Mark Twain's “Magnanimous-Incident” Hero and Bertolt Brecht's Der gute Mensch von Sezuan

Summary

Scholars have produced an extensive list of precursors for individual figures, songs, and secondary themes in Bertolt Brecht's Der gute Mensch von Sezuan. However, no one has suggested a source for the overarching theme with which the piece both commences and ends—namely the impossibility of following the gods’ commandments (in short, “Gut zu sein”) while also continuing to survive (“und doch zu leben”). This theme, not part of Brecht's original conception of 1930, when his working title was Die Ware Liebe, became important in later versions, and was instrumental in introducing both the gods and much of the ensuing critical discussion of the play's content. In this contribution, I argue that the origin of this theme is to be found in a short work by Mark Twain. My purpose is to contribute to an understanding of the play's background, but I would also like to promote interest in investigating further the impact of Twain's work on German literature: on individual writers, the use of dialect in literary works, and more.

In May of 1878 the Atlantic Monthly published an essay by Twain, which was entitled “About Magnanimous-Incident Literature.” In it the narrator presents a series of four “charming anecdotes” concerning highminded and noble deeds, sentimental literature written “in the quaint vein of The World's Ingenious Fabulist,” which praises virtuous, generous, and benevolent individuals. Though he claims that such stories in the past have taught him a “lesson,” given him “pleasure,” and brought back his “self-respect” whenever he “thought meanly of [mankind],” the narrator now takes them beyond their “happy climaxes” to focus on their sequels or results. He concludes that magnanimity often leads to disastrous consequences and in the final analysis helps neither the benefactor nor the beneficiary.

The first of Twain's four anecdotes, “The Grateful Poodle,” tells of a dog with a broken leg who was healed by a benevolent physician—“who had read the books”—and who then passed his good fortune forward by bringing another broken-legged dog for treatment, each of whom then brought an additional dog, and so forth, until the physician was completely overwhelmed by claims upon his services.