John Christopher Middleton (10 June 1926 – 29 November 2015) was a British poet and translator, especially of

German literature German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy ...

Life

Middleton was born in

Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, United Kingdom in 1926. Following four years' service in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

, he studied at

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

, matriculating in 1948. He then held academic positions at the

University of Zürich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

and

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

. In 1966 he took up a position as Professor of Germanic Languages & Literature at the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 20 ...

, retiring in 1998. Middleton has published translations of

Robert Walser Robert Walser (15 April 1878 – 25 December 1956) was a German language Swiss writer. He additionally worked as a copyist, an inventor's assistant, a butler, and in various other low-paying trades. Despite marginal early success in his lit ...

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

, Hölderlin,

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

, Gert Hofmann and many others. He has received various awards, including the

Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman of the publisher Faber & Faber. It recognises a single volume of poetry or fiction by a United Kingdom, Iri ...

and the

Schlegel-Tieck Prize The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation is a literary translation award given by the Society of Authors in London. Translations from the German original into English are considered for the prize. The value of the prize is £3,000, while t ...

for translation. Middleton married Mary Freer in 1953; they had two daughters and a son. They divorced in 1969. Middleton died on 29 November 2015.Christopher Middleton: Poet celebrated for his urgent and vivid verse and his translations, especially from German
/ref>

Works

*''The Pigeons and the Girls'' (unknown) *''Poems'' (1944) *''Nocturne in Eden'' (1945) *''The Vision of a Drowned Man'' (1949) *''Torse 3'' (1962) *''Nonsequences'' (1965) *''Our Flowers & Nice Bones'' (1969) *''The Fossil Fish'' (1970) *''Briefcase History'' (1972) *''The Lonely Suppers of W. V. Balloon'' (1975) *''Pataxanadu and Other Prose'' (1977) * Céleste, Orange Export Ltd., collection Chutes (1977) *''Bolshevism in Art and Other Expository Writings'' (1978) essays *''Anasphere: le torse antique'' ( Burning Deck, 1978) *''Carminalenia'' (1980) *''The Pursuit of the Kingfisher'' (

Carcanet Press Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in the United Kingdom. Originally a student magazine devised by undergraduates collaborating between Oxford and Cambridge, it was refounded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt. In 2000 it was nam ...

, 1983) essays *''111 Poems'' (

, 1983) *''Serpentine'' (1984) * ''Two Horse Wagon going by'' (

, 1986) *''Selected Writings'' (

, 1989) *''The Balcony Tree'' (

, 1992) *''On a Photograph of Chekhov'' (1995) *''Intimate Chronicles'' (

, 1996) *''The Swallow Diver'' (1997) *''Jackdaw Jiving'' (

, 1998) *''The Redbird Hexagon'' (1999) *''Faint Harps and Silver Voices: Selected Translations'' (

, 2000) *''Twenty Tropes for Doctor Dark'' (2000) *''The Word Pavilion and Selected Poems'' (

, 2001) *''The Anti-Basilisk'' (

, 2005) *''Collected Poems'' (

, 2008) *''Collected Later Poems'' (

, 2014)

Translations

*''Kafka's Other Trial'', by

Elias Canetti Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...

(

Schocken Books Schocken Books is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that specializes in Jewish literary works. Originally established in 1931 by Salman Schocken as Schocken Verlag in Berlin, the company later moved to Israel and then the Unit ...

, 1974) *''Selected Stories'', by

(

, 1988) *''The Spectacle at the Tower'', by Gert Hofmann (Carcanet Press, 1988) *''Our Conquest'', by Gert Hofmann (Carcanet Press, 1988) *''The Parable of the Blind'', by Gert Hofmann (Fromm International, 1989)

External links

Profile
at Carcanet Press
Profile
at Poetry Archive

References

Academics of King's College London Writers from Truro Poets from Cornwall 1926 births 2015 deaths German–English translators Alumni of Merton College, Oxford 20th-century British translators University of Texas at Austin Department of German faculty {{UK-poet-stub