Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht; The Story of a Friendship

by Erdmut Wizisla, translated by Christine Shuttleworth

• ISBN13: 9780300136951
• ISBN10: 0300136951
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2009-09-29
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Erdmut Wizisla's groundbreaking work explores for the first time the important friendship between Walter Benjamin, the acclaimed critic and literary theorist, and Bertolt Brecht, one of the twentieth century's most influential theater artists, during the crucial interwar years in Berlin. The story of this friendship is illuminated by the use of personal correspondence, journal entries, and notes from electric discussions of shared projectsincluding previously unpublished materials. Wizisla shows us the fascinating ideological exchanges between the two, with Benjamin espousing his ideas on historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism as a foil for Brecht's Marxist concept of art. Benjamin and Brecht's differences foreshadow the clash between Communism and Socialism in Weimar Germany that preceded the rise of Nazi Fascism, and their friendship throws light on nearly two decades of European intellectual life.

Author Biography

Erdmut Wizisla is the director of the Bertolt Brecht Archives in Berlin, which houses 20,000 of Brecht’s manuscripts, his personal library, and program booklets of Brecht’s productions as well as production media.

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