Manual of Piety: Die Hauspostille by Bertolt Brecht, Eric Bentley (Translation)
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Overview: Professor Bentley, leading Brechtian authority though he be, is not particularly gifted in Englishing Die Hauspostille, Brecht’s youthful, iconoclastic masterpiece. As Bentley rightly notes: ""What the translations lack in poetry can only be supplied by a poet, and at that a poet who miraculously happens to be Brecht reincarnated."" Something like the ""Grosser Dankchoral,"" with its terribly austere parody of the liturgically sublime seems heavy-handed in the Bentley version. And the most celebrated of the ""On Poor B.B."" poems does not match the transcription H.R. Hays has given us. With a few of the ballads, (especially the Cortez and Love-Death ones), Bentley proves quite impressive, probably because the original imagery, descriptive dramatics, and narrative rhythms offer less risks in reproduction than the rhymed, tone-shifting, quasi-syncopated lyrics do. Nevertheless, the Manual’s punning extravaganza of social ills and pietistic rubbish manages cumulatively to hit home. Included are the songs made famous here by Lotte Lenya.
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics > Poetry
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