persons Wilder, Thornton

General Info | TEI

Name Wilder, Thornton
Alternative Names
ID 672
Gender male
Lifespan 1897-04-17 - 1975-12-07
Professions writer (Q36180), lecturer (Q1569495), university teacher (Q1622272), novelist (Q6625963), librettist (Q8178443), translator, dramatist
Collection(s)
  • Default import collection
  • Transatlantic Networks
  • webclient
  • Uri(s) https://id.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/ica/persons/1_163
    https://ica.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/apis/api2/entity/672/
    https://d-nb.info/gnd/118632817
    Notes Wilder came to know Vienna and Austria in 1928, established a close friendship with his translator Herbert Egon Herlitschka and repeatedly returned to Vienna. He was an admirer of the Salzburg Festival and he benefited greatly from the theatre tradition in Austria. He was inspired by his reading of Nestroy and visits to the Wiener Volkstheater. His 1938 play “The Merchant of Yonkers” was an adaptation of Nestroy’s play “Einen Jux will er sich machen” (1842). Under the direction of Max Reinhardt, the play premiered on Brodway in 1938 but was not met with much commercial success, unlike Wilder’s rewriting of it, which was published under the title “The Matchmaker” in 1954. During WWII, Wilder helped (or, in some cases, tried to help) many of his friends and acquaintance to emigrate. (see Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar. Transatlantic Networks and the Perception and Representation of Vienna and Austria Between the 1920s and 1950s. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Science Press, 2018). Wilder was eager to explain his duties to other friends and aquaintances and he mentioned a number of people whom he had met socially during his sojourns in Vienna or Salzburg and who had been ostracized in Austria after the Nazi takeover, reduced to indigence, and had fled. The ties of friendship that had developed pompted Wilder’s characteristic generosity in helping those in need. He listened to their appeals. In a letter to his friend Herbert Herlitschka he mentioned his own efforts on behalf of "a number of Viennese ... trying to help them find work." He listed Dr. Bermann, Dr. Franz Lehner, Hertha Schweiger, Dr. Ernst Waldinger and others. Wilder had established a close relationship with the Jewish (Austrian) dramatist and poet Richard Beer-Hofmann, whose precarious existence in his American exile is reflected in Beer-Hofmann’s letters to Wilder in German. Notes of thanks bear witness not only to Wilder’s generous support of exiled friends but also to his sharing news about the progress of Wilder’s adaptation of the material from the "Wiener Volkskomödie" for the stage with the exiled writer, who had lost his audience. Wilder supported not only the publication of a translation of Beer-Hofmann’s complex play "Jaakobs Traum", for which he composed an introduction, but also tried to promote its staging with prominent actors. Furthermore, Wilder had a very personal correspondence with Beer-Hofmann’s daughters in the 1950s which reflects his loyalty and ongoing support for the family of his exiled peer and his legacy, as well as his interest in their efforts to reclaim confiscated property in Austria.
    References Niven, Penelope. Thornton Wilder: A Life, New York: Harper Collins, 2012 [Foreword by Edward Albee] Thornton Wilder Papers. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Yale University Library. Yale U, New Haven. Donald Gallup, The Journals of Thornton Wilder 1939-1961, New Haven: Yale UP, 1985. Horst Oppel, Thornton Wilder in Deutschland: Wirkung und Wertung seines Werkes im deutschen Sprachraum, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (1976 /77) and the relevant articles in Horst Frenz and Hans-Joachim Lang, eds., Nordamerikanische Literatur im deutschen Sprachraum seit 1945, München: Winkler, 1973, 80-4, 185-6, 225-40. Discussions of individual plays, for instance, by Rudolf Haas and Franz Link, in Hans Itschert, ed., Das amerikanische Drama, Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1972, 209-19, and 177-94, by Rudolf Germer in Paul Goetsch, ed., Das amerikanische Drama, Düsseldorf: Bagel, 1974, 170-82, and a review of research by Heinz Kosok in Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien 9 (1964), 196-227

    Relations

    Event

    Start End Other relation type Related Event
    1949 related >> participated in Goethe Bicentennial Convocation and Music Festival
    1928-11 related >> participated in >> hosted Early reading from working draft of "The Woman of Andros"
    1931-05 related >> participated in Promotion tour for German translations of Thornton Wilder's books
    1935-08 related >> participated in >> attended class in symphony conducting

    Institution

    Start End Other relation type Related Institution
    1930 1936 related >> worked for/at >> taught at University of Chicago
    1938 related >> won Pulitzer Prize
    1925 1926 related >> studied at Princeton University
    1921 1928 related >> worked for/at >> taught at Lawrenceville School
    1928 related >> won Pulitzer Prize
    1945 related United States Army, Air Forces
    1928-12 related >> visited >> stayed at Hotel Bayerischer Hof
    related American citizenship
    1938-09-10 related >> worked for/at >> taught at Max Reinhardt Workshop of Stage, Screen and Radio
    1931 1931 related >> visited >> stayed at Hotel Bristol, Vienna

    Person

    Start End Other relation type Related Person
    related >> acquainted with >> correspondence with Stein, Gertrude
    1916 related >> acquainted with Kommer, Rudolf
    related >> acquainted with Mann, Thomas
    1935-10-02 related >> acquainted with >> correspondence with Doolittle, Hilda
    related >> acquainted with Modern, Alice
    related >> friendship with Beer-Hofmann, Richard
    related >> related to >> sibling of Wilder, Amos
    1935-10-13 related >> acquainted with >> had contacts with >> had a meeting with Freud, Sigmund
    1935-10-25 related >> acquainted with >> had contacts with >> had a meeting with Freud, Sigmund
    related >> friendship with Davis, Robert

    Place

    Start End Other relation type Related Place
    1935-09 related >> visited >> regularly visited Döblinger Hauptstraße 71, 1190 Vienna
    1935-10-13 related >> visited Berggasse 19, 1090 Vienna
    1935-10-25 related >> visited Berggasse 19, 1090 Vienna
    1935-09 related >> visited >> regularly visited Hasenauerstraße 59, 1180 Vienna
    1937-09 related >> stayed in >> regularly stayed in Sils Maria, Switzerland

    Work

    Start End Other relation type Related Work
    1935 related >> wrote >> author of Heaven's My Destination
    1930 related >> wrote >> author of The Woman of Andros
    1927 related >> wrote >> author of The Bridge of San Louis Rey
    1926 related >> wrote >> author of The Cabala
    1954 related >> wrote >> author of The Matchmaker
    1938-05 related >> wrote >> author of The Merchant of Yonkers
    1938 related >> wrote >> author of Our Town
    1942 related >> wrote >> author of The Skin of Our Teeth
    1948 related >> wrote >> author of The Ides of March
    1955 related >> wrote >> author of The Alcestiad

    Label

    Label Start End Label type ISO Code
    Wilder, Thornton Legacy name (merge) deu

    Texts

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