Name John Burk Role Dramatist | Died 1808 | |
Education Trinity College, Dublin | ||
John Daly Burk (ca.1776–1808) was an Irish-born dramatist, historian and newspaperman in the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He died fighting a duel in Virginia in 1808.
Biography
Burk attended Trinity College, Dublin. In Boston, Massachusetts, he edited the Polar Star newspaper, ca.1796. In New York he published The Time-Piece. In 1798 he settled in Virginia.
Burk's play Bunker-Hill premiered at the Haymarket Theatre, Boston, in 1797. "At that time it was well received, the British being well peppered, and the 'stars and stripes' floating triumphant. It was local in character, and the scene laid in Charlestown and Boston." According to J.T. Buckingham, "the tragedy had not a particle of merit, except its brevity. It was written in blank verse, if a composition having no attribute of poetry could be so called. It was as destitute of plot and distinctness of character as it was of all claim to poetry." When U.S. President John Adams saw the play in New York and was asked his opinion afterward by actor Giles Leonard Barrett, who had portrayed General Warren, Adams replied "My friend, General Warren was a scholar and a gentleman, but your author has made him a bully and a blackguard."