ABSTRACT

T he effect of the conventional critical response to B rech t’s theory is to reconcile it with bourgeois aesthetics (the language o f ‘m odifica­ tio n ’, ‘m ellow ing’, ‘ba lan ce’; of em otion and en terta inm en t ‘com plem enting’ reason or didacticism , is of course very revealing in this respect). Brecht is com prom ised w ith an aesthetics of com prom ise whose roots stretch deep into rom anticism and liberal hum anism . Instead of conflict, contradictions and im perm anence, there is harm ony, consistency, com pletion and organic wholeness. Instead of dialectics there is the discovery of a personal evolution from youthful excess to even-handed m atu rity .