Empedocles' Shoe: Essays on Brecht's Poetry by Tom Kuhn , Karen Leeder (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.2, 2004 541 be identified with National Socialism, forhe saw the Nazi Party as too dependent on flirtationwith the masses in pursuit of their vote. This view, firstadvanced in Junger's article 'Nationalismusund Nationalsozialismus'(March 1927), meant that his parting ways with the Nazis was only a matter of time; by 1939, Jiinger was putting together the allegorical plot ofAuf den Marmorklippen, a work seen by many as a thinly veiled objection to Hitler's regime. Berggotz has also furnished impressive commentaries (running forsome 160 pages), in which he draws on both published and unpublished material to elucidate impor? tant aspects of Junger's career in journalism. Especially valuable is the information contained in Junger's unpublished correspondence with his father,with fellow jour? nalist Ludwig Alwens, and with Ernst von Salomon. A few omissions ought to be rectified here: Junger's expression 'die Herrschaft der Minderwertigen' in 'Arbeiter und Soldaten des 20. Jahrhunderts' (1928) should have been indicated as borrowing directly the title of Edgar Jung's book; when glossing Albert Leo Schlageter, Berggotz should have mentioned Martin Heidegger next to Junger's brother Friedrich Georg as another author who wrote an important piece commemorating Schlageter's death; in the extensive commentaries on Junger's review 'Ein neuer Bericht aus dem Lande der Planwirtschaft' (1933), tne keyword 'Planwirtschaft' (which does not appear in the title of the book Jiinger reviewed) should have been explained with reference to Junger's as yet insufficientlyresearched participation in the 'Arbeitsgemeinschaft zum Studium der sowjetrussischen Planwirtschaft', a working group forthe study of the Soviet planned economy founded in January 1932; finally,the claim that there are virtually no pronouncements by Jiinger on Thomas Mann after 1945 (p. 747) and that of Mann's works Jiinger knew Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen and Der Zauberberg (p. 734) could have been qualified and extended if Berggotz had drawn upon Armin Mohler's diary of his time as a private secretary to Jiinger,where Mohler testifies to Junger's knowledge of Doktor Faustus and his praise (in 1949) for Mann's 'Roman eines Romans' (Ravensburger Tagebuch: Meine Jahre bei Ernst Jiinger,194950 (Vienna and Leipzig: Karolinger Verlag, 1999), p. 46). But these are all relatively minor points that should not distract the reader from the enormous scholarly value of Berggotz's edition, which is bound to become a standard reference work in the field. Lancaster University Galin Tihanov Empedocles' Shoe: Essays on Brecht's Poetry. Ed. by Tom Kuhn and Karen Leeder. London: Methuen. 2002. ?20. ISBN 0-413-75730-7 (hbk). Originating in a seminar held at Oxford in 1998 to mark the centenary of Brecht's birth, this collection can be read as a companion to Brecht's Poetry of Political Exile, ed. by Ronald Speirs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) (reviewed in MLR, 97 (2002), 500-01). Tom Kuhn's introduction emphasizes the worldly, occasional, directly communicative nature of the poetry, combining the 'useful' with the pleasurable. Ronald Speirs on 'Vom armen B.B.' brings out the ambivalence of Brecht's persona while linking it to the man who allows at least a trace of idealism to surface even in his most hard-boiled poems. Hans-Harald Muller, Tom Kindt, and Robert Habeck provide an original deconstructive interpretation of 'Erinnerung an die Marie A.'. Hilda M. Brown examines 'Das ertrunkene Madchen', afterprovidingan immanent reading, in relation to other treatments of the theme and its republication in other contexts. David Midgley reveals new aspects ofthe city poetry ofthe 1920s by juxtaposingthe 'Lesebuch fiirStadtbewohner' with Walter Mehring's 'Des Tippelkunden Friihlingslied', while emphasizing the elements of irony and Gestus, the disjunctions between the 542 Reviews personal and the public, and the process of their overcoming. Elizabeth Boa looks at the eulogistic mode in poems easily dismissed as propagandistic and therefore, in view of the Wende and the collapse of Communism, as dated. Anthony Phelan offers a perspective on the drafts of Brecht's poetic version of the Communist Manifesto which allows a consideration of its relation to Lucretius, Marx and Engels, and the progress of World War II. David Constantine shows the dark side of Brecht in the pornographic sonnets, but places it in the context...