On The Critical Attitude

The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.

Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.

Bertolt Brecht

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German playwright, poet, and theatre director of the 20th century. He established himself as a prominent literary figure by pioneering epic theatre, which aimed to provoke rational thought and social change in contrast to traditional forms of theatre. Brecht's notable works include "Mother Courage and Her Children" and "The Threepenny Opera."

Bertolt Brecht

Not What Was Meant

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

Send Me A Leaf

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

Questions From A Worker Who Reads

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Desultory Thoughts On Criticism - Prose

Let a man write never so well, there are now-a-days a sort of persons they call critics, that, egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses: but theyll laugh at you, Sir, and find fault, and censure things, that, egad, Im sure they are not able to do themselves; a sort of envious persons, that emulate the glories of persons of parts, and think to build their fame by calumniation of persons that, egad, to my knowledge, of all persons in the world, are in nature the persons that do as much despise all that, as, a, In fine, Ill say no more of em! REHEARSAL.

All the world knows the story of the tempest-tossed voyager, who, coming upon a strange coast, and seeing a man hanging in chains, hailed it with joy, as the sign of a civilized country. In like manner we may hail, as a proof of the rapid advancement of civili...

Washington Irving

Not What Was Meant

When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom
Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats
There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity
But roaring above everything
Came a deafening thunder of applause
From beyond the Sector boundary.
Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists!
Freedom all round! Freedom for all!
Freedom for the exploiters! Freedom for the warmongers!
Freedom for the Ruhr cartels! Freedom for Hitler's generals!
Softly, my dear fellows
The Judas kiss for the artists follows
Hard on the Judas kiss for the workers.
The arsonist with his bottle of petrol
Sneaks up grinning to
The Academy of Arts.
But it was not to embrace him, just
To knock the bottle out of his dirty hand that
We asked for elbow room.
Even the na...

Bertolt Brecht

To Posterity

1.

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and...

Bertolt Brecht

Five Criticisms - III.

(On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists.")

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
    Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,
    O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?

Where is your pride? Is this your answer still,
    This the red flag that burns above our strife,
This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill,
    "Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life"?

Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state
    With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!
Your very victories die in hymns of hate;
    And your own envies are your heaviest chain.

Is there no rebel proud enough to say
    "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?

Alfred Noyes

To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,

Bertolt Brecht

The Criticism.

    The great man came to the country place,
    To preach to farmers sturdy;
    He said: "I'm in my happiest vein,
    I'll be eloquent and wordy."

    "Not often a great man like myself
    Comes here to do the teaching -
    A big event in these quiet lives -
    They'll not forget my preaching."

    The great man found him a text at length
    In Ezekiel's ponderous pages;
    From point to point of his sermon long
    He travelled at easy stages.

    He soared up high in the realms of thought,
    Was rich in allegory.
    "I have," said he, as he sat him down,
    "Covered myself with glory.

    "These simple rustics are overcome
    With my rhetoric and power,
    They're used to a sprinkling of thought
    And I'...

Jean Blewett