That didactic old fraud Brecht - unAmerican to boot! From Ronald Hayman's biography of him - another didactic old fraud maybe?
"Bertolt Brecht is the most influential playwright of this century, and probably the greatest writer to emerge from the confused cultural milieu of Weimar Germany. Though he had only spasmodic success during his life, he has, since his death in 1956, been the subject of increasing study and acclaim. His plays are constantly being produced; his verse is considered some of the best of its time. Yet the complex and interesting character behind this resonant literary voice has remained an enigma.
Mischievous yet earnest, unscrupulous yet idealistic, exploitative yet compassionate, Brecht was a man of contradictions who recognized the value of ambiguity as a deliberate means of artistic expression. He saw literature as an instrument of change, and many of his ideas were rooted in practicality; yet his social and political commitment always accorded with his sense of fun and entertainment. Brecht's personal and artistic development took place against a background of violent changes, both private and national -from his carefree early life in Augsburg, through political storms in the Germany of the 1930s, two marriages and countless affairs, the traumas of exile, to his role as East Germany's literary figurehead."
Jim Carroll