Arthur Kutscher was a German historian of literature

History of literature

The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempts to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all...

 and researcher in drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

. Together with Max Herrmann

Max Herrmann

Max Herrmann was a German literary historian and theorist of theatre studies. He is considered to be the founding father of theatre studies in Germany....

 he can be seen as a founding father of dramatics. He was a professor at Munich University, where he taught a famous seminar in theatre history

History of theatre

The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities...

. Kutscher was a friend of the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

-star Wedekind

Frank Wedekind

Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...

. His work influenced many playwrights, poets, and directors. His students included Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 (studied in 1917), Erwin Piscator

Erwin Piscator

Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...

 (studied in 1913), Peter Hacks

Peter Hacks

Peter Hacks was a German playwright, author, and essayist.Hacks was born in Breslau , Lower Silesia. Displaced by World War II, Hacks settled in Munich in 1947, where he made acquaintance with Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht...

, Hanns Johst

Hanns Johst

Hanns Johst was a German playwright and Nazi Poet Laureate.Hanns Johst was born in Seehausen as the son of an elementary school teacher. He grew up in Oschatz and Leipzig. As a juvenile he planned to become a missionary. When he was 17 years old he worked as an auxiliary in a Bethel Institution...

, Klabund

Klabund

Alfred Henschke , better known by his pseudonym Klabund, was a German writer.-Life:Klabund, born Alfred Henschke in 1890 in Krossen, was the son of an apothecary. At the age of 16 he came down with tuberculosis, which the doctors initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia...

, and Erich Mühsam

Erich Mühsam

Erich Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic....

. Brecht's first full-length play, Baal

Baal (play)

Baal was the first full-length play written by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder...

(written 1918), was written in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars. While Kutscher was responsible for inspiring an admiration for Wedekind in the young Brecht, he was "bitterly critical" of Brecht's own early dramatic writings.

Works

• Frank Wedekind, sein Leben und seine Werke. With plates, including portraits (Frank Wedekind, his Life and his Work), 1922 Record on Amazon.co.uk
• Grundriss der Theaterwissenschaft (Compendium of Dramatics), 2 Vols., 1932-1937
• Stilkunde des deutschen Dichtung (Stylistics of German Fiction), 1949
• Der Theaterprofessor (The Theatre Professor), 1960 (autobiography)

Works cited

• Thomson, Peter. 1994. "Brecht's Lives". In The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 22-39. ISBN 0521414466.
• Willett, John
  John Willett
  John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
  
  . 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 041334360X.
• ---. 1978. The Theatre of Erwin Piscator: Half a Century of Politics in the Theatre. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413378101.
• Willett, John
  John Willett
  John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
  
   and Ralph Manheim
  Ralph Manheim
  Ralph Frederick Manheim was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian...
  
  . 1970. Introduction. In Collected Plays: One by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. ISBN 041603280X. p.vii-xvii.

External links