The silver poplar and Brecht's concern for art in totalitarianism. Three poems from The Buckow Elegies

Abstract

Besides the drama works and the theatrical contribution of Bertolt Brecht, all more often and fully deserved, his lyric poetry becomes the subject of literature researches. Many prominent authors and scientists emphasize the value of Brecht as a poet. The subject of this research is 3 poems from the cycle of The Buckow Elegies, written in the summer of 1953, having been construed by many scholars for the last decades, and considered the top of the late Bertolt Brecht’s lyric poetry. These poems: The Flower Garden, The Fir Trees and The Grumpy Morning offer an aesthetically sophisticated analysis of both the nature and the person of the greatest sort; wherein the metaphor of trees plays a crucial role. This article considers the complexity of such symbols as “fir tree” and “poplar”. The Buckow Elegies undoubtedly belong to the most outstanding lyric poetry of Brecht. Their unique aesthetic features themselves are an analysis and condemnation of the GDR culture opposed by Brecht to the creativity which is depicted as the same silver as a poplar, and the same brassy as a fir tree, i.e. majestic, significant and also standing out by its diffuseness, discretion and ambiguity. By no means diminishing Brecht’s merits as one of the most eminent theatre directors, we claim that as a playwright in the GDR, he exhausted himself.  His great plays were written in the time of the Weimar Republic and during his emigration period.  One can even assert with some extent of exaggeration that all he had to do was staging the great works of the past and adapting classical works.  And Brecht still had to manoeuvre.  His trees and their colour clearly indicate this: “Bad times for lyrics”, for art in general; not only in 1939, when the poem with the same name was written, but also in 1953.  Along with this, The Buckow Elegies open numerous opportunities for further interesting researches into Bertolt Brecht’s ideas in the last years of his life.