Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things

by Bertolt Brecht, Antony Tatlow (Editor), Tom Kuhn (Editor)

Published for the first time in English, Brecht's Me-Ti tells of the 'Master Me-Ti' and his wisdom. Composed of short stories, aphorisms and anecdotal sketches, Me-Ti is Brecht's compendium of Chinese philosophy and commentary on contemporary political events and people, including the Nuremberg Race Laws, the Moscow Trials, Stalin, Hitler, Marx and Lenin. Often light and humorous in tone, the work is central to an understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and his orientally informed fascination with flow and flux, change and the non-eternal which informs much of his writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of Szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers.

First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Bertolt Brecht's Me-Ti: The Book of Interventions provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works form Brecht's oeuvre.

Genres: Philosophy, Poetry, Literature, German Literature

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. A seminal theatre practitioner of the twentieth century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble—the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife and long-time collaborator, the actress Helene Weigel—with its internationally acclaimed productions.

From his late twenties Brecht remained a life-long committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his 'epic theatre', synthesized and extended the experiments of Piscator and Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the 'epic form' of the drama (which constitutes that medium's rendering of 'autonomization' or the 'non-organic work of art'—related in kind to the strategy of divergent chapters in Joyce's novel Ulysses, to Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist 'montage' in the cinema, and to Picasso's introduction of cubist 'collage' in the visual arts). In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to 're-function' the apparatus of theatrical production to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the 'high art/popular culture' dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger insists that he is "the most important materialist writer of our time."

As Jameson among others has stressed, "Brecht is also ‘Brecht’"—collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to his approach. This 'Brecht' was a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."

There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner and Caryl Churchill. In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.

During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur. He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays.

Reviews

[Vahid]

بازجویی نیکان!

جلو بیا! می‌شنویم که مرد نیکی هستی.
خودت را نفروخته‌ای، اما صاعقه هم که به خانه می‌زند خریدنی نیست.
به حرفت پایبندی،خوب،حرفت چه بوده است؟
راستگو هستی؟عقیده‌ات را می‌گویی.کدام عقیده را؟
شجاعی؟دشمنت کیست؟
خردمندی؟برای که؟
چشم بر منافع خود ندوخته‌ای؟پس در پی منافع که می‌روی؟
دوست خوبی هستی،
آیا با مردم خوب هم دوستی می‌کنی؟
اینک گوش کن:
ما می‌دانیم که دشمن مایی.به این علت می‌خواهیم نابودت کنیم.
ولی
به ملاحظه خدمت‌ها و صفت‌های خوب تو،
دیواری نیکو انتخاب کرده‌ایم که تو را بر آن واداریم و رگباری از گلوله‌های خوب نثارت می‌کنیم و دفنت می‌کنیم با یک بیل خوب در خاکی مرغوب!
«قسمتی از کتاب اندیشه‌های متی»

[Tahmineh Baradaran]

ازنوجوانی بارهاآن راخوانده ام . ظاهرا" درچین میگذرد و استادی برای شاگردانش حکایتهایی میکند وبعضا" نتیجه گیریهایی.بعضی حکایتها بسیار خوب است وتاریخ مصرفی ندارد. بعضی هم معمولی است . حدس میزنم اسامی بعضی شخصیتهای چینی ، اسامی تغییریافته کارل مارکس وانگلس و...باشد.بعضی کتابهاازفرط تورق ،شیرازه گسسته میشود .این باهمین جلد وظاهر ، ازهمان هاست.

[Kyle]

A long, intricate ruse played out during most of Brecht’s professional career, apparently for his own edification (as Me-ti was published after he died and barely one collection was similar to another). Yet over the decades he kept up his observations of “the Great Method” is one country after another that grew increasingly hostile to Brecht’s left-leaning and freedom loving politics. Along the way from Weimar Germany to Soviet Russia and pre-McCarthy America, he writes about art, love, Special Relativity, uncertainty, nationalism, crime and poverty. The far-flung variety of topics and inconsistent pseudonyms employed doesn’t make for the easiest read, even with translator Tatlow numerous notes, yet as a glimpse of the bigger picture going on behind the scenes of his more familiar plays (and tragically incomplete Herr Julius Caesar novel) it dives deep into the heart and mind of a philosopher 2,400 years out of synch with his true self.

[Bezaubernd]

Wenn der Seidenwurm spänne, um sein Leben als Wurm zu fristen, so wäre er ein richtiger Lohnarbeiter.

[G.R Alexander]

Very witty metacommentery on both western and Eastern philosophy. It contains the clearest explanation of gestus I've seen so far. Personaly I enjoyed its fragmentary style both in style and philosophically.

Exerpts:

"it is good to respect those who are useful to us. And you can be more useful if you are respected. The room should be quiet when someone is seeking who has wide experience. Whoever assumes there proposals will be carried out thinks about them more carefully".

Ma-te asked: Can Ka-meh and Fu-en (Marx & Engles) be considered philosophers?
Me-ti replied: Ka-meh and Fu-en demanded that philosophers should not merely explain the world but aim to change it. If you agree with that, you can consider them philosophers.
Ma-te asked: Is the world not already changed by explaining it?
Me-ti replied: No. Most explanations consist of justifications.

[ZaRi]

تاجري به نام ب به شهر دوري سفر كرد . از آن جا كه مشغله اش زياد بود و مي پنداشت كه شريكش از او خاطر جمع است ، از نامه نوشتن به او غفلت كرد . شريك او از اين بابت چنان آزرده شد ، يا به اين علت خود را از او چنان جدا ديد كه شركت خود را با او به هم زد . حتي اموال او را به خيابان ريخت و گذاشتا تاضايع شوند . در اين باره نامه اي به آقاي ب نوشت كه رهگز جواب آن را دريافت نكرد . سكوت همان سكوت قبلي بود ، علتش عوض شده بود .

[Alireza Saramad]

می دانستم برشت آلمانی است، والتر بنیامین و فرانکفورتی ها در موردش نوشته اند، و با خواندن این کتاب فهمیدم خودش اصلا مارکسیست بوده، حرف هایی که اغلب از دهان متی و دیگران میزند دقیقا مارکسی اند. انقلاب، گذار به سوسیالیسم، حزب، ابزار تولید، استثمار، مبارزه. اما راستش با کمی بی انصافی باید پذیرفت که کمی تاریخشان گذشته، یا بعبارت بهتر، خیلی شعاری و ساده اندیشانه نوشته شده، که البته دقیقا در همان فضای ترسیم شده در ابتدا که بما می فهماند این بازیابی یک کتاب باستانی چینی است می باشد. بهر روی، کتاب مجموعه گزین گویه است، بسیار سریع پیش می رود و می تواند در یک روز تمام شود، گرچه من بیش از 70 صفحه اش را نخواندم. شعری که آخرش می گوید تو را چال می کنیم در خاکی مرغوب جالب بود که در ریویوی یک نفر آمده است.
فکر میکنم این که من خواندم آن برشت اصلی نبود، باشد که آن را بخوانم.

[Göksel Göktürk]

Kitap öncelikle felsefe soslu siyasi tarih kitabı. Ancak bu kitapta insan yaşayışına dair yani hepimizi ilgilendiren konularda da bir şeyler bulmak mümkün. Onun dışında ilgi alanları komünizm-nazizm, 1. Dünya savaşı, Bolşevik devrimi, rus tarihi vb olanlar kitaptan çok zevk alırlar. Ben çok sevdim dili çok güzel akıcı hikaye anlatır gibi anlatmış bütün olayları. Altını böyle hevesle çizmek istediğim bir çok yer oldu, tavsiye ederim.
İyi okumalar.

[Mina]

"-در را همیشه باید بست حتی پشت سر دوستی که رفته است وگرنه هوا خیلی سرد میشود.
-سردتر از آن ممکن نیست بشود.
-چرا ممکن است"
کتاب بسیار خوبی است و حتی لازم برای خواندن. گاهی نوشته چنان به نظرت مسخره می آید که نفی میکنی و گاهی چنان زیبا که می پنداری مگر بهتر از این میتوانست توصیف شود.
در مجموع بسیار لذت بردم و بسیار آموزنده بود. کتابی بود که مرا به تامل وا میداشت.

[امیرمحمد]

اندیشه‌های متی بود یا متی استعاره بود؟ به‌هرصورت، برای اینگونه گزین‌گویی‌های «حکییییم ارود بززززرگ»وار ارزش و احترامی قائل نیستم. ضد و نقیضند. از نصیحت منزجرند و نصیحت می‌کنند که نصیحت نکنی. هیچ جمله‌ای نباید با «تو باید» شروع شود پس «تو نباید» چنین کنی. این خودش یک بایدِ نفی‌کننده نیست؟ مزخرف بود.