13. Poetry Chart #2

Poem #2 and Author

Analysis of Close Reading

Bertolt Brecht’s To Those Who Came Later I Truly I live in dark times! Frank speech is naïve. A smooth forehead Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs Has simply not yet heard The terrible news. What kind of times are these, when To talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors? When the man over there calmly crossing the street Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends 10 Who are in need? It’s true that I still earn my daily bread But, believe me, that’s only an accident. Nothing I do gives me the right to eat my fill. By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I'm lost.) They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it! But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eat From the starving And my glass of water belongs to someone dying of thirst? And yet I eat and drink. 20 I would also like to be wise. In the old books it says what wisdom is: To shun the strife of the world and to live out Your brief time without fear Also to get along without violence To return good for evil Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them Is accounted wise. All this I cannot do. Truly, I live in dark times. 30 II I came to the cities in a time of disorder When hunger reigned. I came among men in a time of revolt And I rebelled with them. So passed my time Given me to on earth. I ate my food between battles I lay down to sleep among murderers I practiced love carelessly And I had little patience for nature’s beauty. 40 So passed my time Given to me on earth. All roads led into the mire in my time. My tongue betrayed me to the butchers. There was little I could do. But those in power Sat safer without me: that was my hope. So passed my time Given to me on earth. Our forces were slight. Our goal Lay far in the distance 50 Clearly visible, though I myself Was unlikely to reach it. So passed my time Given to me on earth. III You who will emerge from the flood In which we have gone under Bring to mind When you speak of our failings Bring to mind also the dark times That you have escaped. 60 Changing countries more often than our shoes, We went through the class wars, despairing When there was only injustice, no outrage. And yet we realized: Hatred, even of meanness Contorts the features. Anger, even against injustice Makes the voice hoarse. O, We who wanted to prepare the ground for friendship Could not ourselves be friendly. 70 But you, when the time comes at last When man is helper to man Think of us With forbearance.

Line 2: Brecht suggests that it isn’t wise to speak one’s mind. Line 3 & 4: Joy is not commonplace anymore. In the first line, Brecht makes a bold statement and goes on to support his thoughts by listing the absurd nature of the society in which he lives. Line 7: Brecht declares that he cannot stay silent about the horrors that he sees in his society (3rd Reich Germany). He insinuates that it is just as much a crime to commit these horrors as it is to deny their occurrence and simply speak of the trees. Line 9: Here Brecht alludes to his exile to Denmark from Germany, but it as though he regrets leaving because he can no longer help the plight of his friends. Line 12-13, 16-17: Brecht expresses guilt and distress for the fact that he is comfortable in exile from Germany, whilst his friends suffer in Germany. Line 15: In this line, Brecht emphasizes why totalitarian governments, like Hitler’s Nazi Regime,  are able to snatch power. They offer the starving and the thirsty, food and drink. In return they ask for your freedom and your unquestioning loyalty. Line 25-27: In these lines, it is almost as though Brecht is describing the concepts of Dharma and Karma from the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. That one should fight evil, but not through violence. And Brecht, being a writer, does this through his writing. In this stanza, Brecht alludes to the fall of the 2nd Reich at the end of the Great War. That it was a time of great uncertainty and chaos. By stating that he “came among men in a time of revolt,” Brecht confirms that the late 1910’s and early 1920’s was time of great political tension in Germany. Line 43: In this line, Brecht says that all the paths open during the dark times after Germany’s collapse were not clear cut. Lines 55-56: Brecht says that the generations of the future will escape the chains of oppression that the 3rd Reich had put on the German people. Lines 59-60: In addition, he says that they should not criticize those who fought against the 3rd Reich for their failures, because they, at least, have escaped such a sorry plight. Lines 61-63: Brecht justifies the actions that he and his fellow Marxists carried out. Stating that it does not matter that he “chang[ed] countries more often than [his] shoes.” He pleads to the future generations to consider the consider the conditions through which they had lived. The last stanza of this poem confirms that Brecht believed that Marxism (“man is helper to man”) would triumph over fascism and totalitarianism.