Power and powerlessness: Brecht's poems to Carola Neher

This essay is a study of Brechts poems to Carola Neher: the two versions of Rat an die Schauspielerin C.N. (?1930, ?1956) and Das Waschen (1937). Thei r dating and textual authority in the three main editions of Brechts works are a matter of some uncertainty, but the essay suggests a sequence for the m that makes sense in the overall pattern of Brechts life and poetry. They are analysed with two leading questions, particularly acute in the 1930s, i n view: what is the nature of the poets authority; what is the relation of poetry to action? The original version (Elisabeth Hauptmanns term) of the t wo poems of advice is read as the product of Brecht and Nehers shared succe ss with Die Dreigroschenoper:the poet is in command; the situation is intim ate, but the mood is imperative, the gesture as invasive as it is tender; t he director is instructing his leading lady how to perform - exemplarily. D as Waschen, written from Brechts exile in Dennmark to Neher in prison in Mo scow, is read as the gesture of one powerless to help, but writing into the dark, as a reminder of a - Brechts word is menschenwurdigere - situation: subdued though it is, the poem carries a charge of memory and muted encoura gement. The third poem, a variant of the first, is read as a retreat, lacki ng the purposeful authority of the first and the paradoxical power in power lessness of the second. The poems move from celebration to reminder to wish -fulfilment - which is both less and more than Brecht set out to require of poetry.