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

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

n translator and writer. Oras was born in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

and studied at the University of Tartu, graduating with a Master of Philosophy degree in 1923. He also obtained a Bachelor of Literature degree from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. From 1928 through 1934, he was a lecturer at both Tartu and

Helsinki University The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public university, public Research university, research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turk ...

. 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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the Soviet 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, Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gaine ...

. 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 land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

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 and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

, as well as an account of the

Occupation of the Baltic states The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had been signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet ...

titled ''The Baltic Eclipse''. He also translated Shakespeare, Goethe (including Faust), 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 dramatic blank verse, 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 that line; rhythm 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 Bernard Kangro (18 September 1910 – 25 March 1994) was an Estonian writer and poet. Education Bernard Kangro was born the son of a farmer, Andres Kangro, and his wife, Minna. He grew up in rather humble circumstances. He attended primary schoo ...

). Eesti Kirjanike Kooperatiiv, Lund 1967

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oras, Ants 1900 births 1982 deaths Writers from Tallinn People from the Governorate of Estonia 20th-century Estonian writers Estonian translators Estonian World War II refugees University of Tartu alumni University of Tartu faculty University of Florida faculty Translators to Estonian Translators from Estonian 20th-century translators Estonian non-fiction writers Estonian male writers Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Translators of William Shakespeare Translators of Virgil Male non-fiction writers