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Selected Poems

Brecht, Bertolt; Hays, H. R.
ISBN-10: 0156806460
ISBN-13: 9780156806466

Our Price: $15.20

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Description

Table of Contents

Author Bios

A billingual collection showing the range of Brecht's poetry, from the early Manual of Piety to the late Songs, Poems, and Choruses, including songs from his theater works. Translated and introduced by H.R. Hays.Although he is best known in the United States for his theater works, Bertolt Brecht is considered one of the greatest of modern German poets.

He is supreme among modern poets in any language for his simple, direct, powerful style, which combines poetic sensibility and social consciousness. After a period of expressionistic writing in the 1920's Brecht reacted against the tradition of romantic individualism and set out to strip poetry of ornamentation and sentimentality. He wrote poems that were spare, functional, shaped to teach a lesson -- poems intended to be understood by ordinary people. His most popular poems are his ballads (which he composed to the accompaniment of a guitar), a poetic form that he could transform into a cry of protest, a marching song, or an instrument of satire.

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Introduction


From Hauspostille


Concerning Poor B. B. (Vom armen B.B.)


Apfelbock or The Lily of the Field (Apfelbock oder Die Lilie auf dem Felde)


Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar (Von der Kindesmorderin, Marie Farrar)


Account of the Tick (Bericht vom Zeck)


Ballad of Cortez' Men (Ballade von des Cortez Leuten)


Ballad of the Soldier (Die Ballade von dem Soldaten)


Song of the Railroad Gang of Fort Donald (Das Lied von der Eisenbahntruppe von Fort Donald)


Ballad of the Adventurers (Ballade von den Abenteurern)


In Memory of Marie A. (Erinnerung an die Marie A.)


Of Swimming in Lakes and Rivers (Vom schwimmen in Seen und Flussen)


Concerning a Drowned Girl (Vom Ertrunkenen Madchen)


Song on Black Saturday at the Eleventh Hour of the Night before Easter (Lied am schwarzen Samstag in der elften Stunde der Nacht vor Ostern)


Litany of Breath (Liturgie vom Hauch)


Legend of the Dead Soldier (Legende vom toten Soldaten)


Grand Chorale of Thanksgiving (Grosser Dankchoral)


Jenny the Pirate (Die Seerauber-Jenny)


Song of the Inadequacy of Man's Higher Nature (Das Lied von der Unzulanglichkeit menschlichen Strebens)


Solomon Song (Salomon-Song)


Jenny's Song (Jenny-Song)


God in Mahagonny (Gott in Mahagonny)


Song of the Invigorating Effect of Money (Lied von der belebenden Wirkung des Geldes)


Nanna's Song (Nannas Lied)


The Song of the Waterwheel (Das Lied vom Wasserrad)


Praise of Learning (Lob des Lernens)


Song of the Patch and the Overcoat (Lied vom Flicken und vom Rock)


Song of the Ricebarge Coolie (Gesang der Reiskahnschlepper)


From Lieder, Gedichte, und Chore; Svendborger Gedichte; and Unpublished Poems


All of Us or None (Keiner oder Alle)


Coal for Mike (Kohlen fur Mike)


A Worker Reads History (Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters)


United Front Song (Einheitsfrontlied)


Germany (Deutschland)


Song of the Storm Trooper (Das Lied vom Sa-Mann)


Burial of the Agitator in a Zinc Coffin (Begrabnis des Hetzers im Zinksarg)


The Burning of the Books (Die Bucherverbrennung)


The Jew, a Misfortune for the People (Der Jude, ein Ungluck fur das Volk)


On the Wall in Chalk Is Written: (Auf der Mauer stand mit Kreide:)


Those Who Take the Meat from the Table (Die das Fleisch wegnehmen vom Tisch)


When the Leaders Speak of Peace (Wenn die Oberen vom Frieden reden)


The Rugweavers of Kujan-Bulak Honor Lenin (Die Teppichweber von Kujan-Bulak ehren Lenin)


The Shoe of Empedocles (Der Schuh des Empedokles)


The Stone Fisherman (Der Steinfischer)


1939: Little News Is Reported from the Reich (1939: Aus dem Reich kommen wenig Nachrichten)


Children's Crusade 1939 (Kinderkreuzzug 1939)


What Did the Soldier's Wife Receive? (Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?)


The Mask of Evil (Die Maske des Bosen)


Thoughts Concerning the Duration of Exile (Gedanken uber die Dauer des Exils)


Landscape of Exile (Die Landschaft des Exils)


The Return (Die Ruckkehr)


To Posterity (An die Nachgeborenen)


Songs for Children, Ulm 1592 (Kinderlieder, Ulm 1592)

Critics have said that Eric Bentley has given a new direction to theatrical history and represents the German avant-garde in drama. Brecht's most ambitious venture in verse drama, Saint Joan of the Stockyards (1933), was written in Germany shortly before Hitler came to power. Brecht left his homeland in 1993. Before he came to the United States in 1941, he was one of the editors of a short-lived anti-Nazi magazine in Moscow (1936--39). In 1949 his play Mother Courage and Her Children, which was a Marxist indictment of the economic motives behind internal aggression, was produced in the United States. Brecht found a large audience as librettist for Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, an adaptation of John Gay's Beggar's Opera. Brecht is considered a playwright who saw the stage as a platform for the presentation of a message. His aim was to transform the state from a place of entertainment to a place for instruction and public communication. He called himself an epic realist. In 1947, Brecht was summoned to Washington, D.C., by the on Un-American Activities Committee, before which he testified. He firmly denied that he had ever been a member of the Communist Party. How radical Brecht really was has been the subject of considerable controversy; but, for literary purposes, his politics need only be judged as they contributed to his artistry. In his final years Brecht experimented with his own theater and company-the Berliner Ensemble-which put on his plays under his direction and which continued after his death with the assistance of his wife. Brecht aspired to create political theater, and it is difficult to evaluate his work in purely aesthetic terms. It is likely that the demise of Marxist governments will influence his reputation over the next decade, though the changes are difficult to predict. Brecht died in 1956.

Edition:	Reprint
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Binding:	Trade Paper
Pages:	179
Size:	5.50" wide x 8.50" long x 0.50" tall
Weight:	0.59 lbs.
Language:	English

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