ABSTRACT
Jo h n W ille tt’s book Brecht in Context draw s a tten tion away from the conventional view of Brecht’s work as an individual artistic achieve m ent to his use of sources, his collaboration and differences with o ther artists, the relation betw een his theatre and o ther m edia, and the historical context of his political views. H is aim he says at one point is to see how Brecht could b ring an everyday subject briefly and simply to a political point. Accordingly he tu rns to the poem ‘T he fishing tack le’ to suggest how its rhy thm and econom y serve as a basis for B rech t’s com m ent on the C alifornian Jap an ese in terned in W orld W ar II. T he poem ‘is political. It is poetic. N either aspect interferes with the o ther; it is perfectly fused right down to its e lem en ts.’1
