ABSTRACT
T he m ain devices of Gestus and Verfremdung developed for the theatre were consistent, as we have seen, w ith the proposals for a dialec tical d ram a and with the tenets of dialectical m aterialism . I w ant to suggest here tha t the forms and m etrical innovations Brecht developed for poetry can be similarly understood, as the functional devices of a verse com posed in and for specific social and political conditions, and as themselves exam ples or extensions of ‘gest’ and Verfremdung.
