Bertolt Brecht’s Followers (1,916)

Bertolt Brecht

Born

in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany

February 10, 1898

Died

August 14, 1956

Genre

Fiction, Poetry, Theatre

Influences

Georg Büchner, Karl Korsch, Karl Marx, James Joyce, Ernst Bloch ...more

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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 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. ...more

Combine Editions
Bertolt Brecht’s books

Average rating: 3.74 · 105,729 ratings · 5,216 reviews · 1,609 distinct works • Similar authors

	Mother Courage and Her Children 3.62 avg rating — 22,588 ratings — published 1941 — 79 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, Eric Bentley, Charles Laughton (Translator) 3.66 avg rating — 18,632 ratings — published 1943 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill (Music), John Willett (Editor) 3.88 avg rating — 14,349 ratings — published 1928 — 120 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Good Woman of Setzuan 3.66 avg rating — 13,301 ratings — published 1943 — 97 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, Eric Bentley 3.74 avg rating — 9,074 ratings — published 1948 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui 3.80 avg rating — 2,672 ratings — published 1941 — 66 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stories of Mr. Keuner 3.87 avg rating — 1,776 ratings — published 1958 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (Translator), Tom Kuhn (Editor) 4.09 avg rating — 1,515 ratings — published 1938	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Brecht on Theatre by Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (Translator), Steve Giles (Editor) 4.18 avg rating — 1,345 ratings — published 1964 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Threepenny Novel by Bertolt Brecht, Christopher Isherwood (Translator), Desmond I. Vesey (Translator) 3.78 avg rating — 1,218 ratings — published 1934 — 99 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Bertolt Brecht…

Series by Bertolt Brecht

Brecht Collected Plays (8 books)
by

Bertolt Brecht,

Ellen Rank (Translator),

Hugh Rank (Translator),

James Stern (Translator),

Tania Stern (Translator),

W.H. Auden (Translator),

William Rowlinson (Translator),

John Willett (Editor)

3.92 avg rating — 452 ratings

Günlükler (2 books)
by

Bertolt Brecht,

İlke Gökdemir (Translator)

4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings

Quotes by Bertolt Brecht (?)

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it.”
― Bertolt Brecht

1881 likes

“Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.”
― Bertolt Brecht

tags: book, hunger, weapon

1551 likes

“The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.”
― Bertolt Brecht

tags: abuse, history, humanity, kiss, life, mankind, scars, wounds

845 likes

See all Bertolt Brecht's quotes »

Polls

April 2023 Short Story/Novella Poll

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, 55 pages, 1997

48 votes, 23.5%

The Color Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft, 25 pages, 1927

44 votes, 21.6%

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol, 24 pages, 1842

39 votes, 19.1%

A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka84 pages, 1924

27 votes, 13.2%

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark, 103 pages, 1970

23 votes, 11.3%

Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht, 105 pages, 1941

12 votes, 5.9%

In a Grove by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, 14 pages, 1922

11 votes, 5.4%

204 total votes

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