biography
pronunciation:
[bilderdiyk]
| biography:
| Poet and scholar, born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As a child he was immobile because of an injury to his foot, which caused him to study a range of different subjects from an early age. His megalomania and egocentrism may well be explained from this secluded childhood and adolescence. After graduating in law and spending some years as a lawyer, he was in exile (1795–1806), mostly in London, because of his anti-revolutionary ideas. When he returned to Holland he became a teacher to King Louis Napoleon. A private teacher until his death, he influenced his pupils with his conservative, anti-liberal, and anti-revolutionary ideas, among them Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (founder of the Calvinist Anti-Revolutionary Party), Isaac Da Costa, and Jacob van Lennep. Bilderdijk's oeuvre is very broad; he practised almost every literary genre. His work showed his romantic temperamental character. |
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