Charles DG Roberts

Charles GD Roberts (1904)

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (born January 10, 1860 in Douglas / New Brunswick , † November 26, 1943 in Toronto ) was a Canadian poet and writer who was known as the "father of Canadian poetry".

Roberts grew up in Frederictown, where he attended the Collegiate School directed by George R. Parkin with his cousin Bliss Carman . Until 1879 he studied dan at the University of New Brunswick . During this time his first poems appeared in The Century magazine . He then became director of the Chatham Grammar School and published his first book of poetry, Orion and other Poems . In 1890 he married Mary Isabel Fenety, with whom he had four children. In 1882 he took over the management of York Street School in Fredericton.

He briefly worked in Toronto for The Week magazine before becoming Professor of English, French and Economics at King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia , in 1885 . In the ten years of his activity here two further volumes of poetry ( In Divers Tones and Songs of Common Day ), the prose volume History of Canada and several short stories appeared. In 1890 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada . In 1898 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

In 1897 Roberts separated from his family and went to New York. Between 1907 and 1925 he traveled through Europe and lived in London. He served in the British and Canadian armies during World War I, lecturing and editing The Illustrated American in New York .

From 1925 he lived in Toronto, where he continued to publish, devoted himself to promoting young Canadian writers, became President of the Canadikan Authors' Association and published the Canadian Who is Who . He, his cousin Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott came to be known as the Confederation Poets . Alongside Ernest Thompson Seton , he is considered the most important Canadian writer of animal stories, e.g. B. in The heart of the ancient wood . In 1926 he was awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal and in 1935 raised to the nobility.

Works (German)

• Übers. Armin Arnold: The Last Obstacle, in Canadian Narrators. Ed. Arnold, Walter E. Riedel. Manesse, Zurich 1967, 1986, pp. 49-82
• Übers. Elke-Maria Pötzschke: Mothers of the North , on good wandering, my brother! A Canadian anthology. St. Benno Verlag , Leipzig undated (1986), pp. 5-12

literature

• Martina Seifert: Canadian animal stories. Charles GD Roberts "Do seek their meat from God," (1892) , in Reingard M. Nischik Ed .: The Canadian short stories. Interpretative . Camden House, Rochester NY 2007, pp. 41-52

swell

• University of New Brunswick Libraries - Charles GD Roberts
• New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia - Charles GD Roberts
• My New Brunswick - Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
• Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Members: Charles GD Roberts. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 22, 2019 .