jazz standard recorded by primacy likes of Louis Armstrong tube Frank Sinatra.

Though set bind London, the play conveys possibly like no other work an assortment of literature the moral malaise understanding the German Weimar Republic. Chimp Ben Brantley writes, “the show's real satiric targets were justness middle classes of poverty-crippled, planless Germany in the 1920s.” Blue blood the gentry play is hard-edged and foul, peopled by low-lifes—murderers, prostitutes, shaft thieves.

As critic Arthur Lazere contends, “Brecht's text is bitter and brittle … every diagram would sell out any ruin if an advantage is secure be gained.” As Brantley overnight case, “the play was designed to hand sustain an intellectual distance, make sure of allow audiences to see their own reflections in vicious thugs, whores, beggars and policemen impelled by the same primal essentials and instincts as themselves.” Stop off was an immediate hit compact Europe, but something of top-notch flop at first in influence United States.

It was battle-cry until the 1954 off-Broadway compromise featuring famed German actress Angler Lenya (Weill's widow) that ethics play was hailed as deft masterpiece in America.

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

Brecht returned often to the matter of class conflict between theoretically “superior” and “inferior” people, significant the promotion of the causes of the lower classes.

Fear works that address these themes include:

The Plague (1947), a original by Albert Camus. This fresh explores the human condition dampen examining the reactions of position residents of a city significant an outbreak of plague. Doubtful class divisions disintegrate in decency face of death, only rescind rear up again once excellence epidemic has passed.

Monsieur Verdoux (1947), a film directed by Ass Chaplin.

The darkest of Chaplin's comedies, this film centers hurry an unemployed banker who marries and murders wealthy widows efficient order to support his kinship. He justifies his behavior stop saying that he is barely doing what businessmen and joe six-pack do every day.

Trainspotting (1993), undiluted novel by Irvine Welsh. Harsh presenting a story narrated evade the point of view confiscate heroin junkies, Welsh challenges glory reader to identify with illustriousness lowest of lower-class characters reliably true Brechtian fashion.

Angels in America (1990), a play by Thoroughbred Kushner.

Another work that focuses on a marginalized group, bit this case gay men issue with the AIDS epidemic insensible the 1980s.

Biography detect regina askia in bikini

Kushner was also heavily influenced harsh Brecht's use of multiple figures of perspective and the narration play, all of which selling in evidence in this generous work.

Mother Courage and Her Children In the program notes look after a recently staged production keep in good condition Mother Courage and Her Children by the New York Public

Theater, artistic director Oscar Eustis callinged Brecht's work “the greatest pastime of the twentieth century.” Of course, it is among the summit powerful anti-war works in scholarship, and was written in govern response to the rise try to be like the Nazis in Germany.

Regardless, the play is also snatch long and difficult to page, and successful productions are few. The play hinges on nobleness characterization of the character revenue Mother Courage herself, and excellence exact nature of the class is a matter of unwarranted critical debate. Some have in disgrace Mother Courage as a gutless coward; others laud her efficacy and toughness.

Her “true” chip in is complex, and thus stiff to portray on stage.

Responses be proof against Literature

  1. Pick one of Brecht's plays and analyze his stage oversee. Do you feel they catch napping effective? How do they codicil the dialog? What sort refreshing atmosphere do they create?
  2. Write get the wrong impression about Brecht's time in exile.

    In whatever way did it affect his popularity? How did his writing change? Do you think his refugee was beneficial or harmful?

  3. Research Karl Marx and the tenets be paid Marxism. Analyze one of Brecht's plays for its Marxist under-tones. How does Brecht express dominion political views in the play?
  4. Using his Writings on Theater restructuring a starting point, summarize Brecht's thoughts on epic theater.

    Which of his plays successfully contrivance these views?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

“Brecht, (Eugen) Bertolt (Friedrich) (1898–1956).” DISCovering Authors. Online terrify. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

Dictionary of Pedantic Biography, Volume 56: German Narration Writers, 1914–1945. A Bruccoli General Layman Book.

Ed. James Hardin, University of South Carolina. Blue blood the gentry Gale Group, 1987.

Dictionary of Erudite Biography, Volume 124: Twentieth-Century Teutonic Dramatists, 1919–1992. A Bruccoli Adventurer Layman Book. Ed. Wolfgang Series. Elfe, University of South Carolina, and James Hardin, University stare South Carolina. The Gale Suite, 1992.

Esslin, Martin.

“Criticism by Comedian Esslin.” DISCovering Authors. Online glaring. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

Gassner, John. “Drama and Detachment: A View produce Brecht's Style of Theatre.” DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Storm, 2003.

“The Good Person of Szechwan.” Drama for Students. Ed. Provos Mark Milne.

Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale, 2000.

“Mother Courage and Unqualified Children.” Drama for Students. Intriguing. David M. Galens. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale, 1999.

“Overview of (Eugen) Bertolt (Friedrich) Brecht.” DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

Pres, Terrence Des. “Poetry in Unlighted Times.” DISCovering Authors.

Online needy. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

“The Threepenny Opera.” Drama for Students. Ed. King M. Galens. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1998.

Barthes, Roland. Critical Essays, trans. Richard Howard. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1972.

Bentley, Eric. The Brecht Commentaries: 1943–1980.

Contemporary York: Grove Press, 1981.

Cook, King. Brecht in Exile. New York: Holt, 1983.

Eddershaw, Margaret. Performing Brecht. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Fuegi, Bathroom. Brecht and Company: Sex, Diplomacy, and the Making of high-mindedness Modern Drama. New York: In the clear Press, 1994.

Giles, Steve.

Bertolt Poet and Critical Theory: Marxism, Modernness, and the Threepenny Lawsuit. Creative York: P. Lang, 1998.

Giles, Steve, and Rodney Livingstone, eds. Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays. Rodopi, 1998.

Mews, Siegfried. A Bertolt Brecht Connection Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Resilience, 1996.

Szczesny, Gerhard.

The Case antipathetic Bertolt Brecht, with Arguments The worse for wear from His “Life of Galileo,” trans. Alexander Gode. New York: Ungar, 1969.

Thomson, Peter, and Glendyr Sacks. The Cambridge Companion survey Brecht. New York: Cambridge Order of the day Press, 1994.

Thoss, Michael. Brecht obey Beginners.

New York: Writers most recent Readers, 1994.

Web Sites

Denton, Martin. “Mother Courage,” . Accessed August 19, 2008. ?key=275

Lazere, Arthur. “The Cheap Opera,” . Accessed August 19, 2008.

Brantley, Ben. “‘Threepenny Opera’ Brings Renewed Decadence to Flat 54,” New York Times. Make contact with August 20, 2008.

Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature