Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BC, found at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), Louvre

Baʿal (Biblical Hebrew בעל, pronounced [ˈbaʕal], usually spelled Baal in English) is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord"^[1] that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. A Baalist or Baalite means a worshipper of Baal.

"Baʿal" can refer to any god and even to human officials. In some texts it is used for Hadad, a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name, Hadad, Ba‛al was commonly used. Nevertheless, few if any Biblical uses of "Baʿal" refer to Hadad, the lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, but rather refer to any number of local spirit-deities worshipped as cult images, each called baʿal and regarded in the Hebrew Bible in that context as a "false god".

Etymology[link]

Baʿal (bet-ayin-lamedh) is a Semitic word signifying "The Lord, master, owner (male), keeper, husband". Cognates include Standard Hebrew (Bet-Ayin-Lamed); בַּעַל / בָּעַל, Báʿal, Akkadian Bēl and Arabic بعل. The feminine form is Baʿalat (Hebrew בַּעֲלָה Baʕ^alah, Arabic بعلـة baʿalah) signifying "lady, mistress, owner (female), wife".

The words themselves had no exclusively religious connotation, they are honorific titles for heads of households or master craftsmen, but not for royalty. The meaning of "lord" as a member of royalty or nobility is more accurately translated as Adon in Semitic.

Baʿal ul bayt in modern Levantine Arabic is widely used to mean the head of the household, literally 'Master of the House' and has a somewhat jocular, semi-mocking connotation.^{[citation needed]} In modern Levantine Arabic, the word báʿal serves as an adjective describing farming that relies only on rainwater as a source of irrigation. Probably it is the last remnant of the sense of Baal the god in the minds of the people of the region. In the Amharic language, the Semitic word for "owner" or "husband, spouse" survives with the spelling bal.

Deities called Baʿal and Baʿalath[link]

Because more than one god bore the title "Baʿal" and more than one goddess bore the title "Baʿalat" or "Ba``alah," only the context of a text can indicate of which Baʿal 'lord' or Baʿalath 'Lady' a particular inscription or text is speaking.

Hadad in Ugarit[link]

In the Bronze Age, Hadad (or Haddad or Adad) was especially likely to be called Baʿal; however, Hadad was far from the only god to have that title.^{[dubious – discuss]}

In the Canaanite pantheon as attested in Ugaritic sources, Hadad was the son of El, who had once been the primary god of the Canaanite pantheon. El and Baʿal are often associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as a symbol both of strength and fertility.^[2]

Baʿal of Tyre[link]

Melqart is the son of El in the Phoenician triad of worship. He was the god of Tyre and was often called the Baʿal of Tyre. 1 Kings 16:31 relates that Ahab, king of Israel, married Jezebel, daughter of Ethba’al, king of the Sidonians, and then served habba’al ('the Baʿal'.) The cult of this god was prominent in Israel until the reign of Jehu, who put an end to it (2 Kings 10:26):

And they brought out the pillars (massebahs) of the house of the Baʿal and burned them. And they pulled down the pillar (massebah) of the Baʿal and pulled down the house of the Baʿal and turned it into a latrine until this day.

Some scholars claim it is uncertain whether "Baʿal" the Lord in Kings 10:26 refers to Melqart. They point out that Hadad was also worshipped in Tyre. This point of view ignores the possibility that Hadad and Melqart are the same god with different names because of different languages and cultures, Hadad being Canaanite and Melqart being Phoenician. In favor of the latter interpretation, both Hadad and Melqart are described as the son of El, both carrying the same secondary position in the pantheons of each culture.

Josephus (Antiquities 8.13.1) states clearly that Jezebel "built a temple to the god of the Tyrians, which they call Belus" which certainly refers to the Baal of Tyre, or Melqart.

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah (pole) and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.^[3]

In any case, King Ahab, despite supporting the cult of this Baʿal, had a semblance of worship to Yahweh (1 Kings 16-22). Ahab still consulted Yahweh's prophets and cherished Yahweh's protection when he named his sons Ahaziah ("Yahweh holds") and Jehoram ("Yahweh is high.")

Baʿal of Carthage[link]

The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. Baʿal Hammon was the supreme god of the Carthaginians, and is believed that this supremacy dates back to the 5th century BC, apparently after a breaking off of relationships between Carthage and Tyre at the time of the Punic defeat in Himera.^[4] He is generally identified by modern scholars either with the Northwest Semitic god El or with Dagon,^[5] and generally identified by the Greeks, by interpretatio Graeca with Greek Cronus and similarly by the Romans with Saturn.

The meaning of Hammon or Hamon is unclear. In the 19th century when Ernest Renan excavated the ruins of Hammon (Ḥammon), the modern Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre, he found two Phoenician inscriptions dedicated to El-Hammon. Since El was normally identified with Cronus and Ba‘al Hammon was also identified with Cronus, it seemed possible they could be equated. More often a connection with Hebrew/Phoenician ḥammān 'brazier' has been proposed, in the sense of "Baal (lord) of the brazier". He has been therefore identified with a solar deity.^[6] Frank Moore Cross argued for a connection to Khamōn, the Ugaritic and Akkadian name for Mount Amanus, the great mountain separating Syria from Cilicia based on the occurrence of an Ugaritic description of El as the one of the Mountain Haman.

Classical sources relate how the Carthaginians burned their children as offerings to Baʿal Hammon. See Moloch for a discussion of these traditions and conflicting thoughts on the matter. From the attributes of his Roman form, African Saturn, it is possible to conclude that Hammon was a fertility god.^[7]

Scholars tend to see Baʿal Hammon as more or less identical with the god El, who was also generally identified with Cronus and Saturn. However, Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god. Edward Lipinski identifies him with the god Dagon in his Dictionnaire de la civilisation phenicienne et punique (1992: ISBN 2-503-50033-1). Inscriptions about Punic deities tend to be rather uninformative.

In Carthage and North Africa Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baʿal Qarnaim ("Lord of Two Horns") in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein ("the two-horned hill") across the bay from Carthage.

Baʿal Hammon's female cult partner was Tanit.^[8] He was probably not ever identified with Baʿal Melqart, although one finds this equation in older scholarship.

Ba`alat Gebal ("Lady of Byblos") appears to have been generally identified with ‘Ashtart, although Sanchuniathon distinguishes the two.

Priests of Baʿal[link]

The Priests of Baʿal are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible numerous times, including a confrontation with the Prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18:21-40), the burning of incense symbolic of prayer (2 Kings 23:5), and rituals followed by priests adorned in special vestments (2 Kings 10:22) offering sacrifices similar to those given to honor the Hebrew God. The confrontation with the Prophet Elijah is also mentioned in the Qur'an (37:123-125)

[edit] Baʿal as a divine title in Israel and Judah

At first the name Baʿal was used by the Jews for their God without discrimination, but as the struggle between the two religions developed, the name Baʿal was given up in Judaism as a thing of shame, and even names like Jerubbaʿal were changed to Jerubbosheth: Hebrew bosheth means "shame".^[9]

The sense of competition between the priestly forces of Yahweh and of Baʿal in the ninth century is nowhere more directly attested than in 1 Kings 18, where, Elijah the prophet offering a sacrifice to Yahweh, Baʿal's followers did the same. Baʿal in the Hebrew text did not light his followers' sacrifice, but Yahweh sent heavenly fire to burn Elijah's sacrifice to ashes, even after it had been soaked with water.

Since Baʿal simply means 'master', there is no obvious reason for which it could not be applied to Yahweh as well as other gods. In fact, Hebrews generally referred to Yahweh as Adonai ('my lord') in prayer. The judge Gideon was also called Jerubaʿal, a name which seems to mean 'Baʿal strives', though the Yahwists' explanation in Judges 6:32 is that the theophoric name was given to mock the god Baʿal, whose shrine Gideon had destroyed, the intention being to imply: "Let Baʿal strive as much as he can ... it will come to nothing."

After Gideon's death, according to Judges 8:33, the Israelites went astray and started to worship the Baʿalîm (the Baʿals) especially Baʿal Berith ("Lord of the Covenant.") A few verses later (Judges 9:4) the story turns to all the citizens of Shechem — actually kol-ba‘^alê š^əkem another case of normal use of ba‘al not applied to a deity. These citizens of Shechem support Abimelech's attempt to become king by giving him 70 shekels from the House of Ba‘al Berith. It is hard to dissociate this Lord of the Covenant who is worshipped in Shechem from the covenant at Shechem described earlier in Joshua 24:25, in which the people agree to worship Yahweh. It is especially hard to do so when Judges 9:46 relates that all "the holders of the tower of Shechem" (kol-ba‘^alê midgal-š^əkem) enter bêt ’ēl b^ərît 'the House of El Berith', that is, 'the House of God of the Covenant'. Either "Baʿal" was here a title for El, or the covenant of Shechem perhaps originally did not involve El at all, but some other god who bore the title Baʿal. Whether there were different viewpoints about Yahweh, some seeing him as an aspect of Hadad, some as an aspect of El, some with other perceptions cannot be unambiguously answered.^{[citation needed]}

Baʿal appears in theophoric names. One also finds Eshbaʿal (one of Saul's sons) and Beʿeliada (a son of David). The last name also appears as Eliada. This might show that at some period Baʿal and El were used interchangeably; even in the same name applied to the same person. More likely a later hand has cleaned up the text. Editors did play around with some names, sometimes substituting the form bosheth 'abomination' for ba‘al in names, whence the forms Ishbosheth instead of Eshbaʿal and Mephibosheth which is rendered Meribaʿal in 1 Chronicles 9:40. 1 Chronicles 12:5 mentions the name Beʿaliah (more accurately b^e‘alyâ) meaning "Yahweh is Baʿal."

It is difficult to determine to what extent the 'false worship' which the prophets stigmatize is the worship of Yahweh under a conception and with rites, which treated him as a local nature god, or whether particular features of gods more often given the title Ba‘al were consciously recognized to be distinct from Yahwism from the first. Certainly some of the Ugaritic texts and Sanchuniathon report hostility between El and Hadad, perhaps representing a cultic and religious differences reflected in Hebrew tradition also, in which Yahweh in the Tanach is firmly identified with El and might be expected to be somewhat hostile to Baʿal/Hadad and the deities of his circle. But for Jeremiah and the Deuteronomist it also appears to be monotheism against polytheism (Jeremiah 11:12):

Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry to the gods to whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. For according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to the abominination, altars to burn incense to the Ba‘al.

Multiple Baʿals and ʿAshtarts[link]

One finds in the Tanakh the plural forms b^ə'ālîm 'Baʿals' or 'Lords' and aštārôt Ashtarts, though such plurals don't appear in Phoenician or Canaanite or independent Aramaic sources.

One theory is that the people of each territory or in each wandering clan worshipped their own Baʿal, as the chief deity of each, the source of all the gifts of nature, the mysterious god of their fathers. As the god of fertility all the produce of the soil would be his, and his adherents would bring to him their tribute of first-fruits. He would be the patron of all growth and fertility, and, by the use of analogy characteristic of early thought, this Baʿal would be the god of the productive element in its widest sense. Originating perhaps in the observation of the fertilizing effect of rains and streams upon the receptive and reproductive soil, Baʿal worship became identical with nature-worship. Joined with the Baʿals there would naturally be corresponding female figures which might be called ʿAshtarts, embodiments of 'Ashtart. Baʿal Hadad is associated with the goddess "Virgin" Anat, his sister and lover.

Through analogy and through the belief that one can control or aid the powers of nature by the practice of magic, particularly sympathetic magic, sexuality might characterize part of the cult of the Baʿals and ʿAshtarts. Post-Exilic allusions to the cult of Baʿal Pe'or suggest that orgies prevailed. On the summits of hills and mountains flourished the cult of the givers of increase, and "under every green tree" was practised the licentiousness which was held to secure abundance of crops. Human sacrifice, the burning of incense, violent and ecstatic exercises, ceremonial acts of bowing and kissing, the preparing of sacred cakes (see also Asherah), appear among the offences denounced by the post-Exilic prophets; and show that the cult of Baʿal (and ʿAshtart) included characteristic features of worship which recur in various parts of the Semitic (and non-Semitic) world, although attached to other names. But it is also possible that such rites were performed to a local Baʿal Lord and a local ʿAshtart without much concern as to whether they were the same as that of a nearby community or how they fitted into the national theology of Yahweh who had become a ruling high god of the heavens, increasingly disassociated from such things, at least in the minds of some worshippers.

Another theory is that the references to Baʿals and ʿAshtarts (and Asherahs) are to images or other standard symbols of these deities, statues, and icons of Baʿal Hadad, ʿAshtart, and Asherah set-up in various high places as well as those of other gods, the author listing the most prominent as types for all.

A reminiscence of Baʿal as a title of a local fertility god (or referring to a particular god of subterraneous water) may occur in the Talmudic Hebrew phrases field of the Baʿal and place of the Baʿal and Arabic ba'l used of land fertilised by subterraneous waters rather than by rain.

The identification of Baʿal as a sun-god in historical scholarship came to be abandoned by the end of the 19th century as it became clear that Baʿal was the title of numerous local gods and not necessarily a single deity in origin. It also became clear that the "astralizing" (association or identification with heavenly bodies) of Ancient Near Eastern deities was a late (Iron Age) development in no way connected with the origin of religion as theorized by some 19th century schools of thought.^[10]

Christian demonology[link]

The Dictionnaire Infernal illustration of Baal.

Until archaeological digs at Ras Shamra and Ebla uncovered texts explaining the Syrian pantheon, the demon Ba‘al Zebûb was frequently confused with various Semitic spirits and deities named Baal, whereas in some Christian writings, it might refer to a high-ranking devil or to Satan himself.

Early demonologists,^[who?] unaware of Hadad or that "Baʿal" in the Bible referred to any number of local spirits, came to regard the term as referring to but one personage. Baal was ranked as the first and principal king in Hell, ruling over the East. According to some authors^[who?] Baal is a duke, with 66 legions of demons under his command.^{[citation needed]}

During the English Puritan period, Baal was either compared to Satan or considered his main lieutenant. According to Francis Barrett, he has the power to make those who invoke him invisible.

John Milton in his epic poem Paradise Lost of 1667 describes Satan's "Legions, Angel Forms" immediately after the fall from heaven collecting themselves and gathering around their "Great Sultan" (Satan). Milton names and describes the most prominent of these whose names in heaven had been "blotted out and ras'd", but who would acquire new names "wandring ore the Earth", being worshipped by man ("Devils to adore for Deities"). In the following section, Milton refers to the plural forms of Baʿal and Astarte [Book 1, lines 419-423]:

With these came they, who from the bordring flood
Of old Euphrates to the Brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general Names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,
These Feminine.

In grimoire tradition, the demon Bael was said to appear in the forms of a man, cat, toad, or combinations thereof. An illustration in Collin de Plancy's 1818 book Dictionnaire Infernal rather curiously placed the heads of the three creatures onto a set of spider legs.

In Islam[link]

The word Baʿal appears in the Quran. The Quran (37:125) mentions that Elias (Elijah) a prophet of god was sent to his people to tell them not to worship Baʿal and worship one true god.

"And Elias was most surely of the messengers, he asked his people: 'do you not fear (Allah)?, will ye call upon Baʿal and forsake the best of creators, Allah is your Lord and the Lord of your fathers, the ancients.but they rejected him, and they will certainly be called up (for punishment),except the sincere and devoted servants of Allah (among them),and we left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times,peace be upon Elias."

—Qur'an, Sura 37, Ayat 123-130

Baʿal Zebûb[link]

Beelzebub as depicted in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (Paris, 1825).

Ba‘al Zəbûb is variously understood to mean "lord of flies",^{[11][12][13][14]} or "lord of the (heavenly) dwelling".^[15][16][17] Originally the name of a Philistine god,^[18] Beelzebub is also identified in the New Testament as Satan, the "prince of the demons".^[19][20] In Arabic the name is retained as Ba‘al dhubaab / zubaab (بعل الذباب), literally "Lord of the Flies". Biblical scholar Thomas Kelly Cheyne suggested that it might be a derogatory corruption of Ba‘al Zəbûl, "Lord of the High Place" (i.e., Heaven) or "High Lord".^[21] The word Beelzebub in rabbinical texts is a mockery of the Ba'al religion, which ancient Hebrews considered to be idol (or, false God) worship.^[22] Ba'al, meaning "Lord" in Ugaritic, was used in conjunction with a descriptive name of a specific God. Jewish scholars have interpreted the title of "Lord of Flies" as the Hebrew way of calling Ba'al a pile of dung, and comparing Ba'al followers to flies.^[23][24] The Septuagint renders the name as Baalzebub (βααλζεβούβ) and as Baal muian (βααλ μυιαν, "Baal of flies"), but Symmachus the Ebionite may have reflected a tradition of its offensive ancient name when he rendered it as Beelzeboul.^[25]

See also[link]

	Mythology portal
	Ancient Near East portal

• Goetic demons in popular culture
• Adon
• Adonis
• Ba'al (Stargate)
• Ba‘al Shamîm
• Baal Peor
• Baaltars
• Beelzebub
• Bel
• Belial
• Canaanite religion
• El-Gabal
• Hadad
• Melqart
• Moloch
• Set

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Baal.

• The Catholic Encyclopedia, entry "Baal, Baalim"
• Jewish Encyclopedia, entries "Ba'al", "Ba'al-worship", "Ba'al-Ha-bayit" etc
• Article Baal (PDF format) by W. Robertson Smith and George F. Moore in Encyclopædia Biblica, edited T. K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, MacMillan: London, 1899. (Still quite accurate.)
• Bartleby: American Heritage Dictionary: Semitic roots: b^cl.
• Punic images of Baal Hammon described.
• Iconography of Baal (PDF format)
• Rabbi Meir Baal Haneis
•  "Baal". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 

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Bertolt Brecht
Born	(1898-02-10)10 February 1898 Augsburg, German Empire
Died	14 August 1956(1956-08-14) (aged 58) Mitte, East Berlin, East Germany
Occupation	Playwright, theatre director, poet
Genres	Non-Aristotelian drama · Epic theatre · Dialectical theatre
Notable work(s)	The Threepenny Opera Life of Galileo Mother Courage and Her Children The Good Person of Szechwan The Caucasian Chalk Circle The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Spouse(s)	Marianne Zoff (1922–1927)[1] Helene Weigel (1930–1956)
Children	Frank Banholzer (1919–1943), Hanne Hiob (1923–2009), Stefan Brecht (1924–2009), Barbara Brecht-Schall (born 1930)
Influences This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. Georg Büchner · Alfred Döblin[2] · Frank Wedekind · Karl Valentin · Erwin Piscator · Vsevolod Meyerhold · Méi Lánfāng · Karl Marx · Karl Korsch · Bible
Influenced This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability. Walter Benjamin · Louis Althusser · Roland Barthes · Dario Fo · Augusto Boal · Joan Littlewood · W. H. Auden · Peter Brook · Peter Weiss · Heiner Müller · Pina Bausch · Peter Hacks · Tony Kushner · Caryl Churchill · John Arden · Howard Brenton · Edward Bond · David Hare · Armand Gatti · San Francisco Mime Troupe · Teatro Campesino · The Wooster Group · The Living Theatre · Josef Szeiler · Jean-Luc Godard · Glauber Rocha · Manoel de Oliveira · Lindsay Anderson · Rainer Werner Fassbinder · Joseph Losey · Nagisa Oshima · Ritwik Ghatak · Lars von Trier · Jan Bucquoy · Hal Hartley
Signature

Bertolt Brecht (German: [ˈbɛɐ̯tɔlt ˈbʁɛçt] ( listen); born  Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (help·info); 10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.

An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble – the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife, long-time collaborator and actress Helene Weigel.^[3]

Life and career[link]

Bavaria (1898–1924)[link]

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, (about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of Munich) to a conventionally-devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914.^[4] Thanks to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would impact on his writing throughout his life. From her, too, came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama.^[5] Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied.^[6] At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership, Neher designing many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helping to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.

When he was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army".^[4] On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought a loophole by registering for an additional medical course at Munich University, where he enrolled in 1917.^[7] There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret-star Wedekind.^[8]

From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).^[9] Brecht was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic; the war ended a month later.^[4]

In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother died.^[10]

Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin.^[11] Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform.^[12] Brecht compared Valentin to Chaplin, for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology". ^[13] Writing in his Messingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner, as his "chief influences" at that time:

But the man he [Brecht writes of himself in the third person] learnt most from was the clown Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice.^[14]

Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge."^[15] Brecht completed his second major play, Drums in the Night, in February 1919.

In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, Drums in the Night—"[he] has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision. [...] It is a language you can feel on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column."^[16] In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays (Baal, Drums in the Night, and In the Jungle, although at that point only Drums had been produced).^[17] The citation for the award insisted that:

"[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round."^[18]

That year he married the Viennese opera-singer Marianne Zoff. Their daughter—Hanne Hiob (1923–2009)—was a successful German actress.^[4]

In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin.^[19] Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films in German film history.^[20] In May of that year, Brecht's In the Jungle premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage.^[12]

In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that proved to be a milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development.^[21] Brecht's Edward II constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of "epic theatre".^[22] That September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater—at the time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin.^[23]

Weimar Republic Berlin (1925–33)[link]

In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927).^[24] Brecht had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel.^[25] Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan, was born in October 1924.^[26]

In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own.^[27] Reinhardt staged Shaw's Saint Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters (with the improvisational approach of the commedia dell'arte in which the actors chatted with the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author in his group of Berlin theatres.^[28] A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family, opened at the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success.^[29]

At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB".^[30] In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home (Hauspostille, eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after the publisher's commission ran out.^[31]

In 1925 in Mannheim the artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit ("new objectivity") had given its name to the new post-Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop his Man Equals Man project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended."^[32] This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement.^[33] The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s," Willett and Manheim argue:

with their attitude of 'Neue Sachlichkeit' (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man) but also drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions.^[34]

In 1925, Brecht also saw two films that had a significant influence on him: Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.^[35] Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and the two of them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Man.^[36] Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements."^[37] They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which it is possible Brecht influenced.^[38]

In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them.^[39] Following the production of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann.^[40] "When I read Marx's Capital", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across."^[41]

In 1927 Brecht became part of the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre".^[43] Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Toller, Rasputin, The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, and Konjunktur by Lania.^[44] Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novel Schweik, which he later described as a "montage from the novel".^[45] The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the "epic" playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections).^[46] What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests:

The emphasis on Reason and didacticism, the sense that the new subject matter demanded a new dramatic form, the use of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique of Schweik and the oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').^[47]

Brecht was struggling at the time with the question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until his Saint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929–1931) that Brecht solved it.^[48] In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in the Night, but the productions did not materialize.^[49]

1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composer Kurt Weill.^[50] Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, along thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous work.^[51] They produced The Little Mahagonny for a music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start.^[52] The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly-formulated principle of the "separation of the elements", which he first outlined in "The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre" (1930). The principle, a variety of montage, proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art that adopt attitudes towards one another.^[53]

Stamp from the former East Germany depicting Brecht and a scene from his Life of Galileo.

In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding.^[54] She also became an actress and currently holds the copyrights to all of Brecht's work.

Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multiple teaching plays, which attempted to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to the massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, which attempted to portray the drama in financial transactions.

This collective adapted John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill. Retitled The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) it was the biggest hit in Berlin of the 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation:

The success of The Threepenny Opera was followed by the quickly thrown together Happy End. It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements of Happy End as the germ for his Saint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Happy End's score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".

The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.

Brecht spent his last years in the Weimar-era Berlin (1930–1933) working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke. These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues. The Measures Taken (Die Massnahme) was scored by Hanns Eisler. In addition, Brecht worked on a script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic. The so-called "Westend Berlin Scene" in the 1930 was an important influencing factor on Brecht, playing in a milieu around Ulmenallee in Westend with artists like Richard Strauss, Marlene Dietrich and Herbert Ihering.^{[citation needed]}

By February 1933, Brecht’s work was eclipsed by the rise of Nazi rule in Germany. (Brecht would also have his work challenged again in later life by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which believed he was under the influence of communism.^[55])

Nazi Germany and World War II (1933–1945)[link]

Fearing persecution, Brecht left Germany in February 1933, when Hitler took power. After brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michaelis to move to Denmark where they settled in a house in Svendborg on the island of Funen. This became the residence of the Brecht family for the next six years, where they often received guests including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau. During this period Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations.

When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he remained for a year.^[1] Then Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, and Brecht was forced to leave Sweden for Helsinki in Finland where he waited for his visa for the United States until 3 May 1941.^[1]

During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur.^[56][56] He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays: Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, and many others.

Brecht also wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang-directed film Hangmen Also Die! which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS, and a chief architect of the Holocaust, who was known as "The Hangman of Prague."^[1] It was Brecht's only script for a Hollywood film: the money he earned from the project enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Hanns Eisler was nominated for an Academy Award for his musical score. The collaboration of three prominent refugees from Nazi Germany –Lang, Brecht and Eisler – is an example of the influence this generation of German exiles had in American culture.

Cold War and final years in East Germany (1945–1956)[link]

Brecht and Weigel on the roof of the Berliner Ensemble during the International Workers' Day demonstrations in 1954.

In the years of the Cold War and "Red Scare", Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses and interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Along with about 41 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC in September 1947. Although he was one of 19 witnesses who declared that they would refuse to appear, Brecht eventually decided to testify. He later explained that he had followed the advice of attorneys and had not wanted to delay a planned trip to Europe. Dressed in overalls and smoking an acrid cigar that made some of the committee members feel slightly ill, on 30 October 1947 Brecht testified that he had never been a member of the Communist Party.^[55] He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC Vice Chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his co-operation. The remaining witnesses, the so called Hollywood Ten, refused to testify and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to appear before the committee led to criticism, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, on 31 October, Brecht returned to Europe.

In Chur in Switzerland, Brecht staged an adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, based on a translation by Hölderlin. It was published under the title Antigonemodell 1948, accompanied by an essay on the importance of creating a "non-Aristotelian" form of theatre. An offer of his own theatre (completed in 1954) and theatre company (the Berliner Ensemble) encouraged Brecht to return to Berlin in 1949. He retained his Austrian nationality (granted in 1950) and overseas bank accounts from which he received valuable hard currency remittances. The copyrights on his writings were held by a Swiss company.^[57] At the time he drove a pre-war DKW car—a rare luxury in the austere divided capital.

Though he was never a member of the Communist Party, Brecht had been deeply schooled in Marxism by the dissident communist Karl Korsch. Korsch's version of the Marxist dialectic influenced Brecht greatly, both his aesthetic theory and theatrical practice. Brecht received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1954.

Brecht wrote very few plays in his final years in East Berlin, none of them as famous as his previous works. He dedicated himself to directing plays and developing the talents of the next generation of young directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Weber. Some of his most famous poems, including the "Buckow Elegies", were written at this time.

At first Brecht supported the measures taken by the East German government against the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, which included the use of Soviet military force. In a letter from the day of the uprising to SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote that: "History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany."^[58]

Brecht's subsequent commentary on those events, however, offered a different assessment—in one of the poems in the Elegies, "Die Lösung" (The Solution), Brecht writes:

<poem> After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?[59]</poem>

Death[link]

Brecht died on 14 August 1956 of a heart attack at the age of 58. He is buried in the Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery on Chausseestraße in the Mitte neighbourhood of Berlin, overlooked by the residence he shared with Helene Weigel.

Theory and practice of theatre[link]

From his late twenties Brecht remained a lifelong committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his "epic theatre", synthesized and extended the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism.

Statue of Brecht outside the Berliner Ensemble's theatre in Berlin.

Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.

Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the "epic form" of the drama. This dramatic form is related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including the strategy of divergent chapters in James Joyce's novel Ulysses, Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist "montage" in the cinema, and Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.^[60]

One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect").^[61] This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them".^[62] To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense, and speaking the stage directions out loud.^[63]

In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" the theatre to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger dubs him "the most important materialist writer of our time."^[64]

Brecht was also influenced by Chinese theatre, and used its aesthetic as an argument for Verfremdungseffekt. Brecht believed, "Traditional Chinese acting also knows the alienation effect, and applies it most subtly.^[65]... The [Chinese] performer portrays incidents of utmost passion, but without his delivery becoming heated." ^[66] Brecht attended a Chinese opera performance and was introduced to the famous Chinese opera performer Mei LanFang in 1935.^[67] However, Brecht was sure to distinguish between Epic and Chinese theatre. He recognized that the Chinese style was not a "transportable piece of technique," ^[68] and that Epic theatre sought to historicize and address social and political issues.^[69]

Impact[link]

Brecht left the Berliner Ensemble to his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, which she ran until her death in 1971. Perhaps the most famous German touring theatre of the postwar era, it was primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays. His son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet and theatre critic interested in New York's avant-garde theatre. Brecht has been a controversial figure in Germany, and in his native city of Augsburg there were objections to creating a birthplace museum. By the 1970s, however, Brecht's plays had surpassed Shakespeare's in the number of annual performances in Germany.

There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner, Robert Bolt and Caryl Churchill.

In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Joseph Losey, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.^[70][71]

Brecht in fiction[link]

• In the 1930 novel Success, Brecht's mentor Lion Feuchtwanger immortalized Brecht as the character Kaspar Pröckl.
• In the 2006 film The Lives of Others, a Stasi agent is partially inspired to save a playwright he has been spying on by reading a book of Brecht poetry that he had stolen from the artist's apartment.
• Brecht at Night by Mati Unt, transl. Eric Dickens (Dalkey Archive Press, 2009)

Collaborators and associates[link]

Collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses. Jameson describes the creator of the work not as Brecht the individual, but rather as 'Brecht': a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."^[72]

List of collaborators and associates[link]

Works[link]

Plays[link]

Entries show: English-language translation of title (German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced]^[73]

• Baal 1918/1923
• Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) 1918–20/1922
• The Beggar (Der Bettler oder Der tote Hund) 1919/?
• A Respectable Wedding (Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit) 1919/1926
• Driving Out a Devil (Er treibt einen Teufel aus) 1919/?
• Lux in Tenebris 1919/?
• The Catch (Der Fischzug) 1919?/?
• Mysteries of a Barbershop (Mysterien eines Friseursalons) (screenplay) 1923
• In the Jungle of Cities (Im Dickicht der Städte) 1921–24/1923
• The Life of Edward II of England (Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England) 1924/1924
• Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer (Der Untergang des Egoisten Johnann Fatzer) (fragments) 1926–30/1974
• Man Equals Man (Mann ist Mann) 1924–26/1926
• The Elephant Calf (Das Elefantenkalb) 1924–26/1926
• Little Mahagonny (Mahagonny-Songspiel) 1927/1927
• The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) 1928/1928
• The Flight across the Ocean (Der Ozeanflug); originally Lindbergh's Flight (Lindberghflug) 1928–29/1929
• The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent (Badener Lehrstück vom Einverständnis) 1929/1929
• Happy End (Happy End) 1929/1929
• The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) 1927–29/1930
• He Said Yes / He Said No (Der Jasager; Der Neinsager) 1929–30/1930–?
• The Decision (Die Maßnahme) 1930/1930
• Saint Joan of the Stockyards (Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe) 1929–31/1959
• The Exception and the Rule (Die Ausnahme und die Regel) 1930/1938
• The Mother (Die Mutter) 1930–31/1932
• Kuhle Wampe (screenplay) 1931/1932
• The Seven Deadly Sins (Die sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger) 1933/1933
• Round Heads and Pointed Heads (Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe) 1931–34/1936
• The Horatians and the Curiatians (Die Horatier und die Kuriatier) 1933–34/1958
• Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches) 1935–38/1938
• Señora Carrar's Rifles (Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar) 1937/1937
• Life of Galileo (Leben des Galilei) 1937–39/1943
• How Much Is Your Iron? (Was kostet das Eisen?) 1939/1939
• Dansen (Dansen) 1939/?
• Mother Courage and Her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder) 1938–39/1941
• The Trial of Lucullus (Das Verhör des Lukullus) 1938–39/1940
• Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) 1940/1948
• The Good Person of Szechwan (Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) 1939–42/1943
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui) 1941/1958
• Hangmen Also Die! (screenplay) 1942/1943
• The Visions of Simone Machard (Die Gesichte der Simone Machard ) 1942–43/1957
• The Duchess of Malfi 1943/1943
• Schweik in the Second World War (Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg) 1941–43/1957
• The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) 1943–45/1948
• Antigone (Die Antigone des Sophokles) 1947/1948
• The Days of the Commune (Die Tage der Commune) 1948–49/1956
• The Tutor (Der Hofmeister) 1950/1950
• The Condemnation of Lucullus (Die Verurteilung des Lukullus) 1938–39/1951
• Report from Herrnburg (Herrnburger Bericht) 1951/1951
• Coriolanus (Coriolan) 1951–53/1962
• The Trial of Joan of Arc of Proven, 1431 (Der Prozess der Jeanne D'Arc zu Rouen, 1431) 1952/1952
• Turandot (Turandot oder Der Kongreß der Weißwäscher) 1953–54/1969
• Don Juan (Don Juan) 1952/1954
• Trumpets and Drums (Pauken und Trompeten) 1955/1955

Fiction[link]

• Stories of Mr. Keuner (Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner)

Theoretical works[link]

• The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre (1930)
• The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; published 1932)
• The Book of Changes (fragment also known as Me-Ti; written 1935–1939)
• The Street Scene (written 1938; published 1950)
• The Popular and the Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)
• Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect (written 1940; published 1951)
• A Short Organum for the Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)
• The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialogue aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)

Notes[link]