A book review of Darko Suvin's "Brecht's Communist Manifesto Today Poetry, Utopia, Doctrine"
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Brecht’s Communist Manifesto Today:: Poetry, Utopia, Doctrine by Darko Suvin
While the chief focus of this work is the poem by Brecht, it is also centered around constructing a socialist imagination that is not anti-utopian. Darko explains how anti-utopia is a product of the ruling classes in the first chapter, and gives reference to other works in the genre of eutopianism or dystopianism, citing from writers such as Foucault, to explain how works that are not anti-utopian are truer to a socialist-idealist and creative vision of society.
He then translates Bertolt Brecht’s “versification” or “sublating” of the Communist Manifesto, from his German poem called “The Manifesto”, explains how the hexameter operated technically and most importantly, deconstructs the substantive metaphors and forms that appear in the poem itself. He does this by showing how the poem transposes ideals of Marx and Engels’ pamphlet via dialectical historicisation that appeals to the “worker-reader”.
This was the first time I read Darko, and I thought it was a good starting point for anyone who wants to read and write socialist works of literary art.
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