Plays:

Lux in Tenebris (1919): 18 pages. A one act play about prostitution. Brecht mocks and satirizes bourgeois hypocrisy in regards to prostitution, i.e., the bourgeoisie are the biggest public critics of prostitution, and use moralizing and reactionary arguments against it, while at the same time being the ones who run brothels, and who have always been the main “clients” of prostitution.

The Measures Taken (1930): 34 pages. Meant to be educational, it is a lesson in the right and wrong way to conduct agitation. It also has a very powerful message of the type of sacrifice needed if you intend to seriously work for a socialist revolution and the end of oppression. Although it may be short, which perhaps is more of a strength than anything else for this type of play, it is an excellent example of using art for explicit political agitation and education.

The Exception and the Rule (1930): 35 pages. An educational play demonstrating class differences and conflict, and showing that in no way can the working class and the bourgeoisie ever be reconciled: they are absolute enemies and the bourgeoisie will always win over the working class under capitalism since they are the ones who hold economic and political power.

He Said Yes, He Said No (1930): 15 pages. A short didactic play against the unthinking adoption/following of customs, and an argument for rational thought.

The Mother (1931): 59 pages. A theatrical adaption of Maxim Gorky's The Mother.

Saint Joan of the Stockyards (1932): 101 pages. Brecht's modern take on the story of Joan d'Arc: in this play she is Joan Dark and lives in Chicago in the early 20th century, and fights against social/economic oppression instead of national oppression.

The Seven Deadly Sins of the Petty Bourgeois (1933): 17 pages. A very humorous short play which deals with the hypocrisy and idiocy of the bourgeois and makes the point that for the bourgeois, virtues that get in the way of accumulating wealth are unforgivable sins.

Round Heads and Pointed Heads (1934): 114 pages. Deals with the absurdity of discrimination, whether based on race, nationality, or religion, and how the ruling classes use discrimination and bigotry to reinforce their oppressive rule over all the laboring masses, no matter what their origin.

The Horatians and the Curiatians (1934): 24 pages. An instructive play dealing with strategy and tactics, it is Brecht's interpretation of the story of the Horatii and the Curiatii, two groups of opposing male triplets: around 650 b.c., during a war between Rome and Alba Longa it was decided that the outcome of the war would be decided by a fight to the death between Rome's triplets (Horatii) and Alba Longa's (Curiatii).

Senora Carrar's Rifles (1937): 30 pages. This play takes place during the Spanish Revolution, and presents theatrically the conflict between advocates of non-violence and advocates of real change and real struggle (i.e. advocates of armed resistance). Brecht is very effective, rhetorically and logically, in putting forward the argument for armed struggle. The play also condemns indifference in addition to the stifling influence of the clergy and it's moralizing hypocrisy and backwardness.

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (1938): 91 pages. One of Brecht's earliest anti-fascist plays, it is also one the best and most well known. It consists of 24 small, unrelated scenes which show the barbarity and inhumanity of fascism, and explains the real meaning of fascism, and why it needs to be fought always and everywhere it exists.

The Trial of Lucullus (1939): 27 pages. Roman General Lucullus is tried after his death by a lower class jury and judge. Makes the point that “glorious, noble war” as it is thought of by officers, means nothing but death and disfigurement for the lower classes.

Mother Courage and Her Children (1939): 84 pages. A cry against the brutality and inhumanity of war, militarism, warmongering, and a condemnation of those, like mother 'courage' who seek to profit from bloodbaths and massacres.

Dansen (1939): 15 pages and How Much is Your Iron? (1939): 15 pages. Both plays were written just before the formal outbreak of WWII, when Brecht was shortly in exile in Denmark and Sweden. They are both allegorical plays warning against the myth of neutrality and non-intervention in the face of Nazi militarism. Both are calls to action and resistance to fascism, and emphasize that fascists will sign as many treaties as they see fit, but they will look on them as pieces of paper to be discarded at will when it suits their interests.

Life of Galileo (1939): 112 pages. A play that deals with Galileo's life, as is obvious, but more than that it is a plea for freedom of thought and intellectual creation and an attack on narrow-mindedness. The play also deals with the necessity of popularizing new ideas among the broad masses, and not writing solely for the intelligentsia. According to Isaac Deutscher, in the third volume of his biography of Trotsky: “He [Brecht] had been in some sympathy with Trotskyism and was shaken by the purges; but he could not bring himself to break with Stalinism. He surrendered to it with a load of doubt on his mind, as the capitulators in Russia had done; and he expressed his and their predicament in Galileo Galilei. It was through the prism of the Bolshevik experience that he saw Galileo going down on his knees before the Inquisition and doing this from an 'historical necessity,' because of the people's spiritual and political immaturity. The Galileo of his drama is Zinoviev, or Bukharin or Rakovsky dressed up in historical costume. He is haunted by the 'fruitless' martyrdom of Giordano Bruno; that terrible example causes him to surrender to the Inquisition, just as Trotsky's fate caused so many communists to surrender to Stalin. And Brecht's famous duologue: 'Happy in the country that produces such a hero' and 'Unhappy in the people that needs such a hero' epitomizes clearly enough the problem of Trotsky and Stalinist Russia rather than Galileo's quandary in Renaissance Italy.”

Mr Puntilla and His Man Matti (1940): 96 pages. About relations between the working class and the bourgeois. A comedic play, Brecht uses the personality of Puntilla (he is one way when drunk, and completely different when sober) to mock the idiocies, arrogance, and petty discrimination of the bourgeois towards the lower classes. Brecht also makes clear that the bourgeois will always put themselves above others, and act superior, rude, and demeaning, and cannot be anything but enemies of the working class. The play also makes the point that normal people, and those who want to fight for them and stand by their side, should realize that no real friendship or positive relationship is ever going to develop between them and any normal upper bourgeois, and that they shouldn't want that either unless they want to be treated like servants. Brecht makes clear that hoping for good treatment from the bosses is an untenable position for the working masses, the right position should be working towards the complete elimination of bosses and opposing them at every move.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941): 121 pages. An allegorical play that uses a gangster's (Arturo Ui's) rise to power as an allegory for the rise to power of Hitler. It is a very interesting play, in that it satirizes Hitler, a mediocre if not completely incompetent person at everything he put his hand to before his final rise to power, and yet it explains his rise to power in a simple, very understandable way. All of the characters in the play have an equivalent to real-life people in Germany, thus Old Dogsborough is von Hindenberg, Ernesto Romo is Ernest Rohm, Emanuele Giri is Hermann Goring, Giuseppe Givola is Joseph Goebbels, the Cauliflower Trust is the Junkers, Chicago is Germany, and Cicero is Austria.

The Good Person of Szechuan (1942): 105 pages. A theatrical parable, it makes the point that morality, honesty, virtue, etc, are determined mainly by the prevailing economic system (i.e. the prevailing economic system determines what is considered a "virtue"). The play also points out that the integrity and righteousness of a person is determined by their place in that system: thus if they are an exploiter of human labor they are sure to be unprincipled and repulsive generally because their economic position dictates not only that they not care about suffering and exploitation, but that they cause it in the interests of accumulating wealth. On the other hand, the poor and the exploited by their very position as disadvantaged and oppressed have right on their sides and are much less likely to be hypocritical, brutal, greedy, etc.

The Visions of Simone Machard (1942): 61 pages. An anti-fascist play written after the occupation of France and dealing with the need for resistance to the Nazi occupiers, and against any collaboration with them whatsoever. It also attacks the indifference and apathy with which the Nazi invasion was initially greeted.

Schweyk in the Second World War (1943): 72 pages. A humorous adaption of Czech satirist Jaroslav Hašek's character The Good Soldier Švejk, the good-natured "idiot" who exposes hypocrisy and wins out over oppression in his own unique way. As opposed to  Hašek's work, this play takes place during WWII (not WWI) and it's theme is resistance to fascism (not opposition to militarism), however both works criticize foreign control over Czechoslovakia. In some ways a humorous, literary analogue to the movie Hangmen Also Die! produced in the same year, with a screenplay written by Brecht.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944): 94 pages. Based on an old Chinese fable about who is more deserving of being a mother to a certain child, the one who has a purely formal claim to them in that they gave birth to them, or the person who deserves to be their mother and has loved and cared for them the way the first never had. A first approach to this subject by Brecht was a short story called “The Augsburg Chalk Circle” which you will find below.

The Antigone (1947): 50 pages. Brecht's adaption of Sophocles' famous play Antigone.

The Days of the Commune (1949): 74 pages. A theatrical depiction of the heroic Paris Commune, Brecht did a fantastic job of capturing the idealism and enthusiasm of the Paris Commune, as well as making clear the mistakes that were made which helped led to its destruction.

The Tutor (1950): 55 pages. This play is about the subservience of education to the demands and interests of the upper classes, using as a metaphor a German tutor to the nobility during the 1700's. As the main character points out at the beginning of the play: just as previously tutors, teachers, and professors were subservient to the nobility, now they are subservient to the bourgeois, and thus teach what the bourgeois want them to. It also shows how some students' opposition to the mainstream, and rebellion against authority is easily overcome when they want a job as a teacher or professor: then they have no problem teaching what the ruling classes want them to and selling out. If a teacher does rebel or go against the mainstream, the upper classes try to cut them down to size and make them miserable so that they submit and teach their students the nonsense that other teachers teach their students. Thus this play shows, in a somewhat comedic manner, the bankruptcy of formal education under capitalism, and shows the necessity of education which actually focuses on enlightening and educating children, giving them a chance to develop their own interests and strengths without opposition.

The Trial of Joan of Arc (1952): 41 pages. A beautiful play about one of the most well known resistance figures of Europe, Joan of Arc. She is often portrayed as insane, which is not surprising since anyone who fights against imperialism is subject to demonization and dehumanization by the imperial country and it's local collaborators. In reality, Joan of Arc was an intelligent, brave, strong peasant girl, who began fighting against British imperialism and occupation when she was only sixteen. In the play you can see her intellect, and the court dialog is kept very close to or the same as what she actually said. Of course Brecht does add his own interpretation, especially in the street scenes and the end where Joan refuses to sell out and betray her people. Joan d'Arc was burnt alive at the age of nineteen as a result of her heroic resistance to British imperialism and occupation.

Turandot (1954): 67 pages. Brecht's final play, it explores the role of intellectuals in capitalist society, especially those who sell their intellect to the highest bidder and have no interests in opposing capitalism, but rather prefer to profit from it and live comfortable lives white-washing the truth for capitalists. A satire, it is somewhat of an adaption of Carlo Gozzi's comedic play of the same name.


Short Stories:
Anecdotes of Mr Keuner

Caesar and his Legionary

Socrates Wounded

The Augsburg Chalk Circle

The Experiment

The Foolish Wife: An attack on the institution of marriage and how it is an economic institution with little or no concern for the rights of women, and how it builds itself, not on mutual feelings of love and respect between two partners, but rather on exploitation. At the same time the story celebrates true love between two people which doesn't cease in the face of tragedy, but if anything becomes stronger.

The Heretic's Coat

The Job: A stark portrayal of what it means to have to work to live in a time of recession and mass unemployment. Brecht also criticizes the view that women can only perform so called "womens work" or "feminine work," and makes the accurate point that anyone, man or woman can do any type of work, and act in any type of manner. The only thing that prevents this is the rampant sexism in society, and the societal conditioning of people into their "right" or "correct" roles, defined solely by their "gender," and not by the special abilities or interests that they may have. This story also shows what a job means to a worker who has been unemployed for a long period of time, and the lengths to which they are willing to go to obtain one.

The Soldier of La Ciotat: About the absurdity of war, and how the producers of all things, the workers and the peasants, are the ones to suffer from it and the ones expended by the oppressor classes during it.

The Unseemly Old Lady: Based on Brecht's own grandmother, it is a comedic attack on bourgeois notions of "propriety" and the way they want the elderly to act.

Two Sons


Poems:
Collected Poems: 598 pages. The collected poems of Brecht, organized by time period in which he wrote them, extends from 1913, when he was 15 years old, until his death in 1956.
 
Questions From a Worker Who Reads