Mother Courage

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Mother Courage (German Mutter Courage) is a character from a Grimmelshausen novel Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche (The Runagate Courage)^[1] dating from around 1670. The character had played a cameo role in Der abentheuerliche Simplicissimus^[2] in 1669.

The Bertolt Brecht play Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children) gave her currency in the 20th century. Mother Courage is cast as a walking contradiction by Brecht. She is torn between protecting her children from the war and making a profit out of the war.

Cúruisce (Courasche) appears in Ireland as a fictional character in Darach Ó Scolaí's Irish language novel An Cléireach. After travelling from Flanders in the company of a junior officer in the Tyrone regiment she serves in 1650 as a camp follower of the regiment of colonel Edmund O'Flaherty in the Royalist army.^[3]