Bertolt Brecht: Likeness

“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”

Bertolt Brecht

"The Popular and the Realistic" (written 1938, published 1958), as translated in Brecht on Theatre (1964) edited and translated by John Willett.

History , Question

“We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it's all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It's the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians.”

Bertolt Brecht

People

“Of all the works of man I like best
Those which have been used.
The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges
The knives and forks whose wooden handles
Have been worn away by many hands: such forms
Seemed to me the noblest.”

Bertolt Brecht

"Of all the works of man" [Von allen Werken] (c. 1932) in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 192
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“And I always thought: the very simplest words
Must be enough. When I say what things are like
Everyone's heart must be torn to shreds.
That you'll go down if you don't stand up for yourself
Surely you see that.”

Bertolt Brecht

"And I always thought" [Und ich dachte immer] (c. 1956), trans. Michael Hamburger in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 452
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Heart

“When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!"When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.”

Bertolt Brecht

"When evil-doing comes like falling rain" [Wenn die Untat kommt, wie der Regen fällt] (1935), trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 247
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Suffering , Evil , Summer

“High above the lake a bomber flies.
From the rowing boats
Children look up, women, an old man. From a distance
They appear like young starlings, their beaks
Wide open for food.”

Bertolt Brecht

"This Summer's Sky" [Der Himmel dieses Sommers], (1953), trans. Michael Hamburger in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 444
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Women , Children , Food , Appearance

“Their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.War grows from their peace.”

Bertolt Brecht

"Those at the top say: peace and war" [Die Oberen sagen: Friede und Krieg] from "A German War Primer" [Deutsche Kriegsfibel] (1937), trans. Lee Baxendall in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 288
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

War , Peace

“The plum tree in the yard's so small
It's hardly like a tree at all.
Yet there it is, railed round
To keep it safe and sound.The poor thing can't grow any more
Though if it could it would for sure.
There's nothing to be done
It gets too little sun.”

Bertolt Brecht

"The Plum Tree" [Der Pfaumenbaum] (1934) from The Svendborg Poems [Svendborger Gedichte] (1939); in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 243
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

Tree , Sun

“With drooping shoulders
The majority sit hunched, their foreheads furrowed like
Stony ground that has been repeatedly ploughed-up to no purpose.”

Bertolt Brecht

"Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation" [Rede an dänische Arbeiterschauspieler über die Kunst der Beobachtung]] (1934), from The Messingkauf Poems, published in Versuche 14 (1955); trans. John Willett in Poems, 1913-1956, p. 235
Poems, 1913-1956 (1976)

“War is like love, it always finds a way.”

Bertolt Brecht

The Chaplain, in Scene 6, p. 76
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)

Love , War , Way

“Do not treat me in this fashion. Don't leave me out. Have I not
Always spoken the truth in my books? And now
You treat me like a liar! I order you:
Burn me!”

Bertolt Brecht

A response to the Nazi book burnings, "The Burning of the Books"

Truth , Fashion , Books