Bertolt Brecht : his life, his art, and his times / by Frederic Ewen.

Appendix contains an excerpt from the "Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, October 30, 1947".

Includes bibliographical references (pages 513-553) and index.

Prologue: The world around Brecht / I. The city and the land -- II. The life of the mind -- III. World War I and its aftermath.

Part one: Bertolt Brecht in Germany 1898-1933 / I. The beginnings: Augsburg and Munich 1898-1920 -- II. The heaven of the Expressionists -- III. Brecht's chorales of chaos and doom -- IV. Berlin 1921-1922: "Drums in the Night" -- V. "In the Jungle of Cities" -- VI. "Edward the Second" and the cult of the heroic -- VII. The surrender of identity: "Man is Man" -- VIII. In quest of identity: the road to the Epic Theatre -- IX. The social zoo: "The Three Penny Opera" -- X. The Mahagonny Paradise, 1930 -- XI. The recovery of identity: the Epic Theatre -- XII. Individual and community: the "Lehrstücke" -- XIII. Pity is not enough: "Saint Joan of the Stockyards" -- XIV. The unknown advance guard: "Mother" -- XV. The advancing terror.

Part two: exile 1933-1948 / I. The poet speaks about exile -- II. Battle against the terror -- III. The responsibility of the intellectual: "Galileo" -- IV. Of heroes and war: "Lucullus" and "Mother Courage" -- V. This side of good and evil: "The Good Woman of Setzuan" and "Puntila" -- VI. The fertile womb: "Arturo Ui" -- VII. Reflections of one in flight: "The Refugee Dialogues" -- VIII. The poet on the Gold Coast, 1941-1947 -- IX. A St. Joan of the resistance: "The Visions of Simone Machard" -- X. The unheroic hero: "Schweyk in the Second World War" -- XI. Justice in utopia: "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" -- XII. The trial of Bertolt Brecht.

Part three: homecoming / I. Within sight of home -- II. Return to Berlin -- III. The last works -- IV. The credo of a realist -- V. The end.

"[Frederic Ewen] paints a vivid portrait of Brecht the man, his life in Weimar Germany, and his fight against the rapidly emerging Nazi philosophy in the late twenties and early thirties [...] The book is based on original research into unpublished materials in the Brecht Archives in East Berlin, conversations with friends and associates of the playwright, and study of the Berliner Ensemble in rehearsal and performance. Dr. Ewen shows how Brecht's work is intimately bound up with the history of his times. Two world wars, revolution in Russia and China, the rise and fall of Nazism — these events shaped his views on the function of literature, and of the drama in particular." -- from the dust jacket.