Bertolt Brecht by Claude Hill (review)

356 Comparative Drama presence during performance. But critics are also part of that audience. Mr. Willson is too often here the file clerk. When he functions, how­ ever fitfully, as a critic, introducing us to his “world” of the play, his theater, he is much more impressive. SIDNEY R. HOMAN University of Florida Claude Hill. Bertolt Brecht. Twayne’s World Authors Series, 331. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975. $8.50. For undergraduate or beginning graduate students who are struggling with Brecht’s elusive theory on epic theater, Chapter VI of Claude Hill’s study offers a succinct, readable overview of the poet’s theoretical writ­ ings. A short glossary of terms such as “Gestus” or “Misuk” provides clarification for a discussion of Brecht’s dramaturgy and intent, thus allowing students to devote most of their attention to the literary works. Guidance for further inquiry into Brecht’s theory and criticism on Brecht is provided by a bibliography which categorizes sources as either Germanlanguage or English-language publications. As students turn to these other sources, they supersede the need for Hill’s text. The overall format of the book adheres, of course, to Twayne-series traditions: The first chapter chronicles Brecht’s life; the next four chap­ ters group the plays into four successive periods; the last chapter treats the poetry; and the book closes with an epitaph instead of an evaluation. Hill’s approach to presenting Brecht is to advance an interim consensus position instead of surveying current controversy among Brecht critics. Implicitly classifying himself as an “unbiased lover of literature” (77), Hill assesses the merit of the dramatist’s work: The early works are promising, linguistically superior idioms of an anarchic young playwright; the so-called “master plays,” on the other hand, represent aesthetically and dramatically pleasing products of a mature, unusually gifted drama­ tist who has overcome the youthful dogmatism of a new convert. During the intervening years, the twenties and thirties, Brecht constructed “Marxist” and “anti-fascist” works that Hill describes as valuable, even poetic in parts, but unacceptable as first-class literature. The issue of Brecht and politics continues to dictate value judgments according to the preferences of individual critics, and Hill is no exception. Assuming that the main body of his audience will be anti-Marxist, Hill gently suggests that literary value judgments should be above primitive categorization: Are Western critics unduly bothered by Goethe’s ambiguous Christian­ ity? Are Schiller and Kleist inferior poets because they tried to adapt Kant to their aesthetic needs rather than follow him to the letter? (66) This approach would seem to be a productive avenue for assessing Brecht’s contribution to world literature. Yet, Hill undercuts his own laudable intention by shifting the object Reviews 357 of disdain from Brecht the Marxist to Brecht’s Marxist critics who exhibit “twisted thinking” (86). In an introductory text of this kind, I question the advisability of choosing one group or school of literary criticism for pointed rebuke—even though the political viewpoint of the poet is of interest in scholarly publications. Throughout the book, no other group (e.g., as existentialists, close readers, impressionists, or semioticists) is singled out for attack and none but “Marxist” critics are identified with any particular school. Furthermore, to approach the “Marxists” as a monolithic entity is to oversimplify the range of controversy and differ­ ence of opinion within that group today and in Brecht’s own lifetime. While critics outside this group, “Western critics,” are judged on the basis of their arguments, Marxists are faulted with viewing literature from a Marxist perspective. This difficulty in value judgment permeates Hill’s discussion of Brecht’s “political” pieces. Two chapter headings, “Portrait of the Artist as a Marxist Teacher” and “Terror and Misery of the Third Reich,” sug­ gest that a distinction can be made between Brecht’s “Marxist” and “anti­ fascist” efforts: While the latter are often artistically successful, the former are usually marred by the “philosophical limitations of Marxism” (87). On the one hand, Hill views Brecht’s efforts to change the world through Marxism as an unproductive, naive campaign. The poet’s antiHitler writings, on the other hand, are described as “powerful weapons, whether...