THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND
This site is a resource for all interested in the Viennese satirist, Karl Kraus, in particular his great play about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, 'The Last Days of Mankind'. Despite its importance in the literature of Europe and the world, the complete play has not been fully translated into English in its 100-year history, until now. That extraordinary failure is being remedied in several areas, with work on this site, including Cordelia von Klot's full working translation, and (marvellous to relate!) with the publication (November 2015) of Edward Timms and Fred Bridgham's translation which finally gives us a complete version in print.
This site has brought extensive extracts from the play into the public domain, translated into what is hopefully 'readable, speakable, above all performable' English, many for the first time. So far these extracts have been from a shortened version for performance; they are now being replaced by Version 2 scenes, which are complete (full text and extensive annotations).The finished text of my annotated translation of the whole play will be available in published form, Kindle and book, in two parts, in the course of 2016-2018, but this site will contain up to fifty per cent of the full 800 page play. However, there will be two full translations of the play available from the end of 2015, the Timms and Bridgham, World Republic of Letters, text and Cordelia von Klot's 2010 version; now available on this site. A hundred years on it is a remarkable turnaround from where we were only a few years ago, with a couple of short, out-of-print extracts, very limited in scope, and a few theatrical 'distillations' to refer to which gave almost no sense at all of Kraus's stature as a writer..
My annotated translation of the self-contained Epilogue, Die letze Nacht, 'The Last Night', is available in US Kindle, UK Kindle and US Book, UK Book from Amazon now, for under $9/£6. 'The Last Night' is a marvellous, very accessible introduction to the whole play, not only a conclusion to the drama but also a condensed (and intense) summation of the work. The introduction and notes in my translation will, I hope, provide a useful 'way in' to understanding Kraus's work. 'The Last Night' was listed one of the Times Literary Supplement's 'Books of 2014'.
'Russell's translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind's' Epilogue, 'The Last Night', a kind of Walpurgisnacht... works brilliantly. Kraus's prophetic exposé of the world of media speak may finally convince English-speaking readers of what they have been missing...'
Times Literary Supplement, December 2014.
This site now includes an immediately accessible 'working' translation of the full play, by my collaborator Cordelia von Klot; this is a very literal translation, created as a working document, primarily to be read with the German, but it is also a major tool for all English-speakers. It has the not-inconsiderable distinction, 100 years after Kraus began his five years of work on the play, of being the first full translation of Die letzten Tage de Menschheit into English ever made. Go to any of the CVK pages below, where Cordelia's full text is now available in sections: Prologue, Act I, Act II, Act III, Act IV, Act V, Epilogue. More detail on the generation of this translation can be found here.
© All material in English on this site is copyright. Short quotes may be used in critical and academic work, in the normal way, but for longer extracts, and any material used for any other purposes whatsoever, in publicity, performance, reading, broadcast, publication of any kind, websites, internet, etc., please contact me by one of the means available above; normally permission is happily given as long as there is acknowledgement of the source.
This site is a resource for all interested in the Viennese satirist, Karl Kraus, in particular his great play about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, 'The Last Days of Mankind'. Despite its importance in the literature of Europe and the world, the complete play has not been fully translated into English in its 100-year history, until now. That extraordinary failure is being remedied in several areas, with work on this site, including Cordelia von Klot's full working translation, and (marvellous to relate!) with the publication (November 2015) of Edward Timms and Fred Bridgham's translation which finally gives us a complete version in print.
This site has brought extensive extracts from the play into the public domain, translated into what is hopefully 'readable, speakable, above all performable' English, many for the first time. So far these extracts have been from a shortened version for performance; they are now being replaced by Version 2 scenes, which are complete (full text and extensive annotations).The finished text of my annotated translation of the whole play will be available in published form, Kindle and book, in two parts, in the course of 2016-2018, but this site will contain up to fifty per cent of the full 800 page play. However, there will be two full translations of the play available from the end of 2015, the Timms and Bridgham, World Republic of Letters, text and Cordelia von Klot's 2010 version; now available on this site. A hundred years on it is a remarkable turnaround from where we were only a few years ago, with a couple of short, out-of-print extracts, very limited in scope, and a few theatrical 'distillations' to refer to which gave almost no sense at all of Kraus's stature as a writer..
My annotated translation of the self-contained Epilogue, Die letze Nacht, 'The Last Night', is available in US Kindle, UK Kindle and US Book, UK Book from Amazon now, for under $9/£6. 'The Last Night' is a marvellous, very accessible introduction to the whole play, not only a conclusion to the drama but also a condensed (and intense) summation of the work. The introduction and notes in my translation will, I hope, provide a useful 'way in' to understanding Kraus's work. 'The Last Night' was listed one of the Times Literary Supplement's 'Books of 2014'.
'Russell's translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind's' Epilogue, 'The Last Night', a kind of Walpurgisnacht... works brilliantly. Kraus's prophetic exposé of the world of media speak may finally convince English-speaking readers of what they have been missing...'
Times Literary Supplement, December 2014.
This site now includes an immediately accessible 'working' translation of the full play, by my collaborator Cordelia von Klot; this is a very literal translation, created as a working document, primarily to be read with the German, but it is also a major tool for all English-speakers. It has the not-inconsiderable distinction, 100 years after Kraus began his five years of work on the play, of being the first full translation of Die letzten Tage de Menschheit into English ever made. Go to any of the CVK pages below, where Cordelia's full text is now available in sections: Prologue, Act I, Act II, Act III, Act IV, Act V, Epilogue. More detail on the generation of this translation can be found here.
© All material in English on this site is copyright. Short quotes may be used in critical and academic work, in the normal way, but for longer extracts, and any material used for any other purposes whatsoever, in publicity, performance, reading, broadcast, publication of any kind, websites, internet, etc., please contact me by one of the means available above; normally permission is happily given as long as there is acknowledgement of the source.
INK FLOWED LIKE BLOOD
Richard Evans' very thoughful review of the Timms-Bridgham translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind' in the Wall Street Journal is well worth reading. I disagree with some of the conclusions he comes to about the essentially 'parochial' and 'chaotic' nature of Kraus's play (something of a simplification, but I hope he will forgive that shorthand). The experience of translating Kraus's work, and of living its language, leads me to see it as a much broader, much more intense, and more thematically structured piece of work, which does, as I have said below, stand comparison with the work of other great satirists (few as they are). None of that prevents this review being incisive, informed and thought-provoking. I appreciate a modestly positive reflection on my own work in it. One thing worth saying is that there can be few newspapers anywhere now (including what were once cultural and literary giants, like the New York Times, the Times, the Irish Times) that would devote this much space to any review, of anything! I post Richard Evans' review here.
Richard Evans' very thoughful review of the Timms-Bridgham translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind' in the Wall Street Journal is well worth reading. I disagree with some of the conclusions he comes to about the essentially 'parochial' and 'chaotic' nature of Kraus's play (something of a simplification, but I hope he will forgive that shorthand). The experience of translating Kraus's work, and of living its language, leads me to see it as a much broader, much more intense, and more thematically structured piece of work, which does, as I have said below, stand comparison with the work of other great satirists (few as they are). None of that prevents this review being incisive, informed and thought-provoking. I appreciate a modestly positive reflection on my own work in it. One thing worth saying is that there can be few newspapers anywhere now (including what were once cultural and literary giants, like the New York Times, the Times, the Irish Times) that would devote this much space to any review, of anything! I post Richard Evans' review here.
THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND
These are no bad times to read Karl Kraus's vast and profound meditation on human stupidity and human barbarism, 'The Last Days of Mankind', and to read it as Kraus wrote it. The well-intentioned abridged forms that have, both in text and in stage adaptation, feebly portrayed the drama as a piece of two-dimensional anti-war, anti-imperialist agit-prop, not as the profound and complex dissection of human folly and civilisation it is, have not served Karl Kraus well. In German, obviously there is recourse to the play itself to remedy this. With the publication of Edward Timms and Fred Bridgham's full translation on 24 November, English readers can now find the same remedy! This is an excellent translation which brings together Edward Timms' unparalled knowledge of Kraus and his work, and of Austrian culture, and not only Fred Bridgham's extensive familiarity with German literature but his experience as a translator, in particular, of opera librettos. 'The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text' is available in print and on Kindle. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Kraus himself, in the First World War, in history, in thought, in literature... or indeed in just about anything that matters!
The publication coincides with the completion of my next novel, and I am unable to do it justice in terms of a review immediately, naturally enough given the scale of it. However, as soon as I am free in December I will remedy that. Meanwhile it is out there, finally - a long century waiting...
The fact that Kraus rails against war, against the all-corrupting power of the media, against the iniquities of money and industry in the service of slaughter, against every kind of foolish and obsessive nationalism, against the the peddling of vacuous absurdity, whether in religion or politics of any persuasion, against irrational imperial ambitions, against the madness that sends men out to die in the belief that all these things actually mean something... the fact that these things are the vehicle for his drama, doesn't make them the sum of its substance. Kraus's subject is humanity and the civilisation he is a part of, which, for shorthand, we usually refer to as 'western-civilisation', which is to say the 'civilisation' (I put it in quotes for those who find the term offensive without them!) that grew out of the Classical culture of Rome and Greece, out of the Judaeo-Christian culture that developed from the collision of Jewish culture with the Classical world, and out of the transformation of what resulted from all that, in the particular form of the Enlightenment, into the complex, sceptical, increasingly secular civilisation we still inhabit (just!). I have said elsewhere that Kraus's voice is, very often, not so much that of the modernism of the early twentieth century, which he was close to and indeed influenced, but of the Enlightenment.
At times his voice sounds like the last despairing cry of that Enlightenment, caught between the horror of the First World War and what was to follow, as the particular manifestation of western civilisation he emerged from, the liberal, tolerant, sceptical, classical and romantic traditions of his German and European world, turned to the darkness. 'The Last Days of Mankind' is, naturally enough, about the First World War, and about all war, but it is also about what our civilisation is and about who we are. That is why, like all great works of art, it is, and will always remain, a 'contemporary' work. Those questions; who we are, what are our beliefs and values, what do we stand for, are as urgent today as they were in 1914-18 and its aftermath. Kraus, like the other three great writers he stands beside (Aristophanes, Juvenal, Swift) was in many ways a 'conservative' thinker (for British readers that is a very, very small 'c'). It is a mistake to pull him along on the coat tails of any political ideology (no one can claim him, however many would like to); his own erratic and sometimes irrational political journey doesn't make easy reading for those who want to believe that the list of things Kraus railed against makes him a man of the Left; no more was he a man of the Right in any of the senses that is usually used today. It is as a man who refused to cease to be what the Enlightenment demanded he was that he matters; his vision is often closer to Voltaire's than to any of his contemporaries. That is the voice we need to hear.
These are no bad times to read Karl Kraus's vast and profound meditation on human stupidity and human barbarism, 'The Last Days of Mankind', and to read it as Kraus wrote it. The well-intentioned abridged forms that have, both in text and in stage adaptation, feebly portrayed the drama as a piece of two-dimensional anti-war, anti-imperialist agit-prop, not as the profound and complex dissection of human folly and civilisation it is, have not served Karl Kraus well. In German, obviously there is recourse to the play itself to remedy this. With the publication of Edward Timms and Fred Bridgham's full translation on 24 November, English readers can now find the same remedy! This is an excellent translation which brings together Edward Timms' unparalled knowledge of Kraus and his work, and of Austrian culture, and not only Fred Bridgham's extensive familiarity with German literature but his experience as a translator, in particular, of opera librettos. 'The Last Days of Mankind: The Complete Text' is available in print and on Kindle. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Kraus himself, in the First World War, in history, in thought, in literature... or indeed in just about anything that matters!
The publication coincides with the completion of my next novel, and I am unable to do it justice in terms of a review immediately, naturally enough given the scale of it. However, as soon as I am free in December I will remedy that. Meanwhile it is out there, finally - a long century waiting...
The fact that Kraus rails against war, against the all-corrupting power of the media, against the iniquities of money and industry in the service of slaughter, against every kind of foolish and obsessive nationalism, against the the peddling of vacuous absurdity, whether in religion or politics of any persuasion, against irrational imperial ambitions, against the madness that sends men out to die in the belief that all these things actually mean something... the fact that these things are the vehicle for his drama, doesn't make them the sum of its substance. Kraus's subject is humanity and the civilisation he is a part of, which, for shorthand, we usually refer to as 'western-civilisation', which is to say the 'civilisation' (I put it in quotes for those who find the term offensive without them!) that grew out of the Classical culture of Rome and Greece, out of the Judaeo-Christian culture that developed from the collision of Jewish culture with the Classical world, and out of the transformation of what resulted from all that, in the particular form of the Enlightenment, into the complex, sceptical, increasingly secular civilisation we still inhabit (just!). I have said elsewhere that Kraus's voice is, very often, not so much that of the modernism of the early twentieth century, which he was close to and indeed influenced, but of the Enlightenment.
At times his voice sounds like the last despairing cry of that Enlightenment, caught between the horror of the First World War and what was to follow, as the particular manifestation of western civilisation he emerged from, the liberal, tolerant, sceptical, classical and romantic traditions of his German and European world, turned to the darkness. 'The Last Days of Mankind' is, naturally enough, about the First World War, and about all war, but it is also about what our civilisation is and about who we are. That is why, like all great works of art, it is, and will always remain, a 'contemporary' work. Those questions; who we are, what are our beliefs and values, what do we stand for, are as urgent today as they were in 1914-18 and its aftermath. Kraus, like the other three great writers he stands beside (Aristophanes, Juvenal, Swift) was in many ways a 'conservative' thinker (for British readers that is a very, very small 'c'). It is a mistake to pull him along on the coat tails of any political ideology (no one can claim him, however many would like to); his own erratic and sometimes irrational political journey doesn't make easy reading for those who want to believe that the list of things Kraus railed against makes him a man of the Left; no more was he a man of the Right in any of the senses that is usually used today. It is as a man who refused to cease to be what the Enlightenment demanded he was that he matters; his vision is often closer to Voltaire's than to any of his contemporaries. That is the voice we need to hear.
A GIANT CHOKES IN THE DWARF'S ALL-STRANGLING CLENCH
The words are Karl Kraus's in 'The Last Days of Mankind'...
I shan’t be holding a candle-lit vigil for Paris. I won’t be putting the French flag on my Facebook page or my Twitter masthead. I think I shall keep my own emotions and my own prayers for the dead to myself this time round. I shan’t, this time, be contributing my own platitudes to #JeSuisParis. Because however real the emotional responses, the words of explaining it all away are already out there. It’s kind of our fault. The best we can really hope for is that if we shut up, keep our heads down, and apologise for the fact that western civilisation is just about the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity, we might be able to keep massacres of this kind to a minimum. No one, repeat no one, in a position of political power in Europe believes that they can be prevented. They are with us now for the rest of our lives, and our children’s lives… God knows what then. We should not ‘go gently into that goodnight’, should we? But we arel. When all the tears are shed, there will be no ‘rage against the dying of the light’, but a sense that in some way we are, ourselves, guilty of what’s happening to us, that our culture is a permanent affront to people who actually don’t share the vision we at least aspire to, of freedom, democracy, free-thinking, free-speaking, free-writing, true tolerance, open-mindedness, scientific and artistic adventure, and (yes, let’s say it) scepticism; scepticism about everything that isn’t true or isn’t real or isn’t generous or humane; the right to find some ideas ridiculous and say so... No accident this happened on the Boulevard Voltaire... When there is nothing to say, say something.. Blog...
The words are Karl Kraus's in 'The Last Days of Mankind'...
I shan’t be holding a candle-lit vigil for Paris. I won’t be putting the French flag on my Facebook page or my Twitter masthead. I think I shall keep my own emotions and my own prayers for the dead to myself this time round. I shan’t, this time, be contributing my own platitudes to #JeSuisParis. Because however real the emotional responses, the words of explaining it all away are already out there. It’s kind of our fault. The best we can really hope for is that if we shut up, keep our heads down, and apologise for the fact that western civilisation is just about the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity, we might be able to keep massacres of this kind to a minimum. No one, repeat no one, in a position of political power in Europe believes that they can be prevented. They are with us now for the rest of our lives, and our children’s lives… God knows what then. We should not ‘go gently into that goodnight’, should we? But we arel. When all the tears are shed, there will be no ‘rage against the dying of the light’, but a sense that in some way we are, ourselves, guilty of what’s happening to us, that our culture is a permanent affront to people who actually don’t share the vision we at least aspire to, of freedom, democracy, free-thinking, free-speaking, free-writing, true tolerance, open-mindedness, scientific and artistic adventure, and (yes, let’s say it) scepticism; scepticism about everything that isn’t true or isn’t real or isn’t generous or humane; the right to find some ideas ridiculous and say so... No accident this happened on the Boulevard Voltaire... When there is nothing to say, say something.. Blog...
SAY ANYTHING AT ALL...
The death of Brian Friel last week is something that will be marked in Ireland and throughout the world. He is one of the great playwrights of the last half of the twentieth century. See more in the blog...
The death of Brian Friel last week is something that will be marked in Ireland and throughout the world. He is one of the great playwrights of the last half of the twentieth century. See more in the blog...
NEWS ABOUT KRAUS AND THE TRANSLATION OF THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS?
Sometimes the past catches up with the present... or perhaps it's really the other way round...
Sometimes the past catches up with the present... or perhaps it's really the other way round...
GERMAN ARMY CHUCKS RUSSIAN INTO BOGS!
In the first, Korso, scene of Act II Kraus refers to a poem by Franz Karl Ginzkey (1871-1963); Ginzkey was also a cartographer in the Institute of Military Geography in Vienna until 1914, then in the War Archives. There was a Ginzkey family which was a manufacturer of carpets, with family members holding high office in commercial institutions and organisations. Kraus's Racketeer naturally assumes Ginskey is 'in carpets'. As the First World War began, battles in East Prussia (now part of Poland and Russian Kaliningrad), including the battle of the Masurian Lakes, and the devastating battle of Tannenburg, decimated the Russian army, putting an end to its invasion of Germany. Hindenburg is a heroic figure Kraus will mock relentlessly as the play continues. I have found, and translated Ginskey's original poem, which it is worth remembering really was performed in music halls with the sound of the gurgling Russian dying eliciting hoots and roars of laughter from Viennese audience. The whole poem is on the blog page here. A level of 'self-satire' (unintended of course) in which vicious reality outstrips anything Kraus can do. In the cartoon Hindenburg lures the Russians into his trap.
RACKETEER 1: Yesterday I went to see Marcel Salzer’s show. Now I tell you, gentlemen, that’s something not to be missed.
RACKETEER 2: That good?
RACKETEER 1: Yes! He does this fantastic poem, by some famous poet, I do know what he’s called – hang on – it’s Ginzkey!
RACKETEER 3: Isn’t he in carpets?
RACKETEER 1: Well, he’s probably related. Anyway, it’s about the Battle of Tannenberg, when Hindenburg’s driving the Russians into the bogs – you’ll have read a moving description in the paper at the time - [20]
RACKETEER 2: I can still remember the headline: German Army Surrounds Russian Troops And Chucks Them In Masurian Swamps.
RACKETEER 1: That’s exactly what happens in the poem, but funnier, Salzer makes these gurgling, glug-glug noises as they choke to death. I tell you, his weird faces, his little piggy eyes – it’s well worth the money.
THE POEM
General Hindenburg feels the east wind blow
O’er the Masurian Lakes where he rides ‘gainst the foe.
All his life he has roamed on foot and on horse
Round these lakes and swamps and followed their course.
He knows every reed in this bog, every sound,
He bends his head low, puts his ear to the ground,
He hears ghostly gurgles deep in the swamp:
The swamp is our trump, the swamp is our trump,
It will swallow the Russians up, torso and stump.
See Blog for full translation of Ginskey's text.
In the first, Korso, scene of Act II Kraus refers to a poem by Franz Karl Ginzkey (1871-1963); Ginzkey was also a cartographer in the Institute of Military Geography in Vienna until 1914, then in the War Archives. There was a Ginzkey family which was a manufacturer of carpets, with family members holding high office in commercial institutions and organisations. Kraus's Racketeer naturally assumes Ginskey is 'in carpets'. As the First World War began, battles in East Prussia (now part of Poland and Russian Kaliningrad), including the battle of the Masurian Lakes, and the devastating battle of Tannenburg, decimated the Russian army, putting an end to its invasion of Germany. Hindenburg is a heroic figure Kraus will mock relentlessly as the play continues. I have found, and translated Ginskey's original poem, which it is worth remembering really was performed in music halls with the sound of the gurgling Russian dying eliciting hoots and roars of laughter from Viennese audience. The whole poem is on the blog page here. A level of 'self-satire' (unintended of course) in which vicious reality outstrips anything Kraus can do. In the cartoon Hindenburg lures the Russians into his trap.
RACKETEER 1: Yesterday I went to see Marcel Salzer’s show. Now I tell you, gentlemen, that’s something not to be missed.
RACKETEER 2: That good?
RACKETEER 1: Yes! He does this fantastic poem, by some famous poet, I do know what he’s called – hang on – it’s Ginzkey!
RACKETEER 3: Isn’t he in carpets?
RACKETEER 1: Well, he’s probably related. Anyway, it’s about the Battle of Tannenberg, when Hindenburg’s driving the Russians into the bogs – you’ll have read a moving description in the paper at the time - [20]
RACKETEER 2: I can still remember the headline: German Army Surrounds Russian Troops And Chucks Them In Masurian Swamps.
RACKETEER 1: That’s exactly what happens in the poem, but funnier, Salzer makes these gurgling, glug-glug noises as they choke to death. I tell you, his weird faces, his little piggy eyes – it’s well worth the money.
THE POEM
General Hindenburg feels the east wind blow
O’er the Masurian Lakes where he rides ‘gainst the foe.
All his life he has roamed on foot and on horse
Round these lakes and swamps and followed their course.
He knows every reed in this bog, every sound,
He bends his head low, puts his ear to the ground,
He hears ghostly gurgles deep in the swamp:
The swamp is our trump, the swamp is our trump,
It will swallow the Russians up, torso and stump.
See Blog for full translation of Ginskey's text.
VERSION 2 IN PROGRESS NEW AND REVISED MATERIAL
In the course of the rest of this year I will be replacing the scenes currently on the website with Version 2 scenes. These are, hopefully, better simply in terms of my three major concerns in English; that the text, as well as being clear, has the qualities of readability, speakability and, one day, performability, that characterise the original. They will also be complete scenes from the full translation, rather than the shortened version; they are also more fully annotated. In addition I will add material from the Prologue, which has not been included before, and introduce some of the verse that is one of the play's most distinctive features, especially in the later acts and, of course, the all-verse Epilogue. This site is both a realisation of Kraus's work in English, occasionally a commentary on it and on events related to it, however obliquely, and a tool for those interested in Kraus generally and Die letzten Tage de Menschheit particularly. For those reasons, having now almost completed Version 2 of the Prologue and Acts I-III, I will at some point also be putting up Cordelia von Klot's complete translation of the play. Cordelia's translation really is the first full translation of the play into English ever made, and in that sense it truly is a ground-breaking piece of work that I feel those who care about Kraus but have no German, or little German, should have access to. The translation was embarked on with very specific, in some senses quite narrow, aims; these were that it should be as literal as possible, even when this meant writing what may have seemed un-English English, and that it should concentrate on this literalness at the expense of any style and elegance in English. I asked Cordelia even to keep, at times, German word order if that helped with the literalness of the end result, though it might make, again, for clumsy and unnatural English. It was meant to be primarily a tool for translation, of a kind familiar in the theatre when translating drama, which I could use with my own less than adequate German, but which also provided at times a particular view, from a native German speaker, that would give literalness a clarity of tone that might otherwise be missing. Naturally enough, given the quality of Cordelia's English, literalness often gave way to very good translation, but when her work becomes available it should be remembered that it is there simply as a tool, and may be particularly helpful to those reading the text in German, where my translation will often depart too much from the original to really serve that purpose, except in the most general sense. However, given the nature of the huge task involved in translating 'The Last Days of Mankind', Cordelia's work is a major contribution to the sturdy of Karl Kraus in its own right, which should be seen.
Added to the site now, for first time is Scene 1 of the Prologue (none of the Prologue has been on the site before), together with Version 2 of Act I, Scene 1. And to move forward this new stage of this 'work in progress', here is one of the greatest poems of the play, from Act III, Scene 36...
SCENE 36
A lecture hall in Vienna.
BEGRUDGER:
‘With Watch in Hand’[1]
‘On the 17th of September, one of our U-boats sank a fully-laden troop ship in the Mediterranean. The ship sank in less than 43 seconds.’
Technology and death meet face to face.
Does bravery play no further part in might?
Time runs out as day turns into night.
O God of War, deliver us from this place!
And you who stole in stealth from that machine,
You made no sacrifice; it was the machine’s alone!
It stands triumphant, dispassionate as stone,
A proud creation whose soul you now demean.
A mortar fires its shell. Flak bursts and cracks.
The man who made it cowers in a trench.
The giant chokes in the dwarf’s all-strangling clench;
You can see the stopwatch stop time in its tracks.
But sleep, sleep on. You need rest. You shouldn’t neglect that.
And when the malingerer limps to the stock exchange floor
And hits the button so futures will spiral and soar,
And London’s wiped out? The business of war. You’d expect that.
What was the time then? When did it happen? Why?
Our eyes don’t see clearly corroded by poisonous gas.
But ears still hear. The clock strikes thirteen, and as
Clouds loom we look up; doomsday falls from the sky.
Chaos and farce are the entropic end of our story –
God forbid God should hear the words of our hymns!
Progress drives on, counting profit and prosthetic limbs,
A stopwatch in hand, its heart set on ever more glory.
[1] ‘With Watch in Hand’, ‘Mit der Uhr in der Hand’, the title of the poem. In 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in ‘Die fröhliche Wissenschaft’, translated as ‘The Gay Science’ in Walter Kaufmann’s 1960’s version: ‘We now think with watch in hand, as we eat lunch, as we turn our eyes to the stock-exchange report’. The book’s title is derived from an old Provençal phrase for the technical demands of the art of poetry, ‘gai saber’; ‘The Joyous Wisdom’, the title of the 19th century translation, offers a more helpful equivalent now. The words and images of Kraus’s poem contain more found material, as ever, than we can readily identify; the same words and imagery also look forward to important material in the Epilogue.
In the course of the rest of this year I will be replacing the scenes currently on the website with Version 2 scenes. These are, hopefully, better simply in terms of my three major concerns in English; that the text, as well as being clear, has the qualities of readability, speakability and, one day, performability, that characterise the original. They will also be complete scenes from the full translation, rather than the shortened version; they are also more fully annotated. In addition I will add material from the Prologue, which has not been included before, and introduce some of the verse that is one of the play's most distinctive features, especially in the later acts and, of course, the all-verse Epilogue. This site is both a realisation of Kraus's work in English, occasionally a commentary on it and on events related to it, however obliquely, and a tool for those interested in Kraus generally and Die letzten Tage de Menschheit particularly. For those reasons, having now almost completed Version 2 of the Prologue and Acts I-III, I will at some point also be putting up Cordelia von Klot's complete translation of the play. Cordelia's translation really is the first full translation of the play into English ever made, and in that sense it truly is a ground-breaking piece of work that I feel those who care about Kraus but have no German, or little German, should have access to. The translation was embarked on with very specific, in some senses quite narrow, aims; these were that it should be as literal as possible, even when this meant writing what may have seemed un-English English, and that it should concentrate on this literalness at the expense of any style and elegance in English. I asked Cordelia even to keep, at times, German word order if that helped with the literalness of the end result, though it might make, again, for clumsy and unnatural English. It was meant to be primarily a tool for translation, of a kind familiar in the theatre when translating drama, which I could use with my own less than adequate German, but which also provided at times a particular view, from a native German speaker, that would give literalness a clarity of tone that might otherwise be missing. Naturally enough, given the quality of Cordelia's English, literalness often gave way to very good translation, but when her work becomes available it should be remembered that it is there simply as a tool, and may be particularly helpful to those reading the text in German, where my translation will often depart too much from the original to really serve that purpose, except in the most general sense. However, given the nature of the huge task involved in translating 'The Last Days of Mankind', Cordelia's work is a major contribution to the sturdy of Karl Kraus in its own right, which should be seen.
Added to the site now, for first time is Scene 1 of the Prologue (none of the Prologue has been on the site before), together with Version 2 of Act I, Scene 1. And to move forward this new stage of this 'work in progress', here is one of the greatest poems of the play, from Act III, Scene 36...
SCENE 36
A lecture hall in Vienna.
BEGRUDGER:
‘With Watch in Hand’[1]
‘On the 17th of September, one of our U-boats sank a fully-laden troop ship in the Mediterranean. The ship sank in less than 43 seconds.’
Technology and death meet face to face.
Does bravery play no further part in might?
Time runs out as day turns into night.
O God of War, deliver us from this place!
And you who stole in stealth from that machine,
You made no sacrifice; it was the machine’s alone!
It stands triumphant, dispassionate as stone,
A proud creation whose soul you now demean.
A mortar fires its shell. Flak bursts and cracks.
The man who made it cowers in a trench.
The giant chokes in the dwarf’s all-strangling clench;
You can see the stopwatch stop time in its tracks.
But sleep, sleep on. You need rest. You shouldn’t neglect that.
And when the malingerer limps to the stock exchange floor
And hits the button so futures will spiral and soar,
And London’s wiped out? The business of war. You’d expect that.
What was the time then? When did it happen? Why?
Our eyes don’t see clearly corroded by poisonous gas.
But ears still hear. The clock strikes thirteen, and as
Clouds loom we look up; doomsday falls from the sky.
Chaos and farce are the entropic end of our story –
God forbid God should hear the words of our hymns!
Progress drives on, counting profit and prosthetic limbs,
A stopwatch in hand, its heart set on ever more glory.
[1] ‘With Watch in Hand’, ‘Mit der Uhr in der Hand’, the title of the poem. In 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in ‘Die fröhliche Wissenschaft’, translated as ‘The Gay Science’ in Walter Kaufmann’s 1960’s version: ‘We now think with watch in hand, as we eat lunch, as we turn our eyes to the stock-exchange report’. The book’s title is derived from an old Provençal phrase for the technical demands of the art of poetry, ‘gai saber’; ‘The Joyous Wisdom’, the title of the 19th century translation, offers a more helpful equivalent now. The words and images of Kraus’s poem contain more found material, as ever, than we can readily identify; the same words and imagery also look forward to important material in the Epilogue.
THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA
One hundred years ago.
Karl Kraus writes about the sinking of the Lusitania, by a U-boat, on 7 May 1915, several times in the course of Die Letzten Tage der Menschheit, usually with words in the mouth of the Begrudger, in argument with the Optimist (who always tries to offer at least some justification for the event, while accepting that it is indeed 'unfortunate'). One thing the Begrudger talks about repeatedly, in connection to indignation in Germany and Austria about the possibility of weapons crossing the Atlantic from the USA on passenger liners, to help the Allies, is clear evidence that German companies in America, run by Americans of German origin who supported Germany, companies with considerable numbers of German investors (including state organisations), companies paying dividends to German shareholders even as war proceeded, were producing arms and munitions for Allied contracts. The only people at all indignant about this were actually Americans, mostly just a few socialists, who were unhappy with the whole arms industry. In Berlin it seemed, newspapers that railed against the possible transport of crates of rifles on a ship had no interest in the German money that was not only funding weapons manufacture for the Allies already, but would be used to ramp it up phenomenally when the USA finally came into the war on the Allied side - in response, in part at least, to the sinking of the Lusitania. But then business, as Kraus points out, is business.
'There's no business like war business, like no business I know!'
Begrudger and Optimist discuss the Lusitania, as they walk Vienna's streets:
OPTIMIST: When it comes to politics I say: success breeds success. That’s why the sinking of the Lusitania continues to make such a great impression.
BEGRUDGER: It’s certainly achieved that. Throughout the whole world, insofar as the world is still capable of any revulsion at all. And in Berlin too.
OPTIMIST: In Berlin?
BEGRUDGER: Well, we do need some evidence to back that up. (He reads aloud.) ‘At the moment the ship went under, hundreds of people leapt into the sea. Most were pulled down into the maelstrom. Many clutched desperately at pieces of timber torn away by the explosion... In Queenstown, Ireland, tragic scenes could be observed: women searching for their husbands, mothers calling for their children, old women wandering around, their still wet hair hanging down, young women roaming aimlessly, helplessly, their children clasped to their breasts. 126 dead bodies already lay in a heap; among them women, men and children of all ages. Two little toddlers clung to each other in death, in a tight embrace. It was a heart-rending, unforgettable picture.’ There you are.
OPTIMIST: But what about in Berlin?
BEGRUDGER: Ah, in Berlin? Well, in a music hall there, a day after the catastrophe, they were showing a film about it all. The programme read: ‘The Sinking of the Lusitania! Realisitc Scenes! Smoking is allowed during this part of the show!’.
OPTIMIST: Certainly that is a little tasteless.
BEGRUDGER: No, I’d say it’s got style.
OPTIMIST: But I still can’t view the Lusitania business sentimentally.
BEGRUDGER: Me neither, just criminally.
OPTIMIST: People were warned.
BEGRUDGER: To warn of the danger was to threaten a crime; the murder was preceded by blackmail. Surely no blackmailer can look for exoneration because he had threatened to commit a crime that he then carried out. If I threaten you with death in the event that you refuse to do or not do something, that’s not a mitigating factor; I’m blackmailing you, not warning you; and afterwards I’m a murderer not an executioner. So, smoking allowed. And may our dear fatherland not fret itself, thinking of all those dead children!
OPTIMIST: The submarine had no choice but to -
BEGRUDGER: - take the place of the iceberg that two years earlier drove itself into the Titanic, like the wrath of God into some aberrant, overweening, technological excess, to teach mankind fear instead of awe. But now technology acts as its own tribunal; and all that’s all right. Before, we said that God was responsible for the deed. By the way, the name of the hero commanding this submarine is classified; the official report gives history no name. The enemy claims the man has received a decoration; the Wolff Bureau calls this a lie. And with an indignation so full of self-indulgent claptrap and holier-than-thou phraseology that it only serves to expose the complete truth of the accusation.
OPTIMIST: He probably has no claim to a decoration, no -
BEGRUDGER: Why ever not? The deed is exalted. That’s not kept secret.
OPTIMIST: The deed was not noble, of course, simply expedient. The Lusitania had weapons on board, weapons destined to kill German soldiers.
BEGRUDGER: And if there were weapons, we already know they were very likely German weapons as it happens, weapons made by German industries in America to kill Germans here. If war is not always exalted, at least it's always and always business!
One hundred years ago.
Karl Kraus writes about the sinking of the Lusitania, by a U-boat, on 7 May 1915, several times in the course of Die Letzten Tage der Menschheit, usually with words in the mouth of the Begrudger, in argument with the Optimist (who always tries to offer at least some justification for the event, while accepting that it is indeed 'unfortunate'). One thing the Begrudger talks about repeatedly, in connection to indignation in Germany and Austria about the possibility of weapons crossing the Atlantic from the USA on passenger liners, to help the Allies, is clear evidence that German companies in America, run by Americans of German origin who supported Germany, companies with considerable numbers of German investors (including state organisations), companies paying dividends to German shareholders even as war proceeded, were producing arms and munitions for Allied contracts. The only people at all indignant about this were actually Americans, mostly just a few socialists, who were unhappy with the whole arms industry. In Berlin it seemed, newspapers that railed against the possible transport of crates of rifles on a ship had no interest in the German money that was not only funding weapons manufacture for the Allies already, but would be used to ramp it up phenomenally when the USA finally came into the war on the Allied side - in response, in part at least, to the sinking of the Lusitania. But then business, as Kraus points out, is business.
'There's no business like war business, like no business I know!'
Begrudger and Optimist discuss the Lusitania, as they walk Vienna's streets:
OPTIMIST: When it comes to politics I say: success breeds success. That’s why the sinking of the Lusitania continues to make such a great impression.
BEGRUDGER: It’s certainly achieved that. Throughout the whole world, insofar as the world is still capable of any revulsion at all. And in Berlin too.
OPTIMIST: In Berlin?
BEGRUDGER: Well, we do need some evidence to back that up. (He reads aloud.) ‘At the moment the ship went under, hundreds of people leapt into the sea. Most were pulled down into the maelstrom. Many clutched desperately at pieces of timber torn away by the explosion... In Queenstown, Ireland, tragic scenes could be observed: women searching for their husbands, mothers calling for their children, old women wandering around, their still wet hair hanging down, young women roaming aimlessly, helplessly, their children clasped to their breasts. 126 dead bodies already lay in a heap; among them women, men and children of all ages. Two little toddlers clung to each other in death, in a tight embrace. It was a heart-rending, unforgettable picture.’ There you are.
OPTIMIST: But what about in Berlin?
BEGRUDGER: Ah, in Berlin? Well, in a music hall there, a day after the catastrophe, they were showing a film about it all. The programme read: ‘The Sinking of the Lusitania! Realisitc Scenes! Smoking is allowed during this part of the show!’.
OPTIMIST: Certainly that is a little tasteless.
BEGRUDGER: No, I’d say it’s got style.
OPTIMIST: But I still can’t view the Lusitania business sentimentally.
BEGRUDGER: Me neither, just criminally.
OPTIMIST: People were warned.
BEGRUDGER: To warn of the danger was to threaten a crime; the murder was preceded by blackmail. Surely no blackmailer can look for exoneration because he had threatened to commit a crime that he then carried out. If I threaten you with death in the event that you refuse to do or not do something, that’s not a mitigating factor; I’m blackmailing you, not warning you; and afterwards I’m a murderer not an executioner. So, smoking allowed. And may our dear fatherland not fret itself, thinking of all those dead children!
OPTIMIST: The submarine had no choice but to -
BEGRUDGER: - take the place of the iceberg that two years earlier drove itself into the Titanic, like the wrath of God into some aberrant, overweening, technological excess, to teach mankind fear instead of awe. But now technology acts as its own tribunal; and all that’s all right. Before, we said that God was responsible for the deed. By the way, the name of the hero commanding this submarine is classified; the official report gives history no name. The enemy claims the man has received a decoration; the Wolff Bureau calls this a lie. And with an indignation so full of self-indulgent claptrap and holier-than-thou phraseology that it only serves to expose the complete truth of the accusation.
OPTIMIST: He probably has no claim to a decoration, no -
BEGRUDGER: Why ever not? The deed is exalted. That’s not kept secret.
OPTIMIST: The deed was not noble, of course, simply expedient. The Lusitania had weapons on board, weapons destined to kill German soldiers.
BEGRUDGER: And if there were weapons, we already know they were very likely German weapons as it happens, weapons made by German industries in America to kill Germans here. If war is not always exalted, at least it's always and always business!
ZUM EWIGEN FRIEDEN - FOR ETERNAL PEACE
Here is a remarkable piece of film from the early 1930's, in which Karl Kraus reads four pieces of his work. I have linked to this YouTube video before, but only in the shortened version, which has Kraus reading 'Die Raben', 'The Ravens'. This is the full film. Here Kraus reads 'Zum ewigen Frieden', 'For Eternal Peace', a meditation on words of Immanuel Kant that celebrate the selfless desire to work for peace in the face of all the evils mankind inflicts upon itself, in the full knowledge that the fruits of that work, if they ever come to pass, will do so long after the grave has taken those who have laboured in that seeminly ill-omened and fruitless vinyard. This is followed by 'Die Raben', a translation of which can be found further below. The third piece is 'Reklamenfahrten zur Hölle', which me might translate as 'Advertising Holidays in Hell'. Kraus reads advertising material for battlefield tours to the 'great scenes' of the Great War. It is 1921 and the wastelands of trenches and mud are still visible on a massive scale across Europe; farmers attempting to reclaim their devastated fields are, inevitably, ploughing up human remains on an almost daily basis. The dead in their millions are hardly cold in the ground. What Kraus reads invokes the great sacrifices made in passing, barely, cynically, tritely, before the details of itineraries, highllights, hotels, travel arrangements, the great advantages and pleasures of first class seats and tickets, etc., are expounded with an extraordinary gusto. This is some holiday! It is as grotesque and shameful as Kraus's reading makes it. I have not translated this yet, but will do so. You know what it's about; for now Kraus's voice is more than enough! The poem that starts the film, 'Zum ewigen Frieden', and the one that ends it, 'Weg Damit', 'Get Shot of It!', are translated below. 'Weg Damit' is about the way in which a new 'establishment' (still in part the old one of 'media', in modern terms, politics and money, now further corrupted by those who rose to power by 'virtue' of the war itself) has already corrupted the values of freedom, honesty and equity that the demise of the empire was meant to usher in. What has been created - is a republic of cardsharks.
This link will take you to the YouTube film. Or click on the picture of Kraus above.
FOR ETERNAL PEACE
‘In sombre contemplation, not so much of the evils that afflict mankind by force of nature, but much more of the ills human beings inflict upon each other, there is solace in the prospect that things really could be better in the future; and with selfless benevolence it might indeed be so, though we be long in the grave by then and can never reap the fruits we may, in part, have sown ourselves...’ Immanuel Kant
Don’t abandon these words, overcome by grief,
Hold fast to Immanuel Kant’s belief.
God knows, no heavenly balm has scope
To transcend this epitaph’s sacred hope;
The grave proclaims a proud goodnight:
‘Oh, where I am dark, let there be light’
For all creation, that suffers Mankind,
The Immortal dies, by faith defined.
Day’s dark valediction lights the door,
That the sun may shine for you once more.
At the gates of hell, now and forever,
‘For Eternal Peace’ is his one endeavour.
He speaks the words, and the world is made whole,
By a truth that opens out God’s soul.
It is written: trust what faith has willed
And salvation’s promise shall be fulfilled.
From disaster deliver us, O Spirit humane;
Show us the way back to ourselves again!
Here is humanity! A shepherd indeed!
Woe to him who meets hope but will not accede!
Woe to a world German-madness-seduced
That denies the last German wonder produced!
When a dwarf reached up to the stars in the skies,
His realm tiny Königsberg, revelation his prize.
A subject of the Universe only, his stride
Dwarfs every king’s ramparts, delusions, pride.
His words mock the sword, mock power, might;
They ransom us all from never-ending night.
The dawn of his heart’s holy morning still can
Purge our blood-shame; that man kills man.
On a world in flames let these words be burnt:
‘For Eternal Peace’ by Immanuel Kant.
GET SHOT OF IT
The good that was achieved you have defiled,
Near-conquered evil again has you beguiled,
You have made the joy of freedom all-reviled.
When hunger hit bellies disposed to gorge and scoff,
He rose with a greed that could not be shut off,
He made way for no others at the trough.
A prebendary of progress, he abandoned the heart;
Now a worldwind fills limp sails, things fall apart;
Civil strife's poison intoxicates the upstart
Whose ally is mere profit, life’s eternal enemy;
The foe of a freedom that once was truly free,
That once possessed untarnished purity.
The path I tread is no skulking zigzag way,
What pricks me is no tricktrack game I play:
But he is the political cardshark, it is his day!
Here is a remarkable piece of film from the early 1930's, in which Karl Kraus reads four pieces of his work. I have linked to this YouTube video before, but only in the shortened version, which has Kraus reading 'Die Raben', 'The Ravens'. This is the full film. Here Kraus reads 'Zum ewigen Frieden', 'For Eternal Peace', a meditation on words of Immanuel Kant that celebrate the selfless desire to work for peace in the face of all the evils mankind inflicts upon itself, in the full knowledge that the fruits of that work, if they ever come to pass, will do so long after the grave has taken those who have laboured in that seeminly ill-omened and fruitless vinyard. This is followed by 'Die Raben', a translation of which can be found further below. The third piece is 'Reklamenfahrten zur Hölle', which me might translate as 'Advertising Holidays in Hell'. Kraus reads advertising material for battlefield tours to the 'great scenes' of the Great War. It is 1921 and the wastelands of trenches and mud are still visible on a massive scale across Europe; farmers attempting to reclaim their devastated fields are, inevitably, ploughing up human remains on an almost daily basis. The dead in their millions are hardly cold in the ground. What Kraus reads invokes the great sacrifices made in passing, barely, cynically, tritely, before the details of itineraries, highllights, hotels, travel arrangements, the great advantages and pleasures of first class seats and tickets, etc., are expounded with an extraordinary gusto. This is some holiday! It is as grotesque and shameful as Kraus's reading makes it. I have not translated this yet, but will do so. You know what it's about; for now Kraus's voice is more than enough! The poem that starts the film, 'Zum ewigen Frieden', and the one that ends it, 'Weg Damit', 'Get Shot of It!', are translated below. 'Weg Damit' is about the way in which a new 'establishment' (still in part the old one of 'media', in modern terms, politics and money, now further corrupted by those who rose to power by 'virtue' of the war itself) has already corrupted the values of freedom, honesty and equity that the demise of the empire was meant to usher in. What has been created - is a republic of cardsharks.
This link will take you to the YouTube film. Or click on the picture of Kraus above.
FOR ETERNAL PEACE
‘In sombre contemplation, not so much of the evils that afflict mankind by force of nature, but much more of the ills human beings inflict upon each other, there is solace in the prospect that things really could be better in the future; and with selfless benevolence it might indeed be so, though we be long in the grave by then and can never reap the fruits we may, in part, have sown ourselves...’ Immanuel Kant
Don’t abandon these words, overcome by grief,
Hold fast to Immanuel Kant’s belief.
God knows, no heavenly balm has scope
To transcend this epitaph’s sacred hope;
The grave proclaims a proud goodnight:
‘Oh, where I am dark, let there be light’
For all creation, that suffers Mankind,
The Immortal dies, by faith defined.
Day’s dark valediction lights the door,
That the sun may shine for you once more.
At the gates of hell, now and forever,
‘For Eternal Peace’ is his one endeavour.
He speaks the words, and the world is made whole,
By a truth that opens out God’s soul.
It is written: trust what faith has willed
And salvation’s promise shall be fulfilled.
From disaster deliver us, O Spirit humane;
Show us the way back to ourselves again!
Here is humanity! A shepherd indeed!
Woe to him who meets hope but will not accede!
Woe to a world German-madness-seduced
That denies the last German wonder produced!
When a dwarf reached up to the stars in the skies,
His realm tiny Königsberg, revelation his prize.
A subject of the Universe only, his stride
Dwarfs every king’s ramparts, delusions, pride.
His words mock the sword, mock power, might;
They ransom us all from never-ending night.
The dawn of his heart’s holy morning still can
Purge our blood-shame; that man kills man.
On a world in flames let these words be burnt:
‘For Eternal Peace’ by Immanuel Kant.
GET SHOT OF IT
The good that was achieved you have defiled,
Near-conquered evil again has you beguiled,
You have made the joy of freedom all-reviled.
When hunger hit bellies disposed to gorge and scoff,
He rose with a greed that could not be shut off,
He made way for no others at the trough.
A prebendary of progress, he abandoned the heart;
Now a worldwind fills limp sails, things fall apart;
Civil strife's poison intoxicates the upstart
Whose ally is mere profit, life’s eternal enemy;
The foe of a freedom that once was truly free,
That once possessed untarnished purity.
The path I tread is no skulking zigzag way,
What pricks me is no tricktrack game I play:
But he is the political cardshark, it is his day!
THOMAS HARDY'S 'DARKLING THRUSH' - ANOTHER ASIDE
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
Thomas Hardy and Karl Kraus don't immediately suggest themselves as 'like minds', but they do make a kind of 'odd couple' at times. They certainly both, in different ways, saw western civilisation on the 'Eve of Destruction' in the early part of the twentieth century and in the First World War. They both raged at times too, Hardy fairly quietly, Kraus very loudly. Where Hardy saw an indifferent, uncomprehending universe, in which human endeavour and human achievement were barely distinguishable from human failure and human stupidity (and what did it matter), Kraus paid humanity at least the compliment of believing it had a leading role to play in its own destruction. In reflecting on Hardy's poem 'The Darkling Thrush' as this new year gathers pace, the parallels shouldn't be overstated. What matters... is that they matter... now as then... For a few words on Hardy's poem (and, only in passing, on Karl Kraus), go to the blog.
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
Thomas Hardy and Karl Kraus don't immediately suggest themselves as 'like minds', but they do make a kind of 'odd couple' at times. They certainly both, in different ways, saw western civilisation on the 'Eve of Destruction' in the early part of the twentieth century and in the First World War. They both raged at times too, Hardy fairly quietly, Kraus very loudly. Where Hardy saw an indifferent, uncomprehending universe, in which human endeavour and human achievement were barely distinguishable from human failure and human stupidity (and what did it matter), Kraus paid humanity at least the compliment of believing it had a leading role to play in its own destruction. In reflecting on Hardy's poem 'The Darkling Thrush' as this new year gathers pace, the parallels shouldn't be overstated. What matters... is that they matter... now as then... For a few words on Hardy's poem (and, only in passing, on Karl Kraus), go to the blog.
I AM CHARLIE, IS MISE CHARLIE, JE SUIS CHARLIE
The current state of the planet is not usually a concern on this website, not because the current state of the planet shouldn't be a concern to all of us, but simply because that isn't what it is here for. However, yesterday's events in Paris are impossible to ignore for a site that seeks in some way to represent the work of one of the greatest of all satirists. Working with Karl Kraus cannot but make me feel close to the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' in a way that I would not otherwise have done, despite the shock and disgust I would feel along with millions of others worldwide. Kraus makes it personal.
Karl Kraus, in 'The Last Days of Mankind', wrote:
'Lord forgive them for they do know what they do.'
Had he not died in 1936, the Nazis would have killed him when they entered Vienna in 1938. They did throw every one of the thousands of books from his library into the street and publicly burn them. And Karl Kraus would have been thrown from the same window too. His friend Egon Friedell, also a satirist, chose to jump from the window of his apartment into the street and kill himself - when the Nazis came for him that day.
Argument, scepticism, contraryism, the refusal to think what you are told to think, the belief that ideas and ideologies can and must be called to account, that every idea and every ideology should be challenged, that there is no right not to be criticised or disagreed with in a free society, that the right to say 'you're wrong' is available to all of us, and must be, always, everywhere; that satire, lampooning, puncturing the unpuncturable, even when we don't much like it, even when it's about us... all that is all that stands between us and the concentration camps and the cellars of the secret police... all of it matters hugely, because the moment we deny it, we have lost every freedom, every hope; we have lost our future, and we have sold our present. We have also abandoned our history utterly. In Paris yesterday people were murdered for that, all of it. You don't like some of what they did? When the secret police come for you one morning, try pointing that out. After all you helped to put them in charge of us all!
I don't doubt that it is a very natural preoccupation with the First World War here that brings Laurence Binyon's words into my head, but they are the words I hear now...
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
But will we remember? And if we do will it be in a way that really honours the dead?
The truth is that memories are short, short anyway, and shorter than they were when it comes to the expression of ideas that are awkward and impolite and downright contrary and bloody-minded, ideas that, like so many of Karl Kraus's, are offensive to somebody, somewhere, anywhere. Already in newspapers and on television the idea that in some way the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' were themselves responsible for what happened to them is creeping through the wailing and gnashing of teeth. On MSNBC a man called Evan Kohlman tells us that while 'There has to be a way of being critical of other ideas and whatnot... you can't go poking people in the eye and not showing proper respect'. Why? If you care about Kraus, think what he would have said to that! In the Financial Times a man called Tony Barber believes that 'It is not to condone the murderers, who must be caught and punished, or to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion... to say that common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they only provoke…' Here in Ireland, at Trinity College, Jonathan Swift's college, a man called Dr Ali Selim condemns the killings at 'Charlie Hebdo' but says the publication of offensive cartoons, and all 'mockery', is a criminal offence; but he is 'An advocate of freedom of expression that does not give room for confrontation'. Swift's response to that would have been interesting - and pretty loud!
Karl Kraus believed no satirist worth his salt could fail to be offensive to somebody, lots of people, preferably to everybody. And in the case of 'Charlie Hebdo' 'everybody' was inclusive; they were (and hopefully really will remain) an 'equal opportunities' mocker. It is disgraceful, and itself a grim 'mockery' of the truth, that the magazine is presented as 'racist' and 'right-wing'; its satire is directed at every political position, every ideology, every entrenched viewpoint, But what does the truth matter when the awkwardness of people who won't toe the the line needs to be shut down? Less than twenty-four hours after the deaths of the 'Charlie Hebdo' satirists, and police officers who gave their lives to try to protect them, we have started to argue away the idea that all their awkwardness was worth anything. As time goes on we will start to conclude that at best it was not 'sensible', as the Financial Times has it; at worst these were a bunch of 'racist' troublemakers. Listen and we'll hear ourselves, and ours friends, somewhere in between those two positions, regetting the tragedy, but even so...
Such conclusions, full of sadness and knowing regret, will be the standard position of the political and intellectual and media establishment very soon. It would doubtless cause great reptilian offence to refer to many of the buckets of tears that will be shed now in terms of crocodiles, and in this case perhaps the crocodiles would have a point. One of the most egregious examples of the sadly-their-offensiveness-brought-it-on- them-even-though-it-is-totally-unacceptable-that-it-did approach is a Guardian cartoon (of all things a cartoon!) by a man called Andrew Marlton, which laments not the deaths of the journalists and cartoonists in Paris, but the fact that their deaths are being seen as an attack on free speech! Having asserted that any depiction of Mohammed is, by definition, 'racist' (a peculiar non-sequitur, surely, even if you find the depiction profoundly offensive, unless blasphemy is a species of racism) he says this: 'Racist cartoons are now a beacon of free speech... we are in a terrible place'. We are indeed. There may be a circle of hell reserved for the purveyors of such grotesque and malicious bullshit, but I think it's probably unnecessary to wish for Mr Marlton's consignment to it; I suspect that somewhere in the depths of his self-satisfied ignorance, he already inhabits it. Offence, offence of substance that is, is part of the satirist's job, a very large part of it, as Karl Kraus insisted relentlessly. Jonathan Swift clearly thought so, so did Juvenal, so did Aristophanes, and anyone worth hearing.
But when the tears for the slaughter at 'Charlie Hebdo' are done, and the indignant squawks about the precious thing that 'free speech' is have been more and more watered down by considerations of politeness and inoffensiveness and, let's be blunt, fear (mixed with a big spoonful of political expediency), the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' will have died for what they believed was precious and our society finds increasingly awkward and unpleasant. They stood alone in truth, and their surviving colleagues, in a week, a month, a year, will also stand alone. Why wont they just shut their mouths!
The current state of the planet is not usually a concern on this website, not because the current state of the planet shouldn't be a concern to all of us, but simply because that isn't what it is here for. However, yesterday's events in Paris are impossible to ignore for a site that seeks in some way to represent the work of one of the greatest of all satirists. Working with Karl Kraus cannot but make me feel close to the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' in a way that I would not otherwise have done, despite the shock and disgust I would feel along with millions of others worldwide. Kraus makes it personal.
Karl Kraus, in 'The Last Days of Mankind', wrote:
'Lord forgive them for they do know what they do.'
Had he not died in 1936, the Nazis would have killed him when they entered Vienna in 1938. They did throw every one of the thousands of books from his library into the street and publicly burn them. And Karl Kraus would have been thrown from the same window too. His friend Egon Friedell, also a satirist, chose to jump from the window of his apartment into the street and kill himself - when the Nazis came for him that day.
Argument, scepticism, contraryism, the refusal to think what you are told to think, the belief that ideas and ideologies can and must be called to account, that every idea and every ideology should be challenged, that there is no right not to be criticised or disagreed with in a free society, that the right to say 'you're wrong' is available to all of us, and must be, always, everywhere; that satire, lampooning, puncturing the unpuncturable, even when we don't much like it, even when it's about us... all that is all that stands between us and the concentration camps and the cellars of the secret police... all of it matters hugely, because the moment we deny it, we have lost every freedom, every hope; we have lost our future, and we have sold our present. We have also abandoned our history utterly. In Paris yesterday people were murdered for that, all of it. You don't like some of what they did? When the secret police come for you one morning, try pointing that out. After all you helped to put them in charge of us all!
I don't doubt that it is a very natural preoccupation with the First World War here that brings Laurence Binyon's words into my head, but they are the words I hear now...
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
But will we remember? And if we do will it be in a way that really honours the dead?
The truth is that memories are short, short anyway, and shorter than they were when it comes to the expression of ideas that are awkward and impolite and downright contrary and bloody-minded, ideas that, like so many of Karl Kraus's, are offensive to somebody, somewhere, anywhere. Already in newspapers and on television the idea that in some way the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' were themselves responsible for what happened to them is creeping through the wailing and gnashing of teeth. On MSNBC a man called Evan Kohlman tells us that while 'There has to be a way of being critical of other ideas and whatnot... you can't go poking people in the eye and not showing proper respect'. Why? If you care about Kraus, think what he would have said to that! In the Financial Times a man called Tony Barber believes that 'It is not to condone the murderers, who must be caught and punished, or to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion... to say that common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they only provoke…' Here in Ireland, at Trinity College, Jonathan Swift's college, a man called Dr Ali Selim condemns the killings at 'Charlie Hebdo' but says the publication of offensive cartoons, and all 'mockery', is a criminal offence; but he is 'An advocate of freedom of expression that does not give room for confrontation'. Swift's response to that would have been interesting - and pretty loud!
Karl Kraus believed no satirist worth his salt could fail to be offensive to somebody, lots of people, preferably to everybody. And in the case of 'Charlie Hebdo' 'everybody' was inclusive; they were (and hopefully really will remain) an 'equal opportunities' mocker. It is disgraceful, and itself a grim 'mockery' of the truth, that the magazine is presented as 'racist' and 'right-wing'; its satire is directed at every political position, every ideology, every entrenched viewpoint, But what does the truth matter when the awkwardness of people who won't toe the the line needs to be shut down? Less than twenty-four hours after the deaths of the 'Charlie Hebdo' satirists, and police officers who gave their lives to try to protect them, we have started to argue away the idea that all their awkwardness was worth anything. As time goes on we will start to conclude that at best it was not 'sensible', as the Financial Times has it; at worst these were a bunch of 'racist' troublemakers. Listen and we'll hear ourselves, and ours friends, somewhere in between those two positions, regetting the tragedy, but even so...
Such conclusions, full of sadness and knowing regret, will be the standard position of the political and intellectual and media establishment very soon. It would doubtless cause great reptilian offence to refer to many of the buckets of tears that will be shed now in terms of crocodiles, and in this case perhaps the crocodiles would have a point. One of the most egregious examples of the sadly-their-offensiveness-brought-it-on- them-even-though-it-is-totally-unacceptable-that-it-did approach is a Guardian cartoon (of all things a cartoon!) by a man called Andrew Marlton, which laments not the deaths of the journalists and cartoonists in Paris, but the fact that their deaths are being seen as an attack on free speech! Having asserted that any depiction of Mohammed is, by definition, 'racist' (a peculiar non-sequitur, surely, even if you find the depiction profoundly offensive, unless blasphemy is a species of racism) he says this: 'Racist cartoons are now a beacon of free speech... we are in a terrible place'. We are indeed. There may be a circle of hell reserved for the purveyors of such grotesque and malicious bullshit, but I think it's probably unnecessary to wish for Mr Marlton's consignment to it; I suspect that somewhere in the depths of his self-satisfied ignorance, he already inhabits it. Offence, offence of substance that is, is part of the satirist's job, a very large part of it, as Karl Kraus insisted relentlessly. Jonathan Swift clearly thought so, so did Juvenal, so did Aristophanes, and anyone worth hearing.
But when the tears for the slaughter at 'Charlie Hebdo' are done, and the indignant squawks about the precious thing that 'free speech' is have been more and more watered down by considerations of politeness and inoffensiveness and, let's be blunt, fear (mixed with a big spoonful of political expediency), the satirists at 'Charlie Hebdo' will have died for what they believed was precious and our society finds increasingly awkward and unpleasant. They stood alone in truth, and their surviving colleagues, in a week, a month, a year, will also stand alone. Why wont they just shut their mouths!
'THE LAST NIGHT' A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR
Last week the TLS published its books-of-the-year edition. I am delighted that the American academic Marjorie Perloff has chosen my translation of the Epilogue of Karl Kraus's extraordinary satirical play about the First World War as her choice for book of the year. The Epilogue is, of course, a self-contained verse drama that captures all the passion, violence and humour of Kraus's work at its most intense. Kraus remains little known in English, but it's getting out there! Thanks to Marjorie Perloff and the TLS.
From the TLS:
'Russell's translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind's' Eoilogue, 'The Last Night', a kind of Walpurgisnacht... works brilliantly. Kraus's prophetic exposé of the world of media speak may finally convince English-speaking readers of what they have been missing...'
Available on Kindle and in paperback, as ever, on Amazon: UK here - US here.
Last week the TLS published its books-of-the-year edition. I am delighted that the American academic Marjorie Perloff has chosen my translation of the Epilogue of Karl Kraus's extraordinary satirical play about the First World War as her choice for book of the year. The Epilogue is, of course, a self-contained verse drama that captures all the passion, violence and humour of Kraus's work at its most intense. Kraus remains little known in English, but it's getting out there! Thanks to Marjorie Perloff and the TLS.
From the TLS:
'Russell's translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind's' Eoilogue, 'The Last Night', a kind of Walpurgisnacht... works brilliantly. Kraus's prophetic exposé of the world of media speak may finally convince English-speaking readers of what they have been missing...'
Available on Kindle and in paperback, as ever, on Amazon: UK here - US here.
THE RAVENS - DIE RABEN
Click on the picture below to hear Karl Kraus (almost) live!
Click on the picture below to hear Karl Kraus (almost) live!
DIE RABEN - THE RAVENS
This is a translation of the poem, the Ravens, that appears towards the end of Act V of 'The Last Days of Mankind'. The remarkable recording of Karl Kraus reading (hardly the right word!) the poem some time between 1930 and 1934, is a precious thing. Listen to it. The poem starts after a short stage setting intro. And how the ravens sing!
We have always feasted on the lives
Of those who've died for honour’s sake;
While human copulation thrives
No ravens' bellies need ever ache.
We didn't ask for this great surfeit, true,
But we’re dying to gather the harvest in;
No one should starve, not us, not you -
To waste this wastage - oh, what a sin!
We can croak of victories, one and all,
While the sacrificial pyre grows,
And a nation of fools will follow our call
As we lead them deathward by the nose.
At home generals, raven-like, rasp and caw
Their platitudes in chic salons;
The unburied fill death’s open maw,
And real ravens draw the living on!
And while you're crowding round the trough
Of war, should we go short? Like hell!
There's no dearth to hack these ravens off;
We just follow your armies - by the smell.
Hunger’s a thing we don't do any more;
The shame of starvation would practically kill us!
We’re so pleased you’re our allies, our partners in war;
We're filled as the home front never could fill us.
Well, at home there’s true suffering, privation, want;
The oldest, the youngest, all perish and die;
But death is quite different here at the front,
Where men die to feed us and food is piled high.
Your slaughterhouse factories never let starve
The clients and customers, waiting to feed.
The ravens that flocked here (at first for hors d’oeuvres)
Are now bloated with flesh; we will never know need!
This is a translation of the poem, the Ravens, that appears towards the end of Act V of 'The Last Days of Mankind'. The remarkable recording of Karl Kraus reading (hardly the right word!) the poem some time between 1930 and 1934, is a precious thing. Listen to it. The poem starts after a short stage setting intro. And how the ravens sing!
We have always feasted on the lives
Of those who've died for honour’s sake;
While human copulation thrives
No ravens' bellies need ever ache.
We didn't ask for this great surfeit, true,
But we’re dying to gather the harvest in;
No one should starve, not us, not you -
To waste this wastage - oh, what a sin!
We can croak of victories, one and all,
While the sacrificial pyre grows,
And a nation of fools will follow our call
As we lead them deathward by the nose.
At home generals, raven-like, rasp and caw
Their platitudes in chic salons;
The unburied fill death’s open maw,
And real ravens draw the living on!
And while you're crowding round the trough
Of war, should we go short? Like hell!
There's no dearth to hack these ravens off;
We just follow your armies - by the smell.
Hunger’s a thing we don't do any more;
The shame of starvation would practically kill us!
We’re so pleased you’re our allies, our partners in war;
We're filled as the home front never could fill us.
Well, at home there’s true suffering, privation, want;
The oldest, the youngest, all perish and die;
But death is quite different here at the front,
Where men die to feed us and food is piled high.
Your slaughterhouse factories never let starve
The clients and customers, waiting to feed.
The ravens that flocked here (at first for hors d’oeuvres)
Are now bloated with flesh; we will never know need!
THE LAST NIGHT - NOW AVAILABLE AS A BOOK
The first part of my full translation of Karl Kraus's 'The Last Days of Mankind', the verse Epilogue that Kraus calls 'The Last Night', Die letzte Nacht, has now been published as a book - it is already available as an ebook on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at Barnes and Noble... It is available on Amazon.com.
Also now on Amazon.co.uk , where Books etc and others have it.
'Until now, there has never been a full, accurate English translation of the epilogue to The Last Days of Mankind, Austrian playwright Karl Kraus’s early twentieth-century satirical play about the First World War. Yet the play’s importance and influence is widely acknowledged and celebrated in Europe, for its uncompromising examination of human folly in the face of war and as a unique act of creativity and imagination, opening drama up to new challenges, techniques, and possibilities. This translation of the play’s verse epilogue, The Last Night, is a standalone work, in many ways a distillation of all the material preceding it. A general flees the battlefield, representing all generals and military leaders. War correspondents trying to interview and photograph a dying man represent all war correspondents. Everything that took place in the main work reappears in this epilogue’s verse in a rich, compelling summation.
The book also has acquired its first 5* Amazon Review:
'It beggars belief that Karl Kraus' monstrous masterpiece, The Last Days of Mankind, has had to wait almost a century for a full English translation. As Michael Russell, the brave man who has finally taken on the task, points out in his introduction, Kraus is both a great European writer and a member of the still more exclusive club of great satirists; and his insights into the poisonous relationship between war and the media are as depressingly relevant today as they were during the Great War. The Last Night is the epilogue and summing-up of The Last Days of Mankind, and its extraordinary imagery of gas-masks, hyenas and the mass-media Antichrist has lost none of its potency. Russell's translation, like the original, is in rhymed verse and reads very well; explanatory notes are useful without being obtrusive. On this evidence, Russell's forthcoming translation of the complete play should be a worthy commemoration of the genius of Kraus, and the horror of the Great War and all the wars to come.'
The first part of my full translation of Karl Kraus's 'The Last Days of Mankind', the verse Epilogue that Kraus calls 'The Last Night', Die letzte Nacht, has now been published as a book - it is already available as an ebook on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at Barnes and Noble... It is available on Amazon.com.
Also now on Amazon.co.uk , where Books etc and others have it.
'Until now, there has never been a full, accurate English translation of the epilogue to The Last Days of Mankind, Austrian playwright Karl Kraus’s early twentieth-century satirical play about the First World War. Yet the play’s importance and influence is widely acknowledged and celebrated in Europe, for its uncompromising examination of human folly in the face of war and as a unique act of creativity and imagination, opening drama up to new challenges, techniques, and possibilities. This translation of the play’s verse epilogue, The Last Night, is a standalone work, in many ways a distillation of all the material preceding it. A general flees the battlefield, representing all generals and military leaders. War correspondents trying to interview and photograph a dying man represent all war correspondents. Everything that took place in the main work reappears in this epilogue’s verse in a rich, compelling summation.
The book also has acquired its first 5* Amazon Review:
'It beggars belief that Karl Kraus' monstrous masterpiece, The Last Days of Mankind, has had to wait almost a century for a full English translation. As Michael Russell, the brave man who has finally taken on the task, points out in his introduction, Kraus is both a great European writer and a member of the still more exclusive club of great satirists; and his insights into the poisonous relationship between war and the media are as depressingly relevant today as they were during the Great War. The Last Night is the epilogue and summing-up of The Last Days of Mankind, and its extraordinary imagery of gas-masks, hyenas and the mass-media Antichrist has lost none of its potency. Russell's translation, like the original, is in rhymed verse and reads very well; explanatory notes are useful without being obtrusive. On this evidence, Russell's forthcoming translation of the complete play should be a worthy commemoration of the genius of Kraus, and the horror of the Great War and all the wars to come.'
CONGRATULATIONS AND IN TRANSLATION
Hearty congratulations to Catriona Kerridge for winning Time Zone Theatre Company's Karl Kraus 1914-2014 Centenary Playwriting Competition, with her play 'Shoot, I Didn't Mean That', which will be performed, alongside a new production of Kraus's epilogue to 'The Last Days of Mankind', 'The Last Night', at London's Tristan Bates theatre in September. An event to be looked forward to! Details here.
Meanwhile the print edition of my translation of 'The Last Night' will be pubished very shortly, before the end of July. I know people are waiting for this, especially those who, like me, are not as enthusiastic about ebooks as the 21st Century ought to make us! Particularly with regard to verse texts. The 'real book' version is really a second edition, with some changes and (hopefully) improvements, and more notes; 'more notes' has been what many readers have asked for. Publication of Part I of the translation of the full play (Prologue, Acts I,II,III) is still on course and I will have a clearer idea of dates later in the year. But here is a new taster (sans notes just now).
The song sung by the German industrialist Wahnschaffe towards the end of Act III:
WAHNSCHAFFE:
Whether far beneath waves, or high in the sky,
It’s only the arseholes who won’t fight and die.
Now, I’m used to graft, I can graft like hell,
But why bust my arse at the front as well?
I can duck and dive with grace and dash
On the home front here where graft is cash.
And so I graft from dawn till late,
That’s what all the begrudgers hate.
Hit hard Germany! It’s our hullabaloo!
I was war’s servant before there was a war;
Now peace is over it’s my time to score.
I’ll work and slave (in degree to the nth)
Because war alone is my source of strength.
Before any conflict I was keen to enlist,
Now the battlefront’s paying me hand over fist.
You’re on the pig’s back when you get your guerdon
As heavy industry’s beast of burden.
Krupp Inc is our cry! War is what we do!
See blog for more... Click sidepanel or here
Hearty congratulations to Catriona Kerridge for winning Time Zone Theatre Company's Karl Kraus 1914-2014 Centenary Playwriting Competition, with her play 'Shoot, I Didn't Mean That', which will be performed, alongside a new production of Kraus's epilogue to 'The Last Days of Mankind', 'The Last Night', at London's Tristan Bates theatre in September. An event to be looked forward to! Details here.
Meanwhile the print edition of my translation of 'The Last Night' will be pubished very shortly, before the end of July. I know people are waiting for this, especially those who, like me, are not as enthusiastic about ebooks as the 21st Century ought to make us! Particularly with regard to verse texts. The 'real book' version is really a second edition, with some changes and (hopefully) improvements, and more notes; 'more notes' has been what many readers have asked for. Publication of Part I of the translation of the full play (Prologue, Acts I,II,III) is still on course and I will have a clearer idea of dates later in the year. But here is a new taster (sans notes just now).
The song sung by the German industrialist Wahnschaffe towards the end of Act III:
WAHNSCHAFFE:
Whether far beneath waves, or high in the sky,
It’s only the arseholes who won’t fight and die.
Now, I’m used to graft, I can graft like hell,
But why bust my arse at the front as well?
I can duck and dive with grace and dash
On the home front here where graft is cash.
And so I graft from dawn till late,
That’s what all the begrudgers hate.
Hit hard Germany! It’s our hullabaloo!
I was war’s servant before there was a war;
Now peace is over it’s my time to score.
I’ll work and slave (in degree to the nth)
Because war alone is my source of strength.
Before any conflict I was keen to enlist,
Now the battlefront’s paying me hand over fist.
You’re on the pig’s back when you get your guerdon
As heavy industry’s beast of burden.
Krupp Inc is our cry! War is what we do!
See blog for more... Click sidepanel or here
Time Zone Theatre, a UK based company that aims to produce a wide range of international drama with appropriately international casts, is going to deliver an intiriguing response to Karl Kraus's 'The Last Days of Mankind', by inviting playwrights to write a play that is just that - in whatever shape or form a response to Kraus, something that takes 'The Last Days of Mankind', or part of it, as a point of departure, or simply as an inspiration for a work of contemporary drama. There will be a prize of £1000 for the winning entry, and a month's production at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London in the autumn. In the absence of translations writers will use this site and, in particular, the now published version of the epilogue, 'The Last Night', which will be a specific area of the play they might want to look at for inspiration. The use of the epilogue, as a powerful and very focussed way into 'The Last Days of Mankind', is a good decision, theatrically, I think.
More details about the Time Zone project ar available here. Surely one of the most imaginative ways to encounter Kraus at the moment! And one that will, hopefully, produce something that, in its realisation, will concentrate as much on difference and distinctiveness as on inspiration.The Time Zone Theatre Company project is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.
Meanwhile 'The Last Night' reached 28 in Amazon's 'Plays and Poetry Chart' this week, not bad! And responses to the publication of this part of 'The Last Days' have been very positive.
'Michael Russell's translation of Kraus... is excellent work... really accurate to the German and sounds great in English at the same time.' (Pamela Schermann, Time Zone Theatre Company)
'This is a translation that we've been needing for a long time.' (Professor Elaine Tennant, University of California, Berkeley)
More details about the Time Zone project ar available here. Surely one of the most imaginative ways to encounter Kraus at the moment! And one that will, hopefully, produce something that, in its realisation, will concentrate as much on difference and distinctiveness as on inspiration.The Time Zone Theatre Company project is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.
Meanwhile 'The Last Night' reached 28 in Amazon's 'Plays and Poetry Chart' this week, not bad! And responses to the publication of this part of 'The Last Days' have been very positive.
'Michael Russell's translation of Kraus... is excellent work... really accurate to the German and sounds great in English at the same time.' (Pamela Schermann, Time Zone Theatre Company)
'This is a translation that we've been needing for a long time.' (Professor Elaine Tennant, University of California, Berkeley)
THE BEGINNING OF PUBLICATION - FORGOTTEN CITIES PRESS
The fully annotated edition of the epilogue to 'The Last Days of Mankind', 'The Last Night', is now available on Amazon Kindle; shortly it will be available in print and on the other ebook platforms. It offers the perfect introduction to the two-part publication of the full play; the first volume of which will appear on 11 November, the anniversary of the end of the First World War, in the year that is the 100th anniversary of its start.
As publication continues I will be reducing the amount of material available online, as elements of the translation and the notes will inevitably change as a final version of the Prologue and the first three acts is prepared. However I will, when available, put up extracts from the last two acts, as and when. The online version will be less detailed now, but will reflect the overall shape of Kraus's work; the online version will be a representative selection from the play rather than a structured reduction of the play.
Translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind' is, hopefully, a significiant event. I am grateful for Marjorie Perloff, at the University of Southern California, for feeling it is:
'I applaud the publication (of Franzen's 'Kraus Project') because it has certainly succeeded in enlarging the discourse about Kraus’s writing, if for no other reason than that the reviews, responses, and letters to the editor have brought new facts to light. The most important of these is that there is a new translation of Last Days of Mankind. In November 2013, the Irish writer Michael Russell responded to the ongoing discussion of The Kraus Project by posting... (extracts) from his translation... on his website... I am happy to report that Russell’s translation is excellent—certainly the best I’ve seen to date. I only wish it had been available when I began my own work on Kraus!' (Marjorie Perloff in 'Critical Inquiry')
Marjorie Perloff's succint, detailed essay on 'The Last days of Mankind', Avant Garde in a Different Key: Karl Kraus's The Last days of Mankind, is the best short introduction to Kraus and the play around. I thoroughly recommend that you read it.
The fully annotated edition of the epilogue to 'The Last Days of Mankind', 'The Last Night', is now available on Amazon Kindle; shortly it will be available in print and on the other ebook platforms. It offers the perfect introduction to the two-part publication of the full play; the first volume of which will appear on 11 November, the anniversary of the end of the First World War, in the year that is the 100th anniversary of its start.
As publication continues I will be reducing the amount of material available online, as elements of the translation and the notes will inevitably change as a final version of the Prologue and the first three acts is prepared. However I will, when available, put up extracts from the last two acts, as and when. The online version will be less detailed now, but will reflect the overall shape of Kraus's work; the online version will be a representative selection from the play rather than a structured reduction of the play.
Translation of 'The Last Days of Mankind' is, hopefully, a significiant event. I am grateful for Marjorie Perloff, at the University of Southern California, for feeling it is:
'I applaud the publication (of Franzen's 'Kraus Project') because it has certainly succeeded in enlarging the discourse about Kraus’s writing, if for no other reason than that the reviews, responses, and letters to the editor have brought new facts to light. The most important of these is that there is a new translation of Last Days of Mankind. In November 2013, the Irish writer Michael Russell responded to the ongoing discussion of The Kraus Project by posting... (extracts) from his translation... on his website... I am happy to report that Russell’s translation is excellent—certainly the best I’ve seen to date. I only wish it had been available when I began my own work on Kraus!' (Marjorie Perloff in 'Critical Inquiry')
Marjorie Perloff's succint, detailed essay on 'The Last days of Mankind', Avant Garde in a Different Key: Karl Kraus's The Last days of Mankind, is the best short introduction to Kraus and the play around. I thoroughly recommend that you read it.
KRAUS AT THE OXFORD PLAYHOUSE 18-22 FEB
A performance of 'The Last Days of Mankind' is rare enough (even in Germany and Austria), but the production at the Oxford Playhouse Burton-Taylor Studio, starting 18 February, is very special indeed. It is an adaptation that does something surprisingly unusual outside the German-speaking world, which is to focus on Kraus's text. Die letzten Tage der Menschheit is in German, produced by the University's ambitious German-language drama company, The Oxford German Play, but it does something else I am sure is unique: there will be surtitles in English. I have provided translations the company will work with to create the surtitles. This is something anybody who is within reach of Oxford should take the opportunity to see - and hear. Not only a genuinely substantial, text-based adaptation of Kraus's writing, but the chance to hear it as it should be heard, and yet to be able to understand it even if you don't speak German. I have described Kraus's play as a 'black operetta'; so surtitles seem a very appropriate solution indeed to making it accessible like this! This is the real thing - and I am not sure the Oxford German Play company realise how unique and extraordinary what they are doing is. If you can find a way to get there - go! Why wait another 100 years! For more details go to The Oxford German Play Facebook Page or the Oxford Playhouse website.
A performance of 'The Last Days of Mankind' is rare enough (even in Germany and Austria), but the production at the Oxford Playhouse Burton-Taylor Studio, starting 18 February, is very special indeed. It is an adaptation that does something surprisingly unusual outside the German-speaking world, which is to focus on Kraus's text. Die letzten Tage der Menschheit is in German, produced by the University's ambitious German-language drama company, The Oxford German Play, but it does something else I am sure is unique: there will be surtitles in English. I have provided translations the company will work with to create the surtitles. This is something anybody who is within reach of Oxford should take the opportunity to see - and hear. Not only a genuinely substantial, text-based adaptation of Kraus's writing, but the chance to hear it as it should be heard, and yet to be able to understand it even if you don't speak German. I have described Kraus's play as a 'black operetta'; so surtitles seem a very appropriate solution indeed to making it accessible like this! This is the real thing - and I am not sure the Oxford German Play company realise how unique and extraordinary what they are doing is. If you can find a way to get there - go! Why wait another 100 years! For more details go to The Oxford German Play Facebook Page or the Oxford Playhouse website.
1914 SAW THE START OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND OF KARL KRAUS'S BITTER, RELENTLESS AND INCOMPARABLE DISSECTION OF ITS PROGRESS. 11 NOVEMBER 2014 WILL SEE THE PUBLICATION OF MY FULL TRANSLATION OF 'THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND - PART ONE' AS AN EBOOK ON AMAZON; THAT IS TO SAY THE PROLOGUE, ACT I, ACT II & ACT III, WITH COMMENTARY (PART TWO, ACTS IV & V, & THE EPILOGUE, WILL BE PUBLISHED IN 2016). ALMOST 100 YEARS ON THIS WILL BE THE FIRST EVER ENGLISH VERSION OF KARL KRAUS'S COMPLETE TEXT OF THE PLAY. THE TRANSLATION WILL BE REVISED FROM THE WORK-IN-PROGRESS VERSION USED TO PROVIDE THE CONDENSED MATERIAL CURRENTLY ON THIS WEBSITE; THE COMMENTARY NOTES WILL BE REVISED AND EXTENDED.
Meanwhile all translated material on this website is copyright, as indicated. I would appreciate it if any short quotes are properly credited on websites and blogs, or in print. If quotes of more than a few lines are wanted, please contact me via one of the links above for permission, as I would do if using anyone else's copyright material.
Meanwhile all translated material on this website is copyright, as indicated. I would appreciate it if any short quotes are properly credited on websites and blogs, or in print. If quotes of more than a few lines are wanted, please contact me via one of the links above for permission, as I would do if using anyone else's copyright material.
1 October: Jonathan Franzen's 'The Kraus Project' is now available as a book and ebook. These translations of some of Kraus's essays, along with the critical commentaries that accompany them, should reassure us that a hundred years on one of the twentieth century's greatest writers is finally being noticed by the English-speaking world!
30 August: The text of Act III of this condensed version of 'The Last Days of Mankind', with notes, is online. This is now the fullest text of Kraus's play in translation.
The text of the condensed version of Acts I,II and III of Karl Kraus's 'The Last Days of Mankind' in English, with footnotes, is now online here and is available to read. This does not replace, or paraphrase, or reinterpret Kraus's German; it merely reduces its length. But even before the complete translation of the play is finished, this shorter version contains more of Kraus's masterpiece, including sections of his distinctive verse, than has previously appeared in English since the publication of the play, almost 100 years ago. So this is already a first. Use the sidebar to navigate to each scene; footnotes are at the end of scenes.
Also on the website, after the shortened version of Acts I,II, III is a complete verse translation of the play's Epilogue, 'The Last Night', Die letzte Nacht, which forms a self-contained finale to the drama. It is the most startling and challenging element of the play, taking Kraus's drama to an entirely different level; the only section of 'The Last Days of Mankind' to be fully staged (in Vienna and by Brecht in Berlin, 1930) in Kraus's lifetime.
Congratulations to John Retallack and Toby Hulse for their recent production of 'The Last Days of Mankind' at the Bristol Old Vic. Well reviewed and clearly a bold interpretation that has opened people's eyes to Kraus's work. All too short a run!
The text of the condensed version of Acts I,II and III of Karl Kraus's 'The Last Days of Mankind' in English, with footnotes, is now online here and is available to read. This does not replace, or paraphrase, or reinterpret Kraus's German; it merely reduces its length. But even before the complete translation of the play is finished, this shorter version contains more of Kraus's masterpiece, including sections of his distinctive verse, than has previously appeared in English since the publication of the play, almost 100 years ago. So this is already a first. Use the sidebar to navigate to each scene; footnotes are at the end of scenes.
Also on the website, after the shortened version of Acts I,II, III is a complete verse translation of the play's Epilogue, 'The Last Night', Die letzte Nacht, which forms a self-contained finale to the drama. It is the most startling and challenging element of the play, taking Kraus's drama to an entirely different level; the only section of 'The Last Days of Mankind' to be fully staged (in Vienna and by Brecht in Berlin, 1930) in Kraus's lifetime.
Congratulations to John Retallack and Toby Hulse for their recent production of 'The Last Days of Mankind' at the Bristol Old Vic. Well reviewed and clearly a bold interpretation that has opened people's eyes to Kraus's work. All too short a run!
'Kraus in Vienna' by Cordelia von Klot
