Michael Hamburger
Encyclopedia
Michael Hamburger OBE (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted British
translator
, poet
, critic, memoirist, and academic
. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin
, Paul Celan
, Gottfried Benn
and W. G. Sebald
from German
, and his work in literary criticism
. The publisher Paul Hamlyn
(1926–2001) was his younger brother.
into a Jewish family that left for the UK in 1933, and settled in London
. He was educated at Westminster School
and Christ Church, Oxford
and served in the British Army
from 1943 to 1947. After that he completed his degree, and wrote for a time. He took a position at University College London
in 1951, and then at the University of Reading
in 1955. There followed many further academic positions in the UK and the US.
Hamburger published translations of many of the most important German-language
writers, particularly poets. His work was recognised by numerous awards, including the Aristeion Prize
in 1990, and the Order of the British Empire
in 1992. Hamburger lived in Middleton, Suffolk
, and appeared as a character in W. G. Sebald
's The Rings of Saturn
.
Representative works included The Truth of Poetry (1968), a major work of criticism. His Collected Poems, 1941–1994 (1995) drew on around twenty collections. Hamburger himself commented unhappily on the habit that reviewers have of greeting publication of his own poetry with a ritualised "Michael Hamburger, better known as a translator...". Perhaps ironically, his original poetry is better known in its German translations, by the Austrian poet and translator Peter Waterhouse
. He often commented on the literary life: the first edition of his autobiography came out with the title A Mug's Game, a quotation from T. S. Eliot
, whom Hamburger greatly admired, and to whose sixtieth-birthday
biblio
-symposium
he contributed an eponym
ous poem of four stanzas which tells its own story.
Michael Hamburger was honored the Petrarca-Preis
in 1992
. He died on 7 June 2007 at his home in Suffolk
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, critic, memoirist, and academic
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
, Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
, Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
and W. G. Sebald
W. G. Sebald
W. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...
from German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and his work in literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
. The publisher Paul Hamlyn
Paul Hamlyn
Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn of Edgeworth, CBE , was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist.-Family:...
(1926–2001) was his younger brother.
Life and work
Michael Hamburger was born in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
into a Jewish family that left for the UK in 1933, and settled in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He was educated at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
and served in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
from 1943 to 1947. After that he completed his degree, and wrote for a time. He took a position at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
in 1951, and then at the University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
in 1955. There followed many further academic positions in the UK and the US.
Hamburger published translations of many of the most important German-language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
writers, particularly poets. His work was recognised by numerous awards, including the Aristeion Prize
Aristeion Prize
The Aristeion Prize is a European prize, awarded for significant contributions to contemporary literature, and exceptional translations of contemporary literature. The prize is awarded in a different Capital of Culture each year...
in 1990, and the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1992. Hamburger lived in Middleton, Suffolk
Middleton, Suffolk
Middleton is a village in Suffolk, England. It is located approximately north-west of Leiston, north east of Saxmundham and from the Suffolk coast. The village is on the B1122 east of Yoxford and had a population of 359 at the 2001 census....
, and appeared as a character in W. G. Sebald
W. G. Sebald
W. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...
's The Rings of Saturn
The rings of saturn
The Rings of Saturn is a novel by W. G. Sebald and was published in English in 1998.The second novel of W. G. Sebald to be translated into English, The Rings of Saturn is the account of the narrator, also named W. G. Sebald, on a walking tour of Suffolk...
.
Representative works included The Truth of Poetry (1968), a major work of criticism. His Collected Poems, 1941–1994 (1995) drew on around twenty collections. Hamburger himself commented unhappily on the habit that reviewers have of greeting publication of his own poetry with a ritualised "Michael Hamburger, better known as a translator...". Perhaps ironically, his original poetry is better known in its German translations, by the Austrian poet and translator Peter Waterhouse
Peter Waterhouse
Peter Waterhouse is an Austrian writer and translator.Born in Berlin of a British father and an Austrian mother, he studied German and English literature at the University of Vienna, and later in Los Angeles, where he completed a PhD on Paul Celan...
. He often commented on the literary life: the first edition of his autobiography came out with the title A Mug's Game, a quotation from T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, whom Hamburger greatly admired, and to whose sixtieth-birthday
Birthday
A birthday is a day or anniversary where a person celebrates his or her date of birth. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage. Although the major religions celebrate the birth of their founders , Christmas – which is celebrated widely by...
biblio
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
-symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
he contributed an eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous poem of four stanzas which tells its own story.
Michael Hamburger was honored the Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis
Petrarca-Preis is a European literary award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. It was founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, and is primarily designed for contemporary European poets, but also epicists appear in the list of...
in 1992
1992 in literature
The year 1992 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Ben Aaronovitch - Transit*Julia Álvarez - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents*Paul Auster - Leviathan*Iain Banks - The Crow Road...
. He died on 7 June 2007 at his home in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
.
Translations
- Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Twenty Prose Poems (translator), London, Poetry London, 1946 (revised ed. San Francisco, City Light Books 1988) - Flowering Cactus: poems 1942-1949, Aldington, Hand and Flower Press, 1950 - out of print
- Poems of Hölderlin (translator), Poetry London 1943, (revised ed. as Holderlin: His Poems, Harvill Press, 1952) - out of print
- Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Letters, Journals and Conversations. London, Thames & Hudson, 1951 - out of print. - TraklGeorg TraklGeorg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...
, Decline (translator), St. Ives, Guido Morris/Latin Press, 1952 - out of print - A. Goes, The Burnt Offering (translator), London, Gollancz, 1956 - out of print
- Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, Tales from the Calendar (translator), London, Methuen, 1961 (reissued London, Lion & Unicorn Press 1980) - out of print - Hugo von HofmannsthalHugo von HofmannsthalHugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal ; , was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.-Early life:...
, Poems and Verse Plays (translator with others), Routledge & K. Paul, and New York, Bollingen Foundation, 1961 - out of print - Modern German Poetry 1910-1960 (translator with C Middleton), Routledge, and New York, McGibbon & Kee, 1962 - out of print
- J C F Hölderlin, Selected Verse (translator), Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 1961 (latest ed. London, Anvil, 1986)
- Nelly SachsNelly SachsNelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
, Selected Poems (translator), Jonathan Cape and New York, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1968 - out of print - Hans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus EnzensbergerHans Magnus Enzensberger , is a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He has also written under the pseudonym Andreas Thalmayr. He lives in Munich.- Life :...
, The Poems of Hans Magnus Enzensberger (translator with J Rothenberg and the author), London, Secker & Warburg, 1968 - out of print - H M Enzensberger, Poems for People Who Don't Read Poems (translator), Secker & Warburg, 1968 - out of print
- An Unofficial Rilke (translator), London, Anvil Press, 1981 - out of print
- Paul CelanPaul CelanPaul Celan was a poet and translator...
, Poems (translator), Manchester, Carcanet, 1972 (new enlarged ed. as Poems of Paul Celan, New York, Persea, 1988 and 2002, and Anvil Press, 2007) - Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
, Selected poems and Fragments (translator), Penguin Classics, 1998 (new ed. 2007) - W. G. SebaldW. G. SebaldW. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, After Nature (translator), London, Hamish Hamilton, 2002 - W. G. Sebald, Unrecounted (translator), Hamish Hamilton, 2004
Prose
- Reason and Energy, London, Routledge & K. Paul, 1957 - out of print
- From Prophecy to Exorcism: the Premisses of Modern German Literature, Longmans, 1965 - out of print
- The Truth of Poetry, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, First published in 1969, (latest ed. Anvil, 1996)
- A Mug's Game (memoir), Carcanet, 1991, (revised ed. as String of Beginnings) - out of print
- String of Beginnings (memoir), Skoob Seriph, 1991
Poetry
- Poems 1950-1951, Hand and Flower Press, 1952 - out of print
- Weather and Season: New Poems, London, Longmans, 1963 - out of print
- Collected Poems 1941-1994, Anvil Press, 1995, (new ed. 1999)
- Circling the Square, Anvil Press, 2007
- Taccuino di un vagabondo europeo (Poesie 1941-1999) Cura e traduzione di di Maura Del Serra, Roma, Fondazione Piazzolla, 1999
External links
- Obituary in The Independent
- Obituary from the Times newspaper
- Obituary from The Guardian Unlimited Poet, translator and academic, more acclaimed in Germany than in Britain
- Michael Hamburger at the Poetry Archive
- Remembering Poet and Translator Michael Hamburger an appreciation by Joshua Cohen at The Jewish Daily Forward published June 19, 2007
- I am a survivor from a different culture interview with Michael Hamburger, conducted by Lidia Vianu, Published in The European English Messenger, Spring 2006 (pp. 35–37)
- "...a few things on behalf of the fine English poet Michael Hamburger" poet Mark Scroggins's appreciation for the work of Michael Hamburger