Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Poems 1913–1956by Bertolt Brecht
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book.
In Brecht’s poetry, which is extraordinarily unintroverted and unselfconscious, the poet is a superior reporter whose canny, almost prosaic, didacticism nevertheless slips across into poetry. There is terseness and irony, matter-of-fact understatement, powerful use of anticlimax, and an unblinking, almost lidless, lucidity of outlook. And then, out of nowhere, a sudden touch of heart-wrenching lyricism. Then on again, as if nothing had happened... As might be expected, the work is uneven, especially in the rhymed translations, which, to be sure, present enormous problems. Willett himself took on many of these rhymed translations, and handled them, on the whole, creditably. That Brecht never felt sorry for himself—hardly ever was even interested in himself—was one of his great virtues, but the virtue was rooted in something else, which was a gift and was, like all such gifts, part blessing and part curse... There is not a shred of sentimentality left in Brecht's beautiful and beautifully precise definition of a refugee: "Ein Bote des Unglücks" ("a messenger of ill tidings"). A messenger's message, of course, does not concern himself... This ingenious, more than ingenious, phrase "messengers of ill tidings" for refugees and exiles may illustrate the great poetic intelligence of Brecht, that supreme gift of condensation which is the prerequisite of all poetry... There are a great many things that are permitted to an ox but not to Jove; that is, not to those who are a bit like Jove—or, rather, are blessed by Apollo. Hence the bitterness of the old saying cuts both ways, and the example of "poor B.B.," who never wasted a shred of pity on himself, may teach us how difficult it is to be a poet in this century or at any other time.
Over 50 years since his death, the importance and scale of Brecht's poetry has only now begun to be recognized. This work showcases a selection from the whole range of his works, conveying his masterful command of different forms and styles, as well as the evolution of his interests and concerns. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)831.912Literature German literature and literatures of related languages German poetry 1900- 1900-1990 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
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. ( )