The Introspective Sponger: Hamlet in the Poetry of Bertolt Brecht

Abstract

Bertolt Brecht has been described as "one of [the] most perceptive Shakespeare critics" of our time (Heinemann 228), not only for his critical essays on the English playwright's production, but more interestingly, because of his metatextual works, 1 that is to say critical readings in the form of new works, mainly poems. 2 As concerns Hamlet, Brecht's poetry includes a sonnet devoted to its interpretation, entitled "Über Shakespeares Stück Hamlet" ["On Shakespeare's play Hamlet"] (1940), as well as an earlier one, useful to understanding Brecht's view of the play, called "Sonett vom Sieger" ["Sonnet of the victor"] (1926), which might be seen as an expansion of Act 4, Scene 4. 3 In these poems, the values traditionally associated with hesitancy and action are reversed and Hamlet's eventual pursuit of revenge is re-interpreted as a sign that he is capable of the brutality needed for kingship in a feudal age. This article will examine the nature and function of the metatextual and intertextual relationships between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Brecht's anti-war sonnets, focusing chiefly on his 1940 sonnet. It will examine both the coherent parts of the contemporary critical discourse on Hamlet and the challenging examples of "the fascination" which lies in the multifaceted "relationship between modern poets and Shakespeare" (Corcoran 3). Neil Corcoran's recent book on Shakespeare and English modern poets highlights that Harold Bloom puts "Shakespeare at the origin of influential anxiety" and that for poets writing in English, Shakespeare "must seem in all sorts of ways the most anxiety-inducing of all" (Corcoran 2-3). Basically, the same was stated by Roger Paulin for writers writing in German when he described German culture as "in Harold Bloom's terms, a 'Shakespeare-haunted' culture" (1). As early as 1773, the German writer Christoph Martin Wieland described himself and his contemporary colleagues in Germany as haunted by Shakespeare's ghost, as Hamlet was haunted by his father's ghost, in an essay indicatively entitled Der Geist Shakespears [Shakespeare's Ghost] (119). It is well-known that the history of the German reception of Shakespeare represents a particular kind of literary reception, since it features a case of appropriation by the receiving culture. In Germany, Shakespeare is considered a timeless classic, as Goethe or Schiller are. This

Jacques Prévert met en scène la crise de février 1934

“…En effet, le dimanche 4 février un trotteur prénommé Hamlet IV gagnait le Prix-Riotteau. Or, le recours au héros shakespearien chez Bertolt Brecht (inspiration non négligeable d’agit-prop) informe « the Nazi idea that Hamlet’s heroism corresponds to daring in war » (Montironi, 2012 : 21). Mais surtout, le soir même la pièce Coriolan , montée par Émile Fabre – un autre « démissionné » de Daladier – était jouée à la Comédie-Française.…”