Bertolt Brecht  

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Bertolt Brecht (born February 10, 1898 – August 14, 1956) was an influential German socialist, dramatist, stage director, and poet. He is best-known for such plays as Mother Courage and Her Children and The Threepenny Opera, as well as his only screenplay Hangmen Also Die. One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt.

Works

Fiction

• Stories of Mr. Keuner (Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner)
• Threepenny Novel (Dreigroschenroman, 1934)

Plays

Entries show: English-language translation of title (German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced]

• Baal 1918/1923
• Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) 1918–20/1922
• The Beggar (Der Bettler oder Der tote Hund) 1919/?
• A Respectable Wedding (Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit) 1919/1926
• Driving Out a Devil (Er treibt einen Teufel aus) 1919/?
• Lux in Tenebris 1919/?
• The Catch (Der Fischzug) 1919?/?
• Mysteries of a Barbershop (Mysterien eines Friseursalons) (screenplay) 1923
• In the Jungle of Cities (Im Dickicht der Städte) 1921–24/1923
• The Life of Edward II of England (Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England) 1924/1924
• Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer (Der Untergang des Egoisten Johnann Fatzer) (fragments) 1926–30/1974
• Man Equals Man (Mann ist Mann) 1924–26/1926
• The Elephant Calf (Das Elefantenkalb) 1924–26/1926
• Little Mahagonny (Mahagonny-Songspiel) 1927/1927
• The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) 1928/1928
• The Flight across the Ocean (Der Ozeanflug); originally Lindbergh's Flight (Lindberghflug) 1928–29/1929
• The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent (Badener Lehrstück vom Einverständnis) 1929/1929
• Happy End (Happy End) 1929/1929
• The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) 1927–29/1930
• He Said Yes / He Said No (Der Jasager; Der Neinsager) 1929–30/1930–?
• The Decision (Die Maßnahme) 1930/1930
• Saint Joan of the Stockyards (Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe) 1929–31/1959
• The Exception and the Rule (Die Ausnahme und die Regel) 1930/1938
• The Mother (Die Mutter) 1930–31/1932
• Kuhle Wampe (screenplay) 1931/1932
• The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger) 1933/1933
• Round Heads and Pointed Heads (Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe) 1931–34/1936
• The Horatians and the Curiatians (Die Horatier und die Kuriatier) 1933–34/1958
• Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches) 1935–38/1938
• Señora Carrar's Rifles (Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar) 1937/1937
• Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei) 1937–39/1943
• How Much Is Your Iron? (Was kostet das Eisen?) 1939/1939
• Dansen (Dansen) 1939/?
• Mother Courage and Her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) 1938–39/1941
• The Trial of Lucullus (Das Verhör des Lukullus) 1938–39/1940
• The Judith of Shimoda (Die Judith von Shimoda) 1940
• Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) 1940/1948
• The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) 1939–42/1943
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui) 1941/1958
• Hangmen Also Die! (screenplay) 1942/1943
• The Visions of Simone Machard (Die Gesichte der Simone Machard ) 1942–43/1957
• The Duchess of Malfi 1943/1943
• Schweik in the Second World War (Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg) 1941–43/1957
• The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) 1943–45/1948
• Antigone (Die Antigone des Sophokles) 1947/1948
• The Days of the Commune (Die Tage der Commune) 1948–49/1956
• The Tutor (Der Hofmeister) 1950/1950
• The Condemnation of Lucullus (Die Verurteilung des Lukullus) 1938–39/1951
• Report from Herrnburg (Herrnburger Bericht) 1951/1951
• Coriolanus (Coriolan) 1951–53/1962
• The Trial of Joan of Arc of Proven, 1431 (Der Prozess der Jeanne D'Arc zu Rouen, 1431) 1952/1952
• Turandot (Turandot oder Der Kongreß der Weißwäscher) 1953–54/1969
• Don Juan (Don Juan) 1952/1954
• Trumpets and Drums (Pauken und Trompeten) 1955/1955

Poems

• The Solution (Die Lösung)
• Kinderhymne (Kinderhymne)

Theoretical works

• The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre (1930)
• The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; published 1932)
• The Book of Changes (fragment also known as Me-Ti; written 1935–1939)
• The Street Scene (written 1938; published 1950)
• The Popular and the Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)
• Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect (written 1940; published 1951)
• A Short Organum for the Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)
• The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialogue aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)

Brecht in fiction

• Brecht at Night by Mati Unt, transl. Eric Dickens (Dalkey Archive Press, 2009)
• In The Lives of Others, a Stasi agent is partially inspired to save a playwright he has been spying on by reading a book of Brecht poetry that he had stolen from the artist's apartment.
• In the ABC Family series The Middleman episode "The Obsolescent Cryogenic Meltdown", the show's title character quotes Brecht, "Hungry, man? Reach for a book. It is a weapon".
• In the 2007 film The Savages, the character Jon, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a theater professor working on a book about Brecht.