Robert Montgomery Bird

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Robert Montgomery Bird (1854)

Robert Montgomery Bird (born February 5, 1806 in New Castle , Delaware , † January 23, 1854 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) was a North American writer, who mainly with the 1837 Kentucky novel Nick of the Woods (The Devil of the Woods) was successful. "With this adventure story from the time of the bloody battles between border guards and Indians, he wanted, as he expressly explains in the foreword to the 1853 edition, to protest against the idea of ​​the 'noble savage'", says Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . For Bird, the "redskins" were barbarians. However, he described the white border guards as hardly less cruel.

life and work

Bird began writing short stories while studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , which appeared in the Philadelphia Monthly Magazine from 1827 . Soon after graduation, he decided to pursue a literary career instead of a medical one. In 1828 he won a $ 1,000 prize with his play Pelopidas presented by Edwin Forrest , but this was never produced. It wasn't until 1831 that Forrest Birds brought The Gladiator to the stage. Bird delivered other successful plays, but felt that he was financially cheated by Forrest, he turned to novel writing. His themes initially remained historical (ancient Rome, Greece, the modern history of South America) until, with Nick of the Woods, he "demythologizes" the contemporary Indians of North America, as Kindlers thinks. From 1837 Bird also worked as a journalist; he became associate editor of American Monthly Magazine and, in 1847, editor of North American and United States Gazette (Philadelphia, PA). He also taught medicine at the Pennsylvania Medical College and ran for a seat in Congress in 1842. Since 1840 he lived in Maryland on a farm on the east coast. He died in Philadelphia in 1854.

Works (selection)

tragedies

  • The gladiator , created in 1831, first edition in 1919
  • Oralloossa , first performed in 1832, first edition in 1919
  • The broker of Bogotá , first performed in 1834, first published in 1919

Novels

Illustration from the year (1883) by Hermann Vogel to The Dangers of the Wilderness ( Nick of the woods, or The Jibbenainosay )
  • Calavar, or the knight of the conquest , 1834 (Calavar or The Knight of Conquest)
  • The infidel, or The fall of Mexico , 1835
  • Nick of the woods, or The Jibbenainosay , 1837 (German: Der Waldteufel , Stuttgart 1928, also published under the title The dangers of the wilderness )

literature

  • CE Foust: The Life and Dramatic Works of Robert Montgomery Bird , New York 1919, also 1971
  • C. Dahl: Robert Montgomery Bird , New York 1963
  • JJ Hall: "Nick of the Woods": An Interpretation of the American Wilderness , in: AL , 35, 1963, pp. 173-182
  • JC Bryant: The Fallen World in "Nick of the Woods," in: AL , 38, 1966, pp 352-364
  • RP Winston: Birds Bloody Romance "Nick of the Woods" , in: Southern Studies , 23, 1984, No. 1, pp. 71-90

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Munich 1988
  2. ^ Also Munich 1988
  3. ↑ In the States, Nick experienced several dramatizations, Kindlers notes

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bird, Robert Montgomery
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American novelist and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH New Castle , Delaware
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1854
Place of death Philadelphia , Pennsylvania