One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Sergey Tretiakov, Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Hannah Arendt, Eric Bentley, Oscar Budel, Ernst Schumacher, I. Fradkin, Hans Egon Holthusen, Gunter Rohrmoser, Walter H. Sokol, Franz Norbert Mennemeir, Ronald Gray, John Willett, and Martin Esslin--all dealing with the biography and literary work of Brecht. Designed for use by both literary critics and secondary and college teachers of English, this work would also be of value to undergraduate and graduate students of literature. The essays discuss: the testimony of Brecht; Brecht as poet, contemporary theater and aesthetic distance; Piscator's political theater; the artistic originality of Brecht's drama; his dramatic theory; his split characters and sense of the tragic; his language and its sources; the music; and "The Caucasian Chalk Circle." A chronology of important dates in Brecht's life, a brief set of biographical notes on the contributors to this collection, and a selected bibliography on Brecht and his work complete the volume. (LL)