Otto Julius Bierbaum (28 June 1865 – 1 February 1910) was a German writer. Bierbaum was born in Grünberg,

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. After studying in

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, he became a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

for the journals ''Die freie Bühne'', ''Pan'' and '' Die Insel''. His literary work was varied. As a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

he used forms like the ''

Minnesang (; "love song") was a tradition of lyric- and song-writing in Germany and Austria that flourished in the Middle High German period. This period of medieval German literature began in the 12th century and continued into the 14th. People who wr ...

'' or the folksong and the

Anacreontics Anacreontics are verses in a metre used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine. His later Greek imitators (whose surviving poems are known as the ''Anacreontea'') took up the same themes and used the Anacreontic meter. ...

style. In 1897 Bierbaum published his novel ''Stilpe'' which inspired

Ernst von Wolzogen Ernst von Wolzogen (23 April 1855 – 30 August 1934) was a cultural critic, a writer and a founder of Cabaret in Germany. Biography Wolzogen came from a noble Austrian family; he studied Literature, Philosophy, and the history of art in Strasb ...

to establish, in 1901, the first

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

venue ever in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, the ''

Überbrettl Überbrettl ( ''super-cabaret'') was the first venue in Germany for literary cabaret, or Kabarett, founded 1901 in Berlin by Ernst von Wolzogen. The German Kabarett concept was imported from French venues like Le Chat Noir in Paris, from which it k ...

'' . His novel ''Zäpfel Kerns Abenteuer'' was an adaptation of

Carlo Collodi Carlo Lorenzini (24 November 1826 – 26 October 1890), better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi (), was an Italian author, humourist, and journalist, widely known for his fairy tale novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio''. Early life Col ...

's ''

Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...

''. Bierbaum's final novel, ''Yankeedoodlefahrt'', was published in 1909 and is the source of the

winged word A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...

s "''Humor ist, wenn man trotzdem lacht''" ("Humor is when you laugh anyway"), which has become a proverb in modern German. Bierbaum died at Kötzschenbroda near

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

Works

* ''Erlebte Gedichte'' (1892) ** "

Traum durch die Dämmerung "" ("Dream in the Twilight", literally "Dream through the twilight"), is both a German poem by Otto Julius Bierbaum and a (art song) by Richard Strauss, his Op. 29/1. The opening line is "" ("Broad meadows in grey dusk"). It is the first of th ...

" * ''Die Schlangendame'' (1896) * ''Stilpe'' (1897) * ''Das schöne Mädchen von Pao'' (1899) * ''Eine empfindsame Reise im Automobil'' (1903) * ''Zäpfel Kerns Abenteuer'' (1905) * ''Yankeedoodlefahrt'' (1909) * ''Samalio Pardulus'' (1911) Story illustrated by Alfred Kubin * ''Prinz Kuckuck – Leben, Taten, Meinungen und Höllenfahrt eines Wollüstlings''
Nemt, Frouwe, disen Kranz, und andre Gedichte : op. 57 / (Text) von Otto Julius Bierbaum komponiert von Christian Sinding
(From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
Innocence. Unschuld. (Words by) Bierbaum. English versionby Edwin Schneider. (Music by) Arthur Olaf Andersen. For piano and voice
(From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
Sieben Gedichte aus Otto Julius Bierbaums Der neubestellte Irrgarten der Liebe : für eine Singstimme mit Klavierbegleitung, op. 85, for piano and voice
From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
Vier Gedichte von Otto Julius Bierbaum : für eine Singstimme mit Klavier, op. 101, for piano and voice
(From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)

Literature

*
Projekt Gutenberg-DE

Literaturportal: Otto Julius Bierbaum

"Stilpe"
on

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* Fritz Droop: ''Otto Julius Bierbaum, ein deutscher Lyriker''. Hesse & Becker, Leipzig 1912. * Klaus Peter Muschol: ''Otto Julius Bierbaums dramatische Werke''. Univ., München 1961. * Peter Muschol: ''Otto Julius Bierbaum Dichter und Corpsstudent. 1865 bis 1910''. WJK-Verlag, Hilden 2010. * Dushan Stankovich: ''Otto Julius Bierbaum – eine Werkmonographie''. Lang, Bern und Frankfurt a. M. 1971. * Izabela Taraszczuk: Zwei Wege zur Kommunikation: Otto Julius Bierbaum und Georg Beuchelt. In: Bąkiewicz, Marta Jadwiga (Hrsg.): An der mittleren Oder. Eine Kulturlandschaft im deutsch-polnischen Grenzraum. Paderborn 2016, pp. 246–264, . * William H. Wilkening: ''Otto Julius Bierbaum – the tragedy of a poet. A biography''. Heinz, Stuttgart 1977, .

References

External links

*
Vertonungen Bierbaumscher Gedichte

Links collected at the library of the

FU Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

Monacensia Literaturarchiv

Otto Julius Bierbaum
Literaturportal Bayern * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bierbaum, Otto Julius 1865 births 1910 deaths People from Zielona Góra People from the Province of Silesia 19th-century German novelists 20th-century German novelists German fantasy writers German editors German poets German male journalists German journalists German male poets German male novelists German-language poets 19th-century German male writers 20th-century German male writers