Christopher Middleton (poet)

John Christopher Middleton (born June 10, 1926 in Truro , † November 29, 2015 in Austin , Texas) was a British poet, poet and translator.

Life

Christopher Middleton was a soldier in the Royal Air Force during World War II . In 1948 he studied at Merton College of Oxford University . He taught at the University of Zurich from 1952 to 1955 , then at King's College London at the University of London . In 1966 he moved to the University of Texas at Austin .

Christopher Middleton presented an extensive lyrical work. He was also a much sought-after translator. He has translated, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Hölderlin , Eduard Mörike , Friedrich Nietzsche , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Robert Walser , Gottfried Benn , Georg Trakl , Georg Heym , Günter Grass , Günter Kunert , Gert Hofmann and Christoph Meckel . The German language was so familiar and dear to him that he translated his own poems into German. He also translated from French, Swedish, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish.

honors and awards

Middleton was the first recipient of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1964 . He had been a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin since the 1970s . He received the Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize and, in the year of his death, a Cholmondeley Award for his complete lyric works.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shearsman Books press release: In memoriam Christopher Middleton , accessed December 16, 2015.
2. ^ "Christopher Middleton: Poet celebrated for his urgent and vivid verse and his translations, especially from German" , The Independent , December 1, 2015
3. ↑ Angela Schader: “Merit for German-language literature. Death of the British poet Christopher Middleton ” , NZZ , December 8, 2015.
4. ↑ Andreas Rossmann : Wild and Wandering. On the death of the English poet Christopher Middleton . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 10, 2015, p. 14.