{"product_id":"understanding-brecht","title":"Understanding Brecht","description":"\u003cp\u003eBy Walter Benjamin   \u003cbr\u003eIntroduction by Stanley Mitchell   \u003cbr\u003eTranslated by Anna Bostock    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"A small bomb of ideas and vital argument.\"\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eGuardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"He does not abolish the distance between us and Leskov, or Brecht, or Kafka; he brings it to life.\"\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eTimes Higher Education Supplement\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If the killing of Lorca was Fascism’s first crime against literature, Benjamin’s death was undoubtedly the second.\"\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Listener\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA collection of essays of political philosophy by the renowned mid 20th-century critical theorist and literary critic\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe relationship between philosopher-critic Walter Benjamin and playwright-poet Bertolt Brecht was both a lasting friendship and a powerful intellectual partnership. Having met in the late 1920s in Germany, Benjamin and Brecht, both independently minded Marxists with a deep understanding of and passionate commitment to the emancipatory potential of cultural practices, continued to discuss, argue and correspond on topics as varied as Fascism and the work of Franz Kafka. Faced by the onset of the ‘midnight of the century’, with the Nazi subversion of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the Stalinist degeneration of the revolution in Russia, both men, in their own way, strove to keep alive the tradition of dialectical critique of the existing order and radical intervention in the world to transform it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn\u003cem\u003e Understanding Brecht\u003c\/em\u003e we find collected together Benjamin’s most sensitive and probing writing on the dramatic and poetic work of his friend and tutor. Stimulated by Brecht’s oeuvre and theorising his particular dramatic techniques—such as the famous ‘estrangement effect’—Benjamin developed his own ideas about the role of art and the artist in crisis-ridden society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis volume contains Benjamin’s introductions to Brecht’s theory or epic theatre and close textual analyses of twelve poems by Brecht (printed in translation here) which exemplify Benjamin’s insistence that literary form and content are indivisible. Elsewhere Benjamin discusses the plays \u003cem\u003eThe Mother\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTerror\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eMisery of the Third Reich\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eThe Threepenny Opera\u003c\/em\u003e, digressing for some general remarks on Marx and satire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere we also find Benjamin’s masterful essay “The Author as Producer” as well as an extract from his diaries that records the intense conversations held in the late 1930s in Denmark (Brecht’s place of exile) between the two most important cultural theorists of this century. In these discussions, the two men talked of subjects as diverse as the work of Franz Kafka, the unfolding Soviet Trials, and the problems of literary work on the edge of international war.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaperback\u003cbr\u003e144 pages\u003cbr\u003eVerso, 2024\u003cbr\u003e5.5 x 7.8 inches\u003cbr\u003eISBN 9781804294796\u003cbr\u003eLiterary Criticism, Theory and Aesthetics \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"vendor-unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49657770901672,"sku":"9781804294796","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0175\/8594\/files\/Understanding_Brecht_Walter_Benjamin.jpg?v=1726073630","url":"https:\/\/neue-galerie-design-shop.myshopify.com\/products\/understanding-brecht","provider":"Neue Galerie Design Shop \u0026 Book Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}