Brecht's Poetry of Political Exile (Cambridge Studies in German)

Cambridge University Press, 11/2/2000
EAN 9780521782159, ISBN10: 0521782155

Hardcover, 270 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English

Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential European playwrights of the twentieth century, was also a poet of distinction. Brecht's Poetry of Political Exile is the first comprehensive study devoted to his most important collection of political poetry, the Svendborg Poems. In these essays, a strong team of contributors take the poems as the focal point for a much wider study of politics and poetry under totalitarianism. They analyse Brecht's work critically and historically, discussing it in relation to questions of poetics, political commitment, exile, propaganda, rhetoric, and the scope and limitations of political poetry. Links are also drawn with the work of German, Soviet and English poets of the period, and with later German poets. This volume sheds light on Brecht's political investment in and aesthetic commitment to political poetry, and will complement the plentiful scholarship focusing on his drama.

Introduction
1. Svendborg 1938 David Midgley
2. The usefulness of poetry David Constantine
3. 'Visit to a banished poet'
Brecht's Svendborg Poems and the voices of exile Tom Kuhn
4. Exile in 'Danish Siberia'
the Soviet Union in the Svendborg Poems Katharine Hodgson
5. Strength and clarity
Brecht, Auden and the 'true Democratic style' Tony Davies
6. Satire as propaganda
Brecht's 'Deutsche Satieren' for Deutscher Freiheitssender Michael Minden
7. The fourth door
difficulties with the truth in the Svendborg Poems Joyce Crick
8. The uses of rhetoric in Brecht's Svendborg Poems Anna Carrdus
9. Assuaging the anxiety of influence
poetic authority and power in the Svendborg Poems Elizabeth Boa
10. Figures of memory in the 'Chroniken' Anthony Phelan
11. The poet in time Ronald Speirs
12. Those born later than Brecht
the reception of 'An die Nachgeborenen' Karen Leeder
Bibliography.

"Careful scholarship, thoughtful analysis, and new insights distinguish these essays individually. But what separates this from similar collections is the degree to which contributors foreshadow, echo, support, and deny assertions of their cocontributors. Their intimate understanding of Brecht and his Svendborg poems is apparent in the very process of collaboration. I hope this model inspires future scholarship." German Studies Review

"...the primary value is in an introduction to Brecht's poetry as a whole for non-German-speaking students and as a point of departure for re-examining the tensions of poetry and politics in the twentieth century." The Brecht Yearbook