In this singular book written during World War Two, Bertolt Brecht presents a devastating visual and lyrical attack on war under modern capitalism.He takes photographs from newspapers and popular magazines, and adds short lapidary verses to each in a unique attempt to understand the truth of war using mass media.Pictures of catastrophic bombings, propaganda portraits of leading Nazis, scenes of unbearable tragedy on the battlefield - all these images contribute to an anthol...

No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in a single volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a continuous, interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of twentieth-century intellectual history.

Based on John Gay's eighteenth century Beggar's Opera, The Threepenny Opera, first staged in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, is a vicious satire on the bourgeois capitalist society of the Weimar Republic, but set in a mock-Victorian Soho. It focuses on the feud between Macheaf - an amoral criminal - and his father in law, a racketeer who controls and exploits London's beggars and is intent on having Macheaf hanged. Despite the resistance by Macheaf's fri...

Written in exile during the Second World War, the story of Brecht's classic play subverts an ancient Chinese tale - echoed in the Judgement of Solomon - in which two women claim the same child. The message of Brecht's parable is that resources should go to those who will make best use of them. Thanks to the rascally judge, Azdak, one of Brecht's most vivid creations, this story has a happy outcome: the child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved and nurtured it.Publishe...

This Student Edition of Brecht's classic satire on the rise of Hitler features an extensiveintroduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion ofthe context, themes, characters, style and language as well asquestions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text.It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature.Described by Brecht as 'a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all', A...

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language.Volume One of Brecht's Collected Plays contains Brecht's first performed stage works. Baal is inspired by Brecht's student life in Augsburg and follows the life of a young poet on the rocky road to inspiration; Drums in the Night was written in response to Brecht's experience as a me...

"Those who dismiss Brecht as a yea-sayer to Stalinism are advised to read these journals and moderate their opinion." (Paul Bailey, Weekend Telegraph)Brecht's "Work Journals" cover the period from 1938 to 1955, the years of exile in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and America, and his return via Switzerland to East Berlin. His criticisms of the work of other writers and intellectuals are perceptive and polemic, and the accounts of his own writing practice provide insight into the creation...

Everyone knows that Bertolt Brecht was one of the great 20th-century innovators in theatre - the literary-theatrical equivalent of a Picasso or Stravinsky - and Germany's greatest poet of the last century, but the playwright was also a dazzling writer of stories. Storytelling permeated his art as a dramatist; fundamentally in his plays he was a storyteller. This volume collects the complete short stories written by Brecht, including the prize-winning 'The Monster', and the fragmentary memo...

The city burns in the heat of civil war and a servant girl sacrifices everything to protect an abandoned child. But when peace is finally restored, the boy's mother comes to claim him. Calling upon the ancient tradition of the Chalk Circle, a comical judge sets about resolving the dispute. But in a culture of corruption and deception, who wins? Written by the grand master of storytelling and peopled with vivid and amusing characters, this is one of the greatest plays of the last century.

This volume contains new translations to extend our image of one of the twentieth century's most entertaining and thought provoking writers on culture, aesthetics and politics. Here are a cross-section of Brecht's wide-ranging thoughts which offer us an extraordinary window onto the concerns of a modern world in four decades of economic and political disorder. The book is designed to give wider access to the experience of a dynamic intellect, radically engaged with social, political and cu...

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...

This book contains selected poems, plays, and prose by Bertolt Brecht taken from various points throughout his career. It includes translations of two prose works and provides some background information on Brecht's life and career.