EN 2140 Lecture Notes - Bertolt Brecht, Dada, Surrealism
11 Sep 2013
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Document Summary
Wwii- the most effective and overwhelming demonstration of human self- destructive nature. The enormous human and material loss, endless stories of brutality and a sense of hopelessness for human kind. Connections with a doll"s house, and with a servant of two masters. Second world war was worse than the fist. Holocaust, stalin"s mass murderers of political opponents and basic destruction of the moral fiber of the society posed questions to many intellectuals and artists of the meaning of human race. All the structure that kept a sense of order. Religion, government, education, science failed to contextualize wwii in any meaningful way. Of course there were and political explanations but they fell short in giving an overall explanation for what happened. Similarly to berthold brecht after wwii - who found hope in creating a new socially conscious theater (epic theater), beckett was responding to the catastrophe of wwii and created a theater that went beyond such hope.
