BERTOLT BRECHT
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artistic terminology for actual contact with the work of art. Brecht's
theater is theatrical theater
and
very real. He endeavors to avoid ec–
static, stentorian, sweating, tremulous emotionalism,
and
at the same
time his work communicates an emotion as lofty as any we know in
the theater today.
Another provOCation to controversy-particularly among people
. barely familiar with his writing-is Brecht's politics and his relation to
Marxism, the Ea'St-West struggle, etc. etc. For the study of Brecht as
a man this may be an indispensable vein of inquiry. For an understand–
ing of his plays and poems the subject ill much less significant than it
is presumed to be. But before entering such a discussion we should ask
. what corruption .demands that an artist be politically "correct"
in
his
work.
There 'is a duality or ambivalence
in
Brecht's writing, a dialectic
process rooted in a deep-seated skepticism-which Brecht frequently re–
ferred to as' the mainspring of knowledge. Together with this we find
ilhrewd common sense which counter-balances his persistent moralism.
This explains why Brecht changed the ending of his
Calileo
several
times to resolve the struggle in the protagonist's (and author's) spirit
between his conviction and his "comfort."
Telling too are the lines from one of his poems: "Oh we who
wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness cannot ourselves
be
friendly." Or examine the colloquy between Galileo and his disciple
who says to the master, "I have recanted but I am going to live. Your
hands are dirty, we said. You said: Better dirty than void." And finally
this:
You have two rival spirits
Lodged in you.
You have got to have two.
Stay disputed, undecided!
Stery a unit, stay divided!
H old to the crude one, hold to the cleaner one!
H old to the good one, hold to the obscener one!
Hold them united!
No doubt Brecht was deeply influenced by Marx and was often
close to (though never a member of) the Party. As with many artists
of our time, "what attracted Brecht above all was the humanism of
Marxist theories." Their humanism and, I would add, their activism.
He could neither remain alien to these impulses nor could he accept
all that their votaries did. He would not shun them entirely for much
