Bertolt Brechts Life of Galileo: Social and individual concerns are inextricable in modern literary texts - Essay Example

?Bertolt Brecht’s “Life of Galileo Social and individual concerns are inextricable in modern literary texts Quigley, A. E., 1985. “Brecht: Life of Galileo”. In: A. E. Quigley, ed. The Modern Stage and Other Worlds. London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 142-172. The modern period has widely been regarded as one of the most innovative and productive in the history of the theatre and the modern plays such as Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo inextricably links social and individual concerns. “Brecht: Life of Galileo” forms the eighth chapter of the Austin E. Quigley’s celebrated critical work The Modern Stage and Other Worlds, which discusses how social and individual concerns are inextricably connected in this modern literary text by Brecht. All through the chapter, Quigley celarly explains the close relationship between social and individual concerns and in the introductory section he refers to the modern play with attention focused in the horizon of a domain. One of the major contradictions or troubles that the author refers to with regard to the horizon of Brecht’s play also provides convincing evidence to the inextricable relationship between the social and individual concerns in the play. Thus, he claims that the horizon of the play’s final scene which concerns the Italian people is that of a social horizon, as against the play’s title and most of its actions suggest, the individual horizon of Galileo’s life. According to the author, Brecht’s play does not establish a central domain, but invites the audience to participate in the process of determining the central domain between the individual life of Galileo as a scientist and his social life as part of the domain of Italian society. Quigley argues that the play takes up, in their social and individual spheres, the notion of provisional domains, their realms of implication, and their modes of interaction. (Quigley, 1985, p. 143). Therefore, it is essential to maintain that Quigley’s work is a crucial critical exposition of how Brecht’s Life of Galileo inextricably links social and individual concerns. In a critical overview of the Brecht’s Life of Galileo, it becomes evident that Austin E. Quigley makes a valid argument when he suggests that the play, rather than merely dealing with the story of an individual, creates an emblem of an individual domain that takes part in the local social domain, the Christian domain, the national domain, the human domain, the planetary domain, etc. In this way, the audience as well as the readers is invited to see the world of Galileo and other people in the dramatic domains which extend from the individual through the social to the cosmic domain. In connection with the modern theatre, it is, therefore, essential to ascertain that the play Life of Galileo seeks to “establish links that run from the creativity of the individual to the continuity of the cosmos.” (Quigley, 1985, p. 144). Quigley argues that Brecht offers convincing context in the play so as to provide for reconciling the individual and the social. According to him, through the individual domain and the cosmic domain, the playwright is able to frame the social domain and to testify to its worth. (Quigley, 1985, p. 164). By setting up these three major domains, Brecht seeks to clarify “the nature of motion and constraint in the planetary, the social and individual spheres, and the similarities and differences among them that enhance our understanding ot continuity and change in social relationships and in individual growth.” (Quigley, 1985, p. 168). One of the essential points that this critical work brings out is that neither the individual characters nor the social institutions in the play are not able to offer a final reconcilation of the various kinds of need or facts. Galileo, science, or the Church, or any other institution or individual is not able to argue for the final priority of one kinds of truth or resolution of competing truths. (Quigley, 1985, p. 167). Therefore, according to the author, neither the social nor the individual sphere is given undue importance in the play. As Galileo reminds, truth is not the child of authority, but of time, and science is not concerned with opening doors everlasting wisdom, but with setting a limit to everlasting error. In this similar fashion, Brecht’s play takes the readers repeatedly beyond the confines of the subject “drawing persistent attention to the limits and boundaries that enable and constrain us in all our activities and beliefs – as individuals, as members of an audience, and as members of society.” (Quigley, 1985, p. 171). Gray, R., 1967. “Introduction: The Life of Galileo.” In: Steffin, M., ed. The Life of Galileo. London: Methuen Educational Ltd., pp. v-xix. In one of the important introductory pieces of Brecht’s Life of Galileo, Ronald Gary, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, analyzes the play by Brecht in the background of the playwright’s biographical and historical influences in order to prove that social and individual concerns are inextricably connected in modern literary texts including Life of Galileo. In the opening section of the article, Gary offers a historical background of the society of Brecht who lived through two world wars and the Nazi tyranny, experienced the advantage of Communism over Fascism and war, and spent the greater part of his life promoting this cause through his plays. Life of Galileo, one of the best plays in the modern literature, reflects the playwright’s abhorrence of authoritarianism and his horror at the dropping of the first atomic bombs. One of the underlying themes of Life of Galileo is the contradictions which exist in capitalist society which is paradoxically harmonized or fused into a single unit and the relationship between social concerns and individual concerns. (Gray, 1967, p. vi). In the next section of this critical introduction to the play, Gray offers a reflective exploration of the the various Communist theories by Marx and Engels which influenced Brecht’s individual and social concerns in the play, the controdictory views of life, etc. Although his theories themselves are self-contradictory, Brecht’s attempt in his play has been to depict life in such a way that the social concerns of an indivdual could be comprehended on the basis of the laws that determine how the process of life develop. Accrding to Brecht, the dramatist was supposed to provide shifting raw materials to represent life itself, along with offering a social and political message to the audience. He considered theatrical art to be an elementary human utterance which contained its own purpose, and the playwright needed to generate pleasure at the possibilities of change in all things, “as though the kaleidoscope of life rather than the achievement of a perfect society were his main concern.” (Gray, 1967, p. vii). However, Brecht presented the the social concerns as well as the individual side of the protagonist in the play Life of Galileo and was successful in living up to the expectation of the readers who understand the social and individual concerns as inextricably linked in modern texts. Gray critical work provides a convincing evidence of how the modern literary pieces deal with the social as well as individual aspect of human life in the contemporary world. Based on an analysis of the theoretical and historical background of the playwright and play Life of Galileo, Ronald Gary makes a reflective exploration of how the social and individual sides of the protagonist are inter-connected and, at the same time, exist in contradiction to each other. For this purpose, the author provides an overall analysis of the theoretical framework of Brecht’s social concerns, especially his Communist leanings. The author also provides an explanation of Brecht’s well-known theory of ‘alienation’ and affirms that the plays of Brecht were intended to be seen by the audience in a critical attitude in order to realize the social messages of the plays. Gary explains ‘alienation’ as a deliberate distancing of the play from the spectator so as to refuse him chances to indulge in self-identification with the protagonist or in fatalistic acceptance of the events depicted in the play. (Gray, 1967, p. viii). Such an alienation from the hero and the events of the play helps the spectators realize the social as well as individual concerns of the play. Thus, the readers or the spectators are able to make out the social and individual concerns of the play in the scene in which the astronomer, who ‘has no mask’ converses with the cardinals, who carry a mask. In the same way, the long action accompanying dialogue, during which the Pope is covered with garment after garment until his slender portrayal of himanity seems smothered in pomp, is offers a clear indication of the social as well as individual aspect of the play. (Gray, 1967, p. viii). In short, “Introduction: The Life of Galileo” by Ronald Gary is an important critical piece analyzing the social and individual concerns of the play The Life of Galileo. Bibliography Gray, R., 1967. “Introduction: The Life of Galileo.” In: Steffin, M., ed. The Life of Galileo. London: Methuen Educational Ltd., pp. v-xix. Quigley, A. E., 1985. “Brecht: Life of Galileo”. In: A. E. Quigley, ed. The Modern Stage and Other Worlds. London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 142-172. Read More