(Eugen) Bertolt (Friedrich) Brecht Biography

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Dictionary of Literary Biography on (Eugen) Bertolt (Friedrich) Brecht

Bertolt Brecht's status as one of the major playwrights of the twentieth century is largely uncontested. In addition to writing a significant body of plays that are performed all over the world, Brecht also developed in a number of theoretical writings his theory of "epic" or "dialectic" theater that he applied to the "model" productions of his own plays in the early 1950s. Furthermore, practically from the beginning of his literary career Brecht has been considered a poet of considerable power and originality; more recently, his prose fiction has attracted increased attention--although Brecht the prose fiction writer has not yet been fully recognized.

It is hardly an exaggeration, then, when Martin Esslin, author of the influential study Brecht: A Choice of Evils (1959) writes: "There can be little doubt that Bertolt Brecht is one of the most significant writers of this century." Esslin points out that Brecht had to overcome a special handicap owing to the fact that "German literature, unlike that of France, Italy, pre-revolutionary Russia, or Scandinavia, is on the whole so remote from the taste and the aesthetic conventions of the English-speaking world that its influence does not often make itself felt." Brecht, however, according to Esslin, is one of those rare cases of a writer from the German-speaking countries who has left a lasting impression; in fact, Brecht's "influence on the theatre may well prove as powerful as that of Kafka on the novel."

The curiosity that Brecht and his work aroused and the renown they have achieved cannot be exclusively attributed to literary factors; rather, Brecht's political and ideological persuasion and his stance as a committed writer contributed considerably to his reputation.

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