An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht

Squiers, Anthony

doi:10.1163/9789401211819

Cited by 10 publications

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“…Different research articles and theses have been published on Brecht's plays in different paradigms but his poetry has not yet been compared with Pakistani Urdu poet Khialvi. Different research scholars have accomplished their scholarly works in different perspectives on Brecht: Jones (1972) has investigated Brecht's use of different approaches in order to produce spectator's participation for developing critical thinking; Squiers (2012)has explored the social and political philosophy in Brecht's plays The Good Woman of Setzuan, Life of Galileo, and Coriolanus;and Ambrose (2015) has discerned Brecht's technique of 'defamiliarization' in performance of his plays to produce critical creation of character. Though different researchers (Hayat, 2014;Hayat & Rai, 2016;Salah, 2016) have conducted their researches on Marxism in Faiz Ahmad Faiz but this study will attempt to accomplish a comparative study of Brecht with Khialvi in the frame of reference to Marxist philosophy.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marxist Philosophy in The Selected Poems of Brecht and Naaz Khialvi: A Comparative Critique

Bezar,

Ashraf,

Afzal

2023

Pak. J. Humanit. Soc. Sci

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Though a comparative study opens up new horizons of knowledge and a vast body of literature has been published on Marxism from the perspective of comparative study but a Marxist analysis of Brecht as compared with Pakistani Urdu poet, Naaz Khialvi, has not yet been accomplished. Marxism is a theory and a method originated from the work of Marx and Engels to analyze and critique the capitalism that produced social conflict and class struggles. The present study is qualitative in nature and it uses research methodology of comparative study. The findings of this study are: i. exploration of the exploitation of the poor class; ii. reflection of Marxist inclinations in the selected poems of Brecht and Khialvi. The objective of this study is to compare the marginalized Pakistani Urdu poet Khialvi from the perspective of Pakistani capitalist society with the mainstream Marxist poet and playwright Brecht.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marxist Philosophy in The Selected Poems of Brecht and Naaz Khialvi: A Comparative Critique

Bezar,

Ashraf,

Afzal

2023

Pak. J. Humanit. Soc. Sci

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“…This is a fact that can be verified by noting that in one of the key book-length studies of Brecht's oeuvre, Fredric Jameson's Brecht and Method (Jameson 1998), War Primer had not at all been mentioned. A more recent study of Brecht's methods, Anthony Squiers' An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht: Revolution and Aesthetics (Squiers 2014) also entirely ignored War Primer. In her important study of GDR poetry, Karen Leeder takes note of the influence of a number of Brechtian poetic tropes on future GDR poets-such as the image of life in an "asphalt city" (Leeder 1996, p. 55), a phrase from one of Brecht's earliest poems-but she does not at all register any influence that War Primer may have had on other poets of Brecht's immediate milieu.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Daring, Unusual Things’: Bertolt Brecht’s Photo-Epigrams as Poetic Inventions

Alizadeh

2019

Humanities

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This essay explores the aesthetics of Bertolt Brecht’s compositions of poetry with photography in the so-called photo-epigrams of his 1955 book War Primer. The photo-epigrams have mostly been viewed and appreciated as interventions in photography; but in this essay I aim to show their novelty and efficacy as poetic inventions. To do so, I draw on Karl Marx’s and Walter Benjamin’s views apropos the decline of poetry under modern, industrial capitalism to argue that Brecht, in his photo-epigrams, is responding to—and attempting to counter—a specific problem at the heart of modern poetry: the crisis in perceptibility and accessibility. By coupling poems with photographs—in unique and uniquely politicised ways—Brecht provides a resonant critique of the deadly ideologies of the ruling classes engaged in World War II, as well as a method for addressing the decline in the readability of poetry in the modern era.

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“…Brecht acknowledges the repetition of 'history of tragedy' particularly the vicious cycle of re-birth of dictators in his satire on the passiveness of the society, The Resistible Rise of Artuo Ui(1942). According to him the only practical way out is to change the tragic and repetitive pattern of history by implementing the message of "social action theatre" which is to engage society for political resistance (Abdi 1987, Sporre 1993, Squiers 2012). Brecht as practical sociologist and as staunch social theatre advocate examines all kinds of variables in the re-birth of dictators and points out the significance of the 'missing intervention variable' in his selected literary work.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Literary Representations of Capitalist Dictatorship in Transcultural Adaptations of Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Ajoka Theatre in Pakistan

Kayani

Termizi

2017

IJCLTS

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Brecht’s ‘canonical’ literary work’s indigenization in Pakistan can offer a valuable transcultural adaptation study because it was performed through a radical theatre with a distinct dramaturgy and political philosophy in two different cultural contexts and historical frame of references. As the foremost representative of Brecht’s radical dramaturgy, philosophy and literary works in Pakistan since 1983, Ajoka theatre utilized these adaptations as socio-political spaces to challenge dominant discourses on the rise of dictatorship and capitalism in Pakistan. Prior studies explored the formal elements of these adaptations of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui(1942) : visual and aural and the intellectual content i.e. political dimension of this ‘social action theatre’ is still unexamined. This contextual reading attempts to fulfill this ‘gap’ by conducting a seminal contextual criticism on ‘literary representations’ of Pakistani pro-capitalist dictators in selected transcultural adaptations of Brecht’s work in light of new historicism and Hutcheon’s Theory of Adaptation. The article also explores how in the second phase Brecht’s social and political philosophy is reflected in Ajoka’s signature plays, Bala King (1997) and The Third Knock (1970).

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An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Marxist Philosophy in The Selected Poems of Brecht and Naaz Khialvi: A Comparative Critique

Marxist Philosophy in The Selected Poems of Brecht and Naaz Khialvi: A Comparative Critique

‘Daring, Unusual Things’: Bertolt Brecht’s Photo-Epigrams as Poetic Inventions

Literary Representations of Capitalist Dictatorship in Transcultural Adaptations of Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Ajoka Theatre in Pakistan

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