CLOUDS OF KNOWING, SONGS OF EXPERIENCE, SEASONS OF LOVE: BERTOLT BRECHT’S INTIMATIONS OF DANTE AND HAIKU

Abstract

Performing detailed comparative readings of three of Brecht’s love poems, this article examines how Brecht’s compositions confront the complex ties between love and knowledge, demonstrating how in his continuous lyric acts of commemoration Brecht has woven an intricate mnemonic texture out of love poetry’s time-honored heritage. With a tight focus on the figure of the white cloud as an image that allows for Brecht’s controversial play with poetic tradition, this article unravels Brecht’s provocative vulgarization of Dante’s vernacular, his sacrilegious introduction of memory failure into the love genre, and his deliberately disillusioning references to transience as the only thing to count on – a situation likewise exemplified in the poetic sensibility of the Japanese haiku, with which Brecht’s lyric has an intimate affinity. Precisely by inscribing loss, transience, and disappearance, Brecht, Dante, and haiku pave the way for a commemorative return in a lasting poetic image. The West conceives of poetry as a process of making, while the East thinks of poetry as a process of knowing: Brecht’s rewritings of Dante place not only Brecht himself, but Dante, too, on the poetic path towards knowledge.