in:
German life and letters
Oxford [u.a.]:
2000
,
314 - 324 S.
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| Einrichtung: | Ariadne | Wien |
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| Verfasst von: | Crick, Joyce |
| In: | German life and letters |
| Jahr: | 2000 |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Beschreibung: | |
| This essay is a study of Brecht's poems to Carola Neher: the two versions of "Rat an die Schauspielerin C.N." and "Das Waschen". They are analysed with two leading questions, particularly acute in the 1930s, in view: what is the nature of the poet's authority; what is the relation of poetry to action? The "original version" (Elisabeth Hauptmann's term) of the two poems of advice is read as the product of Brecht and Neher's shared success with "Die Dreigroschenoper": the poet is in command; the situation is intimate, but the mood is imperative, the gesture as invasive as it is tender; the director is instructing his leading lady how to perform. "Das Waschen", written from Brecht's exile in Denmark to Neher in prison in Moscow, is read as the gesture of one powerless to help, but writing into the dark, as a reminder of a "menschenwürdigere" situation; subdued though it is, the poem carries a charge of memory and muted encouragement. The third poem, a variant of the first, is read as a retreat, lacking the purposeful authority of the first and the paradoxical power in powerlessness of the second. The poems move from celebration to reminder to wish-fulfilment - which is both less and more than Brecht set out to require of poetry. | |
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