Ants Oras (8 December 1900 – 21 December 1982) was an

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n translator and writer. Oras was born in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

and studied at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

, graduating with a Master of Philosophy degree in 1923. He also obtained a Bachelor of Literature degree from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. From 1928 through 1934, he was a lecturer at both Tartu and Helsinki University. Between 1934 and 1943 he was a professor at Tartu. Oras fled to Sweden in 1943 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and the German occupation of Estonia, then to England in 1949, then on to the United States where he settled in

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...

. From 1957 to 1958 he was a visiting professor at Helsinki University, and in 1965 he became a US State Department visiting lecturer in Sweden. In 1972 he became professor of English at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

in Gainesville and received an honorary doctorate from that university in 1975. He died in Gainesville, Florida, aged 82. Ants Oras was the author of several books, including one on the works of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

, as well as an account of the

Occupation of the Baltic states The occupation of the Baltic states was a period of annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union from 1940 until its Dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Naz ...

titled ''The Baltic Eclipse''. He also translated Shakespeare, Goethe (including

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

), Pushkin, Virgil, Alexander Pope and Molière into Estonian, as well as many Estonian works into English, German, Swedish, French and Spanish.

Oras' pause test

Oras investigated pause patterns in

English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...

dramatic

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...

, based on the hypothesis that a pause in

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter ( ) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line. Meter is measured in small groups of syllables called feet. "Iambi ...

fell on one of nine possible positions (after the first syllable, after the second syllable, etc.) in unconscious patterns unique to each playwright, and that the patterns would change over time. He counted three types of pauses: those indicated by commas in the first extant printed edition; pauses indicated by punctuation other than commas; and the breaks caused by splitting a line between two speakers. These pause patterns, when used to put the works of Early Modern dramatists in chronological order, correlate well with other indicators and are generally accepted as valid and reliable by most textual scholars.Oras, Ants. ''Pause Patterns in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama: An Experiment in Prosody''. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1960, pp. 1-3; Jackson, MacDonard P. ''Defining Shakespeare: Pericles as a Test Case''. Oxford UP, 2003, pp. 64-6.

Works

* ''The Critical Ideas of TS Eliot'', Tartu, 1932 * ''Baltic Eclipse'', Gollancz, London, 1948 * ''Laiemasse ringi: kirjanduslikke perspektiive ja profiile (artiklikogumik)''. Vaba Eesti, Stockholm 1961 * ''Marie Under'' (lühimonograafia). Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv, Lund 1963 * ''Estonian literature in exile'' (an essay by Ants Oras; with a bio-bibliographical appendix by Bernard Kangro). Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv, Lund 1967

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oras, Ants 1900 births 1982 deaths Writers from Tallinn People from Kreis Harrien 20th-century Estonian writers Translators to Estonian Translators from Estonian 20th-century Estonian translators Estonian non-fiction writers Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Translators of William Shakespeare Translators of Virgil Estonian male non-fiction writers Estonian–English translators University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of the University of Tartu University of Florida faculty Estonian military personnel of the Estonian War of Independence Estonian World War II refugees