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Realism Brecht, Sport, the Bible, Lenin, Conspiracy Theories

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Narrative and Truth

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Abstract

In Aristotle’s Poetics, we find a definition for the epic, “by an Epic structure I mean one with a multiplicity of plots.”1 Bertolt Brecht was familiar with Aristotle and was quite happy to describe his theater as non-Aristotelian. Empathy, catharsis, the homogeneity of the poetic elements, and so forth, are all Aristotelian qualities that Brecht has rejected. However, the Aristotelian defining quality of epic poetry as having a multiplicity of plots isolates the key quality of the Brechtian theatrical endeavor, and one should keep that in mind when confronted by Brecht’s characterization of his own theatrical praxis as “episches Theater,” not least because the term “epic” in English sends out different signals, all misleading.

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Notes

  1. Aristotle. Poetics from Part XVIII. Translated by S. H. Butcher (from the web), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm

  2. Ibid. Parts XXIII and XXIV.

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  3. Willett, John. Brecht on Theatre. The Development of An Aesthetic Methuen, London (1984) p. 23.

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  4. Ibid., p. 190.

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  5. See Barthes, Roland and Savran, David. “The Dolls of Bunraku.” in Diacritics Vol. 6, No. 4. Winter (1976) pp. 46–47.

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  12. BBA 110/31 andl09/22. Although there are published accounts of the Fatzer project, I have used here the numbers from the Bertolt Brecht Archives (BBA followed by book and page) because the source material is so massive, chaotic, and contradictory. But no distinction has been made between the photocopies of the original documents and typed volumes of transcriptions when the archive numbers are the same. All translations are mine.

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  13. Fatzer: BBA 110/47.

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  14. Ibid., 822/105.

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  15. Ibid., Fatzer: BBA 109/7. For the Kranlieder see 9—302.

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  16. Ibid., Fatzer: BBA 109/35—36.

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  38. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. Collected Works Lawrence and Wishart, London (1960 onwards) Vol. 12, pp. 425–428.

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  39. Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 70. See also p. 28 for the importance of retreating.

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  40. Ibid., p. 24.

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  41. Ibid., pp. 79-80.

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  42. It is central to the argument—as far as Brecht is concerned—that his desire to return to the Teaching Play form is a confirmation of how crucial the issues (political and aesthetic) he was then dealing with are. With regard to Brecht seeing The Measures Taken as the model for the theater of the future, see Wekwerth, Manfred. Schriften. Arbeit mit Brecht Berlin DDR (1975) pp. 78-79.

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  1. Barry Emslie
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© 2012 Barry Emslie

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Emslie, B. (2012). Realism Brecht, Sport, the Bible, Lenin, Conspiracy Theories. In: Narrative and Truth. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137275455_6

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