• ISBN13: 9789354352454
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publisher Imprint: MethuenDra
• Publication Date: May 13, 2022
• Pages: 240
• Original Price: INR 250.00
• Language: N/A
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 110 grams

This Student Edition of Brecht's anti-war masterpiece features an extensive introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as questions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text. It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature. In this chronicle of the Thirty Years War of the seventeenth century, Mother Courage follows the armies back and forth across Europe, selling provisions and liquor from her canteen wagon. As the action of the play progresses between the years 1624 and 1646 she loses her children to the war but remains indomitable, refusing to part with her livelihood - the wagon. The play is one of the most celebrated examples of Epic Theatre and of Brecht's use of alienation effect to focus attention on the issues of the play above the individual characters. It remains regarded as one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century and one of the great anti-war plays of all time. The Berlin production of 1949, with Helene Weigel as Mother Courage, marked the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble. This volume contains expert notes on the author's life and work, historical and political background to the play, photographs from stage productions and a glossary of difficult words and phrases. The play is translated by Brecht scholar John Willett who did more than anyone else to make Brecht's work available in the English language.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and critical writings have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. John Willett (1917-2002) was the greatest English language authority on Brecht the writer and man of the theatre. The foremost translator and editor of Brecht's drama, poetry, letters, diaries, theatrical essays and fiction, Willett produced a dozen volumes for Methuen Drama on the greatest modern German writer. Katherine Hollander is Lecturer in Poetry and History, Tufts University, USA. She is a historian, Brecht scholar, and poet, author of My German Dictionary (2019), and editor of a student edition of Mother Courage (Methuen Drama 2022).