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"Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts." Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht's Early Materialism

Wood, Jesse Cannon
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1345231617

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Germanic Languages and Literatures.
Bertolt Brecht began an intense engagement with Marxism in 1928 that would permanently shape his own thought and creative production. Brecht himself maintained that important aspects resonating with Marxist theory had been central, if unwittingly so, to his earlier, pre-1928 works. A careful analysis of his early plays, poetry, prose, essays, and journal entries indeed reveals a unique form of materialism that entails essential components of the dialectical materialism he would later develop through his understanding of Marx; it also invites a similar retroactive application of other ideas that Brecht would only encounter in later readings, namely those of the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Initially a direct result of and component of his discovery of Marx, Brecht’s study of Hegel would last throughout the rest of his career, and the influence of Hegel has been explicitly traced in a number Brecht’s post-1928 works. While scholars have discovered proto-Marxist traces in his early work, the possibilities of the young Brecht’s affinities with the idealist philosopher have not been explored. Although ultimately an opposition between the idealist Hegel and the young Bürgerschreck Brecht is to be expected, one finds a surprising number of instances where the two men share an unlikely commonality of imagery. Sparked by that discovery, this dissertation locates important moments in the young playwright’s work where a reading through and against Hegelian concepts opens not only a better understanding of his early writing but of the materialism that undergirds his entire oeuvre. Such moments become particularly apparent upon examination of the young Brecht’s critique of language. I argue that his skepticism of language’s capacity to express material reality, and its corollary tendency to support false idealisms, leads him to develop a metaphorically “material” language that draws on bodily and natural imagery in order to produce a more directly visceral experience on the part of his audience or readers. In tracing the material language of the young Brecht’s work, this study focuses in particular on three of his early plays: Trommeln in der Nacht, Im Dickicht der Städte, and Mann ist Mann. His early works address notions of language, history, selfhood, intersubjectivity, and identity in a way that places Brecht’s approach to these in surprisingly close proximity to Hegel’s thought, although Brecht’s materialism ultimately precludes the progress found in Hegel’s dialectical idealism. In tracing these overlooked connections between Hegel and Brecht, this dissertation gains new insights into the young Brecht’s unique materialism.
John Davidson (Advisor)
Bernd Fischer (Committee Member)
Bernhard Malkmus (Committee Member)
208 p.
Germanic Literature
Brecht; Bertolt Brecht; young Brecht; Brecht's materialism; Hegel

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wood, J. C. (2012). "Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts." Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht's Early Materialism [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1345231617

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wood, Jesse. "Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts." Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht's Early Materialism. 2012. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1345231617.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wood, Jesse. ""Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts." Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht's Early Materialism." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1345231617

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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