Introduction

Summary

This article provides an introduction to the volume, briefly relating the primary aspects of Bertolt Brecht’s life and writing and exploring particularly his importance as a writer for the German language.Brecht was the most influential playwright of the twentieth-century worldwide, and modern theater would be unthinkable without his plays and theoretical concepts such as estrangement/distanciation.Brecht was also one of Germany’s greatest poets and a distinguished writer of prose. As a prime example of Brecht’s cultural influence, the article explores the impact that Brecht and his use of language had on Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter from the US, who testifies eloquently in his memoirs to the extraordinary effect that Brecht had on him as a young man. The introduction also examines some of the key controversies involving Brecht, including above all controversies about his revolutionary politics and his approach to collaboration and sexual morality. Brecht was not a hero but a flawed human being, and he himself was well aware of his own imperfections. He wanted to use his art and his work in order to create a world in which flawed human beings, in spite of their imperfections, could still lead decent lives of dignity and humanity.