Brecht: Literary Terms and Bridging Text and Context
Name:____________________________________ Date:_________
Part One: Literary Terms
A. Irony
Irony takes many forms. In irony of situation, the result of an action is the
reverse of what the actor expected……In dramatic irony, the audience knows
something that the characters in the drama do not. For example, the identity of the
murderer in a crime thriller may be known to the audience long before the
mystery is solved. In verbal irony, the contrast is between the literal meaning of
what is said and what is meant. A character may refer to a plan as brilliant, while
actually meaning that (s)he thinks the plan is foolish. Sarcasm is a form of verbal
irony.http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/terms/Literary.Terms.2.html#Irony
Examples of dramatic irony from All My Sons (FROM OU edition p. 175)
1. Kate refuses to admit that Larry is dead. By doing this she hopes to keep the family
together in peace and quiet. However the end result of her refusal to acknowledge
reality (‫ )להכיר במציאות‬is the break up of the entire Keller family unit.
2. Keller says of Steve : “I never believed in crucifying (‫)להצליב‬people”. Explain how these
words are ironic in the end:
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3. Keller wants to make money for his sons (which is why he doesn’t admit that there were
cracks in the cylinder heads, and shipped them out, taking the chance that they would
actually be installed and cause the planes to crash). What is the result of this desire?
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4. George tells Chris that Frank won the war. Is he telling the truth or being ironic?
Explain._________________________________________________________________
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Task: Find the irony in the poem and explain why it is ironic:
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Brecht: Literary Terms and Bridging Text and Context
B. Epigram
Definition: a short poem with a clever twist of thought; or short expression in prose.
Originally used to write on monuments or gravestones (which is why it had to be short) in
ancient Greece. The epigram was developed into a literary form by the poets of the
Hellenistic age and by the Roman poet Martial, whose Epigrams (86–102 CE) were often
obscenely insulting. This epigram by Herrick is adapted from Martial:
Lulls swears he is all heart, but you'll suppose
By his proboscis (‫ חֹ טֶ ם‬,‫ )חֵ ֶדק; אַ ף‬that he is all nose.
Adapted from: http://www.answers.com/topic/epigram
Brecht’s use of epigram
In War Primer, (Brecht) transformed the epigram – a form of classical Greek poem whose main use was for
engravings on stone monuments, hence its brevity - into a kind of caption, reinterpreting the meaning of the
original news magazine sources to get at the truth.
From: http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/brechts_war_primer_01137.html
C. Bridging Text and Context
Task: Read through the biography and the excerpt. Highlight the information you find interesting /
relevant. You will use it to answer the question at the end.
1. Biography
The Marxist playwright Brecht was one of the most important dramatists of the twentieth
century, and was a central figure of the early German avant-garde, of which literary
Expressionism was a key element. Rather than trying to write realistic plays, Brecht wrote
what he termed 'Epic Theatre.' Central to this was his Verfremdungseffekt, or
"Defamiliarisation Effect.'
By having his actors step out of character, or by using ironic captions to introduce episodes,
he would never allow the audience to forget that they were watching a play and not real life.
Through these techniques he hoped that he would provoke his audience into thinking more
carefully about the events they had seen.


Birth name: Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht
Born: Feb. 10, 1898, Augsburg, Ger.
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Brecht: Literary Terms and Bridging Text and Context

Died: Aug. 14, 1956, East Berlin
Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied medicine (Munich, 1917-21), and
served in an army hospital (1918). During this period he also developed a violently anti-bourgeois
attitude that reflected his generation's deep disappointment in the civilization that had come crashing
down at the end of World War I.
In Berlin (1924-33) he worked briefly for the directors Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator, but
mainly with his own group of associates. With the composer Kurt Weill he wrote the satirical,
successful ballad opera Die Dreigroschenoper (1928; The Threepenny Opera) and the opera Aufstieg
und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930; Rise and Fall of the Town of Mahoganny).. In these years he
developed his theory of "epic theatre" and an austere form of irregular verse. He also became a
Marxist.
In 1933 he went into exile--in Scandinavia (1933-41), mainly in Denmark, and then in the United
States (1941-47), where he did some film work in Hollywood. In Germany his books were burned
and his citizenship was withdrawn. He was cut off from the German theatre; but between 1937 and
1941 he wrote most of his great plays, his major theoretical essays and dialogues, and many of the
poems collected as Svendborger Gedichte (1939). The plays of these years became famous in the
author's own and other productions: notable among them …Der Aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui
(1957; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), a parable play of Hitler's rise to power set in prewar
Chicago; and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (first produced in English, 1948; Der kaukasische
Kreidekreis, 1949), the story of a struggle for possession of a child between its highborn mother,
who deserts it, and the servant girl who looks after it.
Brecht left the United States in 1947 after having had to give evidence before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He spent a year in Zurich….
In 1949 Brecht went to Berlin to help stage Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (with his wife, Helene
Weigel, in the title part) at Reinhardt's old Deutsches Theater in the Soviet sector. He died of a heart
attack in East Berlin the following year.
http://www.leninimports.com/bertolt_brecht.html
2. Excerpt from a journal article:
Brecht's War Primer: the "photo-epigram" as poor monument
by David Evans
Kriegsfibel (literally, War Primer) is a collection of what Bertolt Brecht called "photo-epigrams"--four line
verses captioning photographs clipped from newspapers and magazines. They were mainly composed during
World War II, while Brecht was living in Scandinavia and the United States as an exile from Nazi Germany.
Edited by his Danish collaborator, Ruth Berlau, they were finally published as a book in 1955 in the German
Democratic Republic (GDR), Brecht's home base from 1949 until his death in 1956.
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Brecht: Literary Terms and Bridging Text and Context
The title, War Primer, deliberately recalls the textbooks used to teach elementary school children how to read.
Brecht's "primer" also has a didactic function, but aims to teach visual literacy to adults.
From:
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=J2TVsD3PLN1c2BDDJKpzThH2ZcdmC3hJ
2CLpj7RkdV5hHG8XQ6ym!-1815961519?docId=5001701240
Sample of War Primer
Worn out by battle, if you only had
Sufficient strength now for yourselves to fight
The world, in death- and birth-pangs, would be glad
It took the pains that led to your defeat.
Never forget that men like you got hurt
So you might sit there, not the other lot.
And now don’t hide your head, and don’t desert
But learn to learn, and try to learn for what.
Bridging Text and Context Question: From what you have read about Brecht, how does this
enhance your understanding of the text?
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