Alexander Gray (poet)

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Alexander Gray CBE , FRSE (born January 6, 1882 , in Angus , Scotland , † February 17, 1968 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish Home Office official, economist, academic, translator and poet.

Life

Alexander Gray spent his childhood in Dundee and completed his education at the local high school. He later studied mathematics and economics at Edinburgh University . This was followed by study visits to the University of Göttingen and the Sorbonne in Paris . During the First World War , he worked for the Ministry of the Interior, using his German language skills to provide anti-German propaganda .

From 1921 on, he was a full professor of political economy at the University of Aberdeen . During this time he published one of his most important economic papers, The Development of Economic Doctrine (1931). In 1934 he took on an adequate professorship at Edinburgh University, which he held until his retirement in 1956. During the Second World War , he returned to the service of the Ministry of the Interior, only to return to his professorship at the end of the war. In 1942 he was accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1948 Gray published a study of the life and teachings of Adam Smith .

In addition to his economic writings, Gray was an author and translator in the field of poetry . He published his own poems in English, while translating the folk poems of the Danes and Germans into Scottish. He also translated numerous German poets such as August von Kotzebue , Wilhelm Müller , Ludwig Uhland , Johann Gottfried Herder and, above all, Heinrich Heine .

Works

  • Scottish staple at Veere. 1909.
  • Upright sheaf: Germany's intentions after the war. 1915.
  • True pastime: some observations on the German attitude towards war. 1915.
  • New Leviathan: some illustrations of current German political theories. 1915.
  • Timorous civility a Scots miscellany.
  • Songs and ballads, chiefly from Heine. 1920.
  • Some aspects of national health insurance. 1923.
  • Any man's life: A book of poems. 1924.
  • Poems. 1925.
  • Family endowment: a critical analysis. 1927.
  • Songs from Heine (Schumann's "Dichterliebe"). 1928.
  • Gossip: A new book of poems. 1928.
  • Development of economic doctrine: An introductory survey. 1931.
  • Arrows. A book of German ballads and folksongs attempted in Scots. 1932.
  • Robert Burns, man and poet. Address to the Scottish Arts Club… 1944. 1944.
  • Socialist tradition, Moses to Lenin. 1946.
  • The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin. 1946.
  • Adam Smith. 1948.
  • Economics: yesterday and to-morrow. 1949.
  • Sir Halewyn. Examples in European balladry and folk song. 1949.
  • Four-and-forty. A selection of Danish ballads presented in Scots. 1954.
  • Historical ballads of Denmark. 1958.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gray, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish economist, poet and translator
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Angus , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH 17th February 1968
Place of death Edinburgh