John Willett
John William Mills Willett (born June 24, 1917 in London ; † August 20, 2002 there ) was a British literary scholar, translator and Brecht expert.
Life
John Willett came from a family of contractors. He grew up in the London borough of Hampstead , received his training in Winchester and Christ Church College in Oxford, and then studied music and set design in Vienna . During World War II he served in the Eighth Army while fighting in North Africa and Italy. His first book, Popski , which appeared in 1954, was about Vladimir Peniakoff .
From 1948 to 1951 Willet worked for the Manchester Guardian , which he left after differences with the publisher AP Wadsworth. From 1960 to 1967 he was co-editor of the Times Literary Supplement , for which he wrote before this phase. As co-editor, he took care of the artistic design of the paper and had RB Kitaj , Giorgio Morandi and Kokoschka design individual issues.
An article in the Times Literary Supplement led to the first meeting between Willett and Bertolt Brecht in 1956 and to efforts to bring Brecht's Berliner Ensemble to London. Three years after Brecht's death came the first edition of Willett's work The Theater of Bertolt Brecht. A Study from Eight Aspects . In 1964 he published the translation of Brecht's theoretical writings into English under the title Brecht on Theater. The Development of an Aestetic . From 1970 Brecht's collected pieces were published in English. Willett was the editor with Ralph Manheim . The poems, diaries and letters were to follow later. The last work by Brecht that Willett published was Bad Time for Poetry . The volume was published in 1995. He was also temporarily editor of the Brecht Yearbook of the International Brecht Society .
Willett's other areas of work were the period of the Weimar Republic , during which he created Art and Politics in Weimar Germany in 1978 . The New Sobriety and 1984 The Weimar Years. A Culture Cut Short and The Theater of the Weimar Republic in 1988 , as well as the visual arts.
John Willett, who lived temporarily in France, was married with a daughter and a son.
Web links
- Literature by and about John Willett in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about John Willett in the German Digital Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Willett, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Willett, John William Mills (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British translator, literary scholar and Brecht expert |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 24, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 20, 2002 |
| Place of death | London |