Overview
Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti, which remained unpublished i his own
lifetime, now appears for the first time in English. For this work of
fragments, Brecht accumulated anecdotes, poems, personal stories and
assessments of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Moscow trials, and the
theories behind current events. Given its controversial nature, he
sought a disguise, using the name of a Chinese contemporary of Socrates,
known today as Mozi.
Me-ti is central to an
understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and
his commitment to change, the philosphy of which informs much of his
writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers.
This
edition features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the
work, its genesis and context - both withing Brecht's own writing and
withing the wide soical and political history, and provides an original
selection and organization of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work
and provide commentary on related writing from Brecht's oeuvre.