''Driving Out a Devil'' (german: Er treibt den Teufel aus) is an early

one-act A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writi ...

farce by the

20th-century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...

German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. It was written in

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

, probably in

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the ...

, and was first published in volume 13 of Brecht's ''Stücke''. The play charts the attempts of a self-confident and manipulative

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...

boy to outwit the vigilant parents of a girl of his village. Ronald Hayman suggests that this play dramatises most clearly Brecht's own ability to influence people.Hayman writes that the play shows us "the way Brecht imposed his will on both women and men" (1983, 50).

References

Sources

* Brecht, Bertolt. 1994. ''Collected Plays: One''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. London: Methuen. . * Hayman, Ronald. 1983. ''Brecht: A Biography.'' London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. . * Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, eds. 1994. ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . * Willett, John. 1967. ''The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects.'' Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. . * Willett, John and

Ralph Manheim Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cen ...

. 1970. Introduction. In ''Collected Plays: One'' by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. . vii–xvii. {{Brecht plays 1919 plays Plays by Bertolt Brecht One-act plays