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Bertolt Brecht

    February 10, 1898 – August 14, 1956

    Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director who radically transformed 20th-century theatre. His "epic theatre" synthesized theory and practice, using the stage as a forum for political ideas and critical aesthetics. Brecht sought to "re-function" theatrical production for new social uses, distinguishing him from other avant-garde approaches. His innovative form, which merged popular themes with experimental aesthetics, created a modernist realism with a lasting impact on drama, film, and theatrical practice worldwide.

    Bertolt Brecht
    Journals
    War primer
    The collected poems of Bertolt Brecht
    Mutter Courage Und Ihre Kinder Ed Sander
    Paris Commune 150
    Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti
    • 2021

      This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

      The Private Life of the Master Race, a Documentary Play
    • 2021

      Paris Commune 150

      • 112 pages
      • 4 hours of reading

      The book explores the Paris Commune of 1871, highlighting its brief but impactful experiment in democracy and workers' governance. It includes Marx's address on the Commune, Lenin's reflections on its significance for building socialism, and Bertolt Brecht's poetic tribute. Additionally, it features the Manifesto of the Paris Commune's Federation of Artists, showcasing the cultural and political aspirations of the time. Together, these texts provide insights into revolutionary thought and the enduring legacy of the Commune in shaping socialist ideals.

      Paris Commune 150
    • 2019

      Brecht was never inclined to see any of his plays as completely finished, and this volume collects some of the most important theatrical projects and fragments that were always to remain 'works in progress'. Offering an invaluable insight into the writer's working methods and practices, the collection features the famous Fatzer as well as The Bread Store and Judith of Shimoda, along with other texts that have never before been available in English. Alongside the familiar, 'completed' plays, Brecht worked on many ideas and plans which he never managed to work up even once for print or stage. In pieces like Fleischhacker, Garbe/Büsching and Jacob Trotalong we see how such projects were abandoned or interrupted or became proving grounds for ideas and techniques. The works collated here span over thirty years and allow the reader to follow Brecht's creative process as he constantly revised his work to engage with new contexts. This treasure-trove of new discoveries is also annotated with dramaturgical notes to present readable and useable texts for the theatre. The volume is edited by Tom Kuhn and Charlotte Ryland, with the translation and dramaturgical edition of each play provided by a team of experienced writers, scholars and translators.

      Brecht and the Writer's Workshop
    • 2019

      The collected poems of Bertolt Brecht

      • 1312 pages
      • 46 hours of reading
      4.3(82)Add rating

      Times Literary Supplement • Books of the Year ("The most generous available English collection of Brecht’s poetry.") A landmark literary event, The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht is the most extensive English translation of Brecht’s poetry to date. Widely celebrated as the greatest German playwright of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht was also, as George Steiner observed, “that very rare phenomenon, a great poet, for whom poetry is an almost everyday visitation and drawing of breath.” Hugely prolific, Brecht also wrote more than two thousand poems—though fewer than half were published in his lifetime, and early translations were heavily censored. Now, award-winning translators David Constantine and Tom Kuhn have heroically translated more than 1,200 poems in the most comprehensive English collection of Brecht’s poetry to date. Written between 1913 and 1956, these poems celebrate Brecht’s unquenchable “love of life, the desire for better and more of it,” and reflect the technical virtuosity of an artist driven by bitter and violent politics, as well as by the untrammeled forces of love and erotic desire. A monumental achievement and a reclamation, The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht is a must-have for any lover of twentieth-century poetry.

      The collected poems of Bertolt Brecht
    • 2019

      Published in English for the first time, Refugee Conversations is a delightful work that reveals Brecht as a master of comic satire. Written swiftly in the opening years of the Second World War, the dialogues have an urgent contemporary relevance to a Europe once again witnessing populations on the move. The premise is simple: two refugees from Nazi Germany meet in a railway cafe and discuss the current state of the world. They are a bourgeois Jewish physicist and a left-leaning worker. Their world views, their voices and their social experience clash horribly, but they find they have unexpected common ground – especially in their more recent experience of the surreal twists and turns of life in exile, the bureaucracy, and the pathetic failings of the societies that are their unwilling hosts. Their conversations are light and swift moving, the subjects under discussion extremely various: beer, cigars, the Germans' love of order, their education and experience of life, art, pornography, politics, 'great men', morality, seriousness, Switzerland, America ... despite the circumstances of both characters there is a wonderfully whimsical serendipity about their dialogue, the logic and the connections often delightfully absurd. This edition features a full introduction and notes by Professor Tom Kuhn (St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, UK).

      Bertolt Brecht's Refugee Conversations
    • 2018

      Tales of Mr Keuner

      • 126 pages
      • 5 hours of reading
      3.4(11)Add rating

      "This publication was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut, India"--page facing title page.

      Tales of Mr Keuner
    • 2017

      Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe. 30 Bände (in 32 Teilbänden) und ein Registerband

      Band 5: Stücke 5. Leben des Galilei (1938/39). Galileo. Leben des Galilei (1955/56). Dansen. Was kostet das Eisen? Deutsch und englisch

      "Leben des Galilei" von Bertolt Brecht beleuchtet das Leben des Astronomen Galileo Galilei und seine Konflikte mit der Kirche. Die Geschichte thematisiert Wissenschaft, Glauben und den Kampf um Wahrheit. Brechts Werk zeigt die Herausforderungen, die Galileo bei der Verbreitung seiner Entdeckungen gegenüberstand.

      Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe. 30 Bände (in 32 Teilbänden) und ein Registerband
    • 2016

      "First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works from Brecht's oeuvre." --Publisher's website

      Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti
    • 2016

      The Business Affairs of Mr Julius Caesar

      • 216 pages
      • 8 hours of reading
      4.0(33)Add rating

      Bertolt Brecht's extraordinary historical novel presents an aspiring scholar's efforts to write an idealized life of Julius Caesar twenty years after his death. But the historian abandons his planned biography, confronted by a baffling range of contradictory views. Was Caesar an opportunist, a permanently bankrupt businessman who became too big for the banks to allow him to fail – as his former banker claims? Did he stumble into power while trying to make money, as suggested by the diary of his former slave? Across these different versions of Caesar's career in the political and economic life of Rome, Brecht wryly contrasts the narratives of imperial progress with the reality of grasping self-interest, in a sly allegory that points to the Weimar Republic and perhaps even to our own times. Brecht reminds his readers of the need for constant vigilance and critical suspicion towards the great figures of the past. In an echo of his dramatic theories, the audience is confronted with its own task of active interpretation rather than passive acceptance -- we have to work out our own views about Mr Julius Caesar. This edition is translated by Charles Osborne and features an introduction and editorial notes by Anthony Phelan and Tom Kuhn.

      The Business Affairs of Mr Julius Caesar
    • 2016

      Brecht on theatre

      • 344 pages
      • 13 hours of reading

      Brecht on Theatre is a seminal work that has remained the classic text for readers and students wanting a rich appreciation of the development of Brecht's thinking on theatre and aesthetics. First published in 1964 and on reading lists ever since, it has now been wholly revised, re-edited and expanded with additional texts, illustrations and editorial material, and new translations. The resulting work is a far fuller and more accurate volume that will provide readers with a clearer and more rewarding understanding of Brecht's work and writings. This updated third edition features:* Clearer layout and organisation of the text to facilitate study * New translations of many of the Brechtian texts featured * Over 40 new, previously untranslated essays* Essay titles now correspond to the German originals * A revised selection of illustrationsThis selection of Bertolt Brecht's critical writing charts the development of his thinking on theatre and aesthetics over four decades. The volume demonstrates how the theories of Epic Theatre and Verfremdung evolved, and contains notes and essays on the staging of The Threepenny Opera, Mahagonny, Mother Courage, Puntila, Galileo and many others of his plays. Also included is 'Short Organon for the Theatre', Brecht's most complete statement of his revolutionary philosophy of the theatre.

      Brecht on theatre