Peter Weiss

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of The Marquis de Sade (or Marat Sade)

A major literary event, the publication of this masterly translation makes one of the towering works of twentieth-century German literature available to English-speaking readers for the first time. The three-volume novel The Aesthetics of Resistance is the crowning achievement of Peter Weiss, the internationally renowned dramatist best known for his play Marat/Sade. The first volume, presented here, was initially published in Germany in 1975; the third and final volume appeared in 1981, just six months before Weiss’s death. Spanning the period from the late 1930s to World War II, this historical novel dramatizes antifascist resistance and the rise and fall of proletarian political parties in Europe. Living in Berlin in 1937, the unnamed narrator and his peers—sixteen- and seventeen-year-old working-class students—seek ways to express their hatred for the Nazi regime. They meet in museums and galleries, and in their discussions they explore the affinity between political resistance and art, the connection at the heart of Weiss’s novel. Weiss suggests that meaning lies in embracing resistance, no matter how intense the oppression, and that we must look to art for new models of political action and social understanding. The novel includes extended meditations on paintings, sculpture, and literature. Moving from the Berlin underground to the front lines of the Spanish Civil War and on to other parts of Europe, the story teems with characters, almost all of whom are based on historical figures. The Aesthetics of Resistance is one of the truly great works of postwar German literature and an essential resource for understanding twentieth-century German history.

A Novel, Volume 1

The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume I

Roman

Die Ästhetik des Widerstands

Erzählung

Abschied von den Eltern

La indagación

Marat Sade

Fluchtpunkt. Roman

John Keene

E. B. Garside

Conversation of the Three Wayfarers

Alexander Gross

Proceedings of the April 1995 meeting. After an overview of nitration and of changes in the field in the past 20 years, papers discuss theoretical aspects of nitration and the production of polynitro compounds, N2O5 technology, the production and use of N2O5 as a nitrating agent, and industrial aspects of nitration. Specific topics include continuous manufacturing of solid dinitrogen pentoxide, and commercial dinitrotoluene production processes. Of interest to chemists, engineers, administrators, researchers, students, industrial employees, and government workers involved in nitration applications. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Oratorio in 11 Cantos

The Investigation

Direnmenin Estetigi

L'inferno del maggiore Lager, del Lager per antonomasia, è disegnato nella sua estensione e profondità, le sue istallazioni descritte con rigore catastale, l'iter del detenuto, anzi dello Hüftling, se vogliamo conservare, come titolo d'onore, questa qualifica che ha accompagnato nella morte milioni di innocenti, minuziosamente tracciato, dalla sosta sulla banchina ferroviaria al forno crematorioi il modo con cui questo inventario è pronunciato, quasi se ne cogliesse per la prima volta la consistenza reale, oltrepassa di gran lunga il dato naturalistico, s'impone con la chiarezza conferita da una forza elementare. Ma il passato è solo una delle dimensioni dell'oratorio di Weiss: l'altra, meno avvertibile per la sua stessa mobilità e ambiguità, è quella del presente, del modo in cui quel passato è rivissuto, atteggiato. All'evocazione dei fatti compiuta dagli scampati, corrispondono le interpretazioni, le prese di posizione degli imputati e di molti «testimoni», che depongono a piede libero. Questo aspetto dell'Istruttoria, se anche meno emozionante, ha una forza di rivelazione, anzi di denuncia, stupefacente: reticenza, malafede, menzogna, viltà, cinismo, ottusità, sono caratteri dei despoti, dei boia, dei carcerieri di un tempo; la lezione che si ricava dal loro atteggiamento, certo favorito dall'indulgenza, dall'acquiescenza, quando non dall'appoggio attivo della società in cui oggi vivono, è in un certo senso, forse, piú drammatica di quella derivante dall'evocazione del passato. Non sono parole, quando si dice che Auschwitz continua ancora dentro e intorno a noi. Giorgio Zampa

L'istruttoria

Ästhetik des Widerstands

Nacht Mit Gästen Wie Dem Herrn Mockinpott Das Leiden Ausgetrieben

Alfonso Sastre

drama en dos actos

Persecución y asesinato de Jean-Paul Marat

Zwischen Dezember 1963 und August 1965 fand in Frankfurt am Main der Auschwitz-Prozeß statt, in dem die für das Funktionieren der Vernichtungsmaschinerie Verantwortlichen vor Gericht standen. Peter Weiss hat in seinem 1965 gleichzeitig an 15 Orten uraufgeführten dokumentarischen Theaterstück die Fakten über diese Hölle auf Erden, die im Prozeß zur Sprache kamen, in Gesängen gestaltet: Gesang von der Rampe, Gesang vom Lager, Gesang vom Bunkerblock. In ihnen wurden Täter und Opfer miteinander konfrontiert, und auf diese Weise wird, gerade durch den Verzicht der Rekonstruktion individueller Erlebnisse und die Betonung der funktionalen Aspekte, das Grauen dieser Tötungsfabrik deutlich. Zugleich wird die Möglichkeit gezeigt, daß sich ähnliches wiederholen könnte, und die Notwendigkeit, dies zu verhindern.

Oratorium in 11 Gesängen

Die Ermittlung

Peter Weiss (1916-1982) was virtually unknown in the mid-1960s when Peter Brook made Marat/Sade into a film. The weaving of time, space, plot, real-and-imagined characters, sexual liberation, and surrealist imagery made Marat/Sade a sensation. Little did audiences realize that this counterculture classic was written by a German Jew. At that time, Weiss was also at work on a play about Auschwitz: The Investigation. These two dramas are in this volume along with The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman. All are cogently introduced and edited by Robert Cohen.

Peter Weiss

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