Academic literature on the topic 'Brecht Bertolt 1898-1956 Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder'

This dissertation interprets Brecht's Mutter Courage through its protagonist. Most interpreters have derived Courage's meaning from only one term of the contradiction of merchant and mother that constitutes her, either blaming the inhuman, war-mongering merchant for her participation in war, or defending the vital, productive, and nurturing mother for that same (unavoidable) participation. Some have stressed instead the unity formed by Courage's contradiction, without being able to elucidate its meaning. The present interpretation, proceeding from a clue given in scene 7 to the meaning of the text, draws parallels between the drama and Brecht's view of the world, and shows that the world of Mutter Courage is the symbolic representation of capitalism as Brecht knew it during the rise of fascism and the approach of the Second World War. Courage is then shown to be a concentrated form of this symbolic representation; indeed, she turns out to be a representation of capitalism in its "totality". This representation is inseparable from the invocation, through Courage, of the Great Mother archetype. The Great Mother describes a contradictory capitalism that is both a Good Mother in its promising productivity, and a Terrible Mother in its destructive warring and oppression; but she, as the symbol of Nature, also describes a capitalism that had begun to seem even to Brecht like a second Nature. Courage also represents the totality of capitalism (as the Marxist Brecht saw it) by embodying both its "affirmative" aspect (as a merchant who engenders soldiering sons), and (undermining the archetype of the Great Mother) its "critical" aspect as the representation of the resistance of the oppressed to their warring world (as the outlaw who engenders a daughter who rebels against war). The meaning of the drama, then, is the story of Courage as the incarnation of the dialectic of capitalism, a dark tale whose conditions seem eternal, but which contains the promise of something bet

This thesis examines the theoretical foundations of Brecht's and Sartre's "dialectical" theatre. Proceeding first from their most significant theoretical writings, it then studies representative plays--Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder and Les Mains sales--in an attempt to make explicit the relationship between theory and artistic practice. The textual analysis proper develops certain aspects of theme, structure and reception which in turn reveal meaningful differences and contradictions. Sartre's "dramatic" theatre in fact evidences a sort of ideological creativity whereas Brecht's "epic" theatre presents a more primordial artistic creativity. Therefore, though the concept of dialectical theatre (essentially political and/or historic) is a common thought-structure to both dramatists, its actualization differs. I will argue that Sartre's work shows a view of the art process as ideologically predetermined and almost ineluctable. Brecht's more primordial work, on the other hand, shows process as a creative anagnorisis, more immediate and archetypal. In the last chapter, I will give an overview of the changes in consciousness produced by these approaches of "dialectical" theatre and substantiate these by criticism that has dealt with the subject.

De quelle façon peut-on actualiser et mettre en scène une pièce de Brecht en considérant la relation aux spectateurs comme étant le point central de la démarche esthétique? Telle est notre question préalable. Cela implique de considérer le spectateur, du moins d'en intégrer une certaine conscience, dans le processus créatif qui mène à la représentation. La clarification des stratégies d'échange entre la scène et la salle a orienté nos recherches. D'abord, d'un point de vue sociologique, en prenant le parti que les spectateurs sont plus largement définis par tout ce qui est avant et après la représentation que par la centaine de minutes où ils sont assis dans la salle. Ensuite, par la voix des artisans du spectacle qui portent un regard de l'intérieur sur la relation scène-salle. Et finalement, dans une optique plus large qui englobe les deux précédents aspects et qui tient compte des modes communicationnels de notre époque et ce, en relation avec l'œuvre brechtienne. Nous soutenons ce travail de création en appuyant notre réflexion critique sur les écrits de Pierre Bourdieu et d'Emmanuel Éthis en sociologie, sur ceux de Régis Debray, Jacques Rancière et Guy Debord pour leur réflexion sur l'art, de Hans-Thies Lehmann et Jean-Pierre Sarrazac pour leurs travaux directement reliés à la pratique théâtrale et à l'art d'être spectateur et plus particulièrement à la proposition d'Yves Thoret qui, à travers la notion de spectature, définit la participation du spectateur à la représentation. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : spectateur, communication, spectature, distanciation, actualisation