FREE ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BERTOLT BRECHT

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF BERTOLT BRECHT

The Life and Works of Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was one of the chief innovators of modern theatrical techniques. He was
both a poet and a playwright all in one. His epic theatrical creations developed drama as
a forum for social and idealistic causes. Brecht's imagination, artistic genius, and
social views distinguish his work and his life.
Eugen Bertolt Brecht was born February 10, 1898 in Augsburg Germany, a town in Bavaria.
His family was of middle class, which he came to resent, in favor of a Marxist
proletarian society. In 1917 he attended Ludwig Maximillian University, in Munich, where
he studied medicine.
Towards the end of the First World War, Brecht served in a military hospital. During this
time in 199918, he wrote his first piece of work Baal, however it was not published until
a later time. In 1922 he wrote his first success, Drums in the Night. In 1923 Baal was
finally produced. 
Until this time Brecht had lived in Bavaria. In 1924 he moved to Berlin, where he
developed a strong antibourgeois attitude. Several people of his generation developed
similar attitudes, as a result of the disappointing post World War I society in Germany.
Among his friends, at this time, was a group of Dadaist, who aimed at destroying what
they called the false standards and ideals of the bourgeois society. Brecht also became
acquainted with a prominent theoretician named Karl Korsch, who taught him the elements
of Marxism. During this time period from 1924 to 1933, Brecht worked briefly with the
directors Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator. However he mainly worked with his own group
of associates. In 1924 he wrote his first professional production Edward II. In 1927 he
wrote A manual of Piety. In 1928, while working with the composer Kurt Weil, Bertolt
Brecht created what many believe to be his finest piece of work; The Threepenny Opera; a
satirical and successful ballad opera. In 1930 he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Town of
Mahogany. Also during this year he wrote his first "exemplary plays," A Man's Man, which
introduced his unorthodox idea of "epic theatre." Epic theatre is a technique created by
Brecht, which causes the audience to feel no emotions about a play, but to think
critically about its content. This would become a well-used and important technique in
Brecht's later plays.
In 1933 Brecht's Marxist political beliefs forced him to go into self-imposed exile, from
fascists Germany. His writings had made him a natural enemy of the National Socialists,
rising to power in his native country. He first managed to escape to Switzerland, then to
Scandinavia. With help from some of his fellow artists and exiles, especially Lion
Feuchtwagner, Brecht was able to come to the United States of America. He became
anti-Nazi writer for a periodical published in Moscow, and produced the 1938 drama Fear
and Misery of the Third Reich. 
During this time Brecht wrote what are critically regarded as his greatest works. In 1943
Brecht's desire to motivate social concerns, in his audience, led to the play The life of
Galileo. In this play, through the character Galileo, Brecht reexamines the recurrent
theme of obstacles to social progress. In 1949, he created Mother Courage and her
Children, which enlists the spectators' feelings as well as their reason. This play was
both a success and a failure. It was a success because it was highly popular, but it was
a failure in that it caused the audience to feel sympathy for its characters, which
violated Brecht's technique of "epic theatre." In these mature works Brecht overgrew the
single-minded didactic message of his earlier pieces, and achieved complex themes that
would be impermissible under the official policies of communism. 
For a brief period of time, Brecht lived in Hollywood on1954 argyle Avenue. He then moved
into a house on 817 25th Street in Santa Monica, from 1941 to 1942. In 1943 Brecht moved
into a house on 1063 26th Street. Brecht described the latter house in his diary saying
this about it "one of the oldest is about 30 years old, California clapboard,
whitewashed, with an upper floor with two bedrooms. I have a long workroom (almost 7
meters), which we immediately whitewashed and equipped with 4 tables. There are old trees
in the garden (a peeper tree and a fig tree). Rent is $60 per month, $12.5o more than in
25th street." Brecht stayed in this house for the remainder of his time in the United
States, until 1947. Around 1947 The United States of America was going through a red
scare, or fear of the spread of communism. The House Un-American Activities Committee,
led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, questioned and accused anyone remotely suspicious of
being a communist. After being summoned before this committee and being forced to give
evidence, Brecht left the country on his own. He then spent the rest of the year and the
whole year of 1948 in Zurich, where he worked mainly on the play Antigone-Modell; an
adapted work from the translation of Sophocles. 
Later that year Brecht worked on a play called A Little Orangum for the Theatre. Through
this work Brecht revealed his theory of drama, which is that a truly Marxist drama must
avoid the premise that the audience should be made to believe that what they are
witnessing is really happening here and now. Brecht argued that the theatre should not
seek to make its audience believe in or relate to the characters on the stage, but rather
make the audience realize that what it sees on stage is merely an account that should be
watched with critical detachment. A Little Orangum for the Theatre, thoroughly explained
Brecht's theory of "epic theatre." 
In 1949 Brecht went back to Berlin to stage Mother Courage and her Children, with his
wife Helene Weigel, in the title part. This led to the formation of Brecht's own theatre
company, the Berliner Ensemble. From that point on, Brecht devoted all his time and
energy on the Ensemble and on staging his own plays. He was often criticized in Eastern
Europe for being unorthodox; and was sometimes boycotted in the West for being too
communistic. However, he had a great triumph at the Paris Theatre des Nations in 1955,
and in the same year in Moscow he received a Stalin Peace Prize. Unfortunately this
streak of success was to be short lived. Brecht died the following year in East Berlin.
Bertolt Brecht was an ingenious and skillful writer. He was a masterful poet who
commanded many styles and moods. As a playwright he was a restless worker and a man in
pursuit of idealistic change, by properly presenting his beliefs to the public. Bertolt
Brecht was a man of rare humor, musical, and visual awareness. He did have some faults
and did encounter difficulties in his life. However his strong character and intelligence
helped him overcome these obstacles and become a success. He is remembered today, and
will be throughout history, as one of the greatest authors of his time. 
Mother Courage and her Children
Bertolt Brecht had two main periods of maximum creativity. The first period came at the
onset of his manhood. During this time his writings were greatly influenced by the
Dadaist group and by Marxism. Still though he created some of his finest poems before the
age of twenty-five. The second period came when Brecht had to somewhat abandoned his
hectic political activities during the depression years, and go into a self induced
exile. This is the time, which many critics believe to be, when Brecht created his
greatest plays. The Good woman of Setzuan, The Life of Galileo, and the Caucasian Chalk
Circle were all among them. His greatest piece of work created at this time was Mother
Courage and her Children, a play that many regard as his masterpiece and finest mature
creation.
Mother Courage and her Children, is the story of a woman who, with her family, follows
around the Thirty Years War to make a living as a peddler. The main characters of the
play are Mother Courage, her daughter Kattrin, her older son Elif, her younger son Swiss
Cheese, and several soldiers and officers. 
Mother Courage's real name was Anna Fierling, but all her children have different last
names and different fathers. They are a rag tag bunch but are making a good living
following the war and being peddlers. As the play goes on things only get worse. The army
becomes desperate and starts taking things from Mother Courage without paying. Her
peddling wagon is robbed and she ends up losing almost everything. As the war rages on,
violence, death, and destruction surround her and her children. In the end she is ruined,
and yet seems to have e learned nothing new about the nature of war, from her
experience.
Mother courage was a very important play because it showed how peasants and lower class
citizens could be used as tools for the socially elite. It exposed the commercial aspect
of war, which some individuals take total advantage of. Mother Courage herself was one of
these people. It never dawns on her that one must be high up in society and wealth to
make a prophet from war. She seems to think of this somewhat in the middle of the play,
but stops thinking about it towards the end. However, Bertolt Brecht's main goal was not
for Mother Courage to think about these topics, but for the audience watching the play to
thing about them. Mother Courage and her Children succeeded in getting across the social
issues that Brecht wanted to be noticed, while it used his style of "epic theatre." The
Audience was never supposed to feel sympathy for Mother Courage, but to think of the
reasons of why she was going through her ordeal. For these reasons Mother Courage and her
Children is considered to be one of Bertolt Brecht's finest works and one of this lasts
century's greatest plays.