Mother Courage and Her Children: Edition 2

Bertolt Brecht

may 2022 · Bloomsbury Publishing

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This new Student Edition, featuring the classic John Willett translation of the play, includes an introduction by Katherine Hollander, which explores the following:

* Contexts (Thirty Years War, 1618-1648; World War II and exile; sources; influential figures such as Brecht, Margarete Steffin, Helene Weigel and Karin Michaelis)
* Themes (war; nature; capitalism)
* Dramatic devices (epic theatre)
* Production history and critical reception
* Academic debate (Marxist, feminist and postmodernist)
* Further study

Widely regarded as Brecht's best work, Mother Courage and her Children was written in 1938-9 and received its premiere in Zurich in 1941. Mother Courage - a canteen woman serving with the Swedish Army during the Thirty Years War (1618-48) - follows the armies, selling provisions and liquor to the troops. Both her sons die in the war and her dumb daughter, Kattrin, is mortally wounded as she beats a drum to warn the town of Halle of an impending attack. Yet, all the while, Mother Courage continues her travels with her wagon, indomitably businesslike, calculating how she can make material profit from the war and turn conflict into capital.

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Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg on 10 February 1898 and died in Berlin on 14 August 1956. His plays include Man Equals Man, The Threepenny Opera, The Mother, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and her Children and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He founded the Berliner Ensemble in 1947 and, from then until his death, was mainly occupied in producing his own plays.

John Willett (1917-2002) was a British translator and scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English, having become a friend of Brecht's after World War II. Over his career, he acted as a freelancer writer, editor, translator and director, as well as a visiting professor and lecturer.

A poet, historian, and Brecht scholar, Katherine Hollander holds an MA in poetry and a PhD in modern European history, both from Boston University. Her scholarly work focuses on exile and collaboration in intellectual circles. Her first book of poems, My German Dictionary, won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize in 2019. She serves as Poetry and Reviews Editor for Consequence Forum and as an Associate Editor for the Waywiser Press, and teaches poetry at Tufts University.