Brecht: Poetry

Brecht’s Poetry

Brecht’s poetry is among the best in the German language. It ranks alongside Hölderlin, Heine and Rilke. English language readers are recommended to invest in the new edition of Brecht’s poems translated by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine.

Brecht described himself as a ‘Stückeschreiber’ (a playwright); that was his profession. His plays form the first ten volumes of the definitive Berlin/Frankfurt edition of his work. He was also a poet. His poetry forms five volumes of that edition (volumes 11-15); it covers most of his life, from 1913 (when he was fifteen) to his death, and is written in a formidable array of forms, assumed naturally – as if inevitably – from within.

These extended from the schoolboy lyrical squibs and rhymes to the still revelatory, iconoclastic, often parodic but above all lyrical poems of the Haus- or Taschenpostille, originally printed in the style of a prayer book in 1926.

‘Von der Kindesmörderin Marie Farrar’ (Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar) (1922)

‘Wollt nicht verdammen die verworfenen Schwachen

Denn ihr Sünd war schwer und ihr Leid groß.

Darum, ich bitte euch, wollt nicht in Zorn verfallen

Denn all Kreatur braucht Hilf von allen.’

[You...]

Must not damn the weakness of the outcast,

For her sin was heavy but her pain was great.

Therefore, I beg you, check your wrath and scorn

For man needs help from every creature born.

(translation by H. R. Hays)

https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/brecht/ConcerningtheInfanticide.html

The twenties led to Brecht’s political awakening, though there are no sharp breaks in his poetic output. He produced political agit-prop songs, like the ‘Saarlied’ (‘Song of the Saar’, 1936), written in London:

‘Von der Maas bis an die Memel

Da läuft ein Stacheldraht

Dahinter kämpt und blutet jetzt

Das Proletariat . . .’

‘From the Maas to the Memel

Runs barbed wire

Behind it now, fighting and bleeding

The proletariat.’

(translation by E.S.)

At the same time, Brecht was producing an abundant variety of lyrical poetry in his distinctive spare, boney style, greatly influenced by Ancient Chinese poetry. This culminated in two of the greatest poems in the German language, both written in 1938 – ‘Legende von der Enstehung des Buches Taoteking auf dem Weg der Laotse in die Emigration’ (‘Legend of the Origin of the Book Tao-Te-Ching on Lao-Tsu's Road into Exile’) and ‘An die Nachgeborenen’ (‘To those born after’):

‘Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!

Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn

Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin . . .’

‘Truly, I live in dark times!

A trusting word is folly. A smooth brow

A sign of insensitivity. [...]’

(translation by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine)

The loss of his country and the move to California, via Denmark and Finland, among other countries, changing them more often than his shoes – as he says in that last poem – in no way diminished Brecht’s ouput. Away from Germany, he was more at home. The great 1938 poems above form part of the Svendborger Gedichte (Svendborg Poems), an extremely rich and varied collection, including personal reflexion, satire and polemic.

In this collection and elsewhere, Brecht seldom raises his voice; he elicits the collaboration of the reader to put over his message.

Brecht also wrote the lyrics to many great songs and operas, with music by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Dessau. Many of these can be found online.

English Translation

Bertolt Brecht, The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht, trans. and ed. by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018)