Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet,

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or gover ...

, memoirist and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

. He was known in particular for his translations of

Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...

Paul Celan Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, ...

, Gottfried Benn and

W. G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...

from German, and his work in

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

. The publisher

Paul Hamlyn Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn, (12 February 1926 – 31 August 2001) was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist, who established the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 1987. Early life He was born Paul Bertrand Wolfgang Hamburger in Berlin, Ge ...

(1926–2001) was his younger brother.

Life and work

Michael Hamburger was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

into a Jewish family that left for the UK in 1933, and settled in London. He was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniq ...

and served in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

from 1943 to 1947 in Italy and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. After that he completed his degree, and wrote for a time. He took a position at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1951, and then at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in 1955. There followed many further academic positions in the UK and the US. Hamburger held temporary appointments in German at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

(1966–7), the

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

(1969),

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

(1970),

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

(1971), the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

(1972), the

University of California at San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

(1973), the University of South Carolina (1973), and

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original cam ...

(1975 and 1977). He resettled permanently in England in 1978, the year he became a part-time professor at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...

. Hamburger published translations of many of the most important

German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...

writers, particularly poets. His work was recognised with numerous awards, including the

Aristeion Prize The Aristeion Prize was a European literary annual prize. It was given to authors for significant contributions to contemporary European literature, and to translators for exceptional translations of contemporary European literary works. The priz ...

in 1990, and the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in 1992. Hamburger lived in

Middleton, Suffolk Middleton is a village in the east of the English county of Suffolk. It is located approximately north-west of Leiston, north east of Saxmundham and from the Suffolk coast.

, and appeared as a character in

's ''

The Rings of Saturn ''The Rings of Saturn'' (german: Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the a ...

''. A few months before his death he was visited by the artist

Tacita Dean Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA (born 1965) is a British / German visual artist who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. ...

, whose poignant fil
Michael Hamburger
focuses on the man and his home and the bonding of the man and his apple orchard. 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 In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...

he contributed an

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

ous poem of four

stanzas In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

Hamburger 1948, p. 178. which tells its own story. Michael Hamburger was honoured with the

Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis für Übersetzung The Johann Heinrich Voß Prize in Translation (german: Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis für Übersetzung) is awarded yearly by the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt.

in 1964 and with the

Petrarca-Preis Petrarca-Preis was a European literary and translation award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. Founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, it was primarily designed for contemporary ...

in 1992. He died on 7 June 2007 at his home in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

References

*''String of Beginnings: Intermittent Memoirs 1924 to 1954'' (Skoob Books Publishing, 1991), his autobiography, edited by Lucien Jenkins *''Michael Hamburger in Conversation with Peter Dale'' by Peter Dale ()

Selected bibliography

Translations

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fr ...

, 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 Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

, Letters, Journals and Conversations. London, Thames & Hudson, 1951 – out of print. *'' Trakl, 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 Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

, Tales from the Calendar'' (translator), London, Methuen, 1961 (reissued London, Lion & Unicorn Press 1980) – out of print *''

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cl ...

, Poems and Verse Plays'' (translator with others), Routledge & K. Paul, and New York,

Bollingen Foundation The Bollingen Foundation was an educational foundation set up along the lines of a university press in 1945. It was named after Bollingen Tower, Carl Jung's country home in Bollingen, Switzerland. Funding was provided by Paul Mellon and his wife ...

, 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 Sachs, Selected Poems'' (translator), Jonathan Cape and New York, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1968 – out of print *''

Hans Magnus Enzensberger Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarde ...

, 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 René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogn ...

'' (translator), London, Anvil Press, 1981 – out of print *''

, Poems'' (translator), Manchester, Carcanet, 1972 (new enlarged ed. as ''Poems of Paul Celan'', New York, Persea, 1988 and 2002, and Anvil Press, 2007) *''

, Selected poems and Fragments'' (translator), Penguin Classics, 1998 (new ed. 2007) *

, ''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 & Nicolson, First published in 1969, (latest ed. Anvil, 1996) *''Testimonies'', Selected Shorter Prose 1950–1987, New York, St Martin's Press, 1989 *''A Mug's Game'' (memoir), Carcanet, 1973, (revised ed. as ''String of Beginnings'') – out of print *''String of Beginnings'' (memoir), Skoob Seriph, 1991 *''Philip Larkin: A Retrospect'', London, Enitharmon Press, 2002 — edition limited to 90 copies plus 20 ''hors commerce''

Poetry

* ''Flowering Cactus. Poems 1942–1949''. Hand & Flower Press, Aldington 1950 * ''Poems 1950–1951''. Hand & Flower Press, Aldington 1952 * ''The Dual Site. Poems''. Routledge & Kegan Paul; London 1958 * ''Weather and Season. New Poems''. Longmans, London 1963; Atheneum, New York 1963 * ''Feeding the Chickadees''. Turret Books, London 1968 * ''Penguin Modern Poets. No. 14''. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1969 (with Alan Brownjohn and Charles Tomlinson) * ''Travelling''. Fulcrum Press, London 1969, * ''Travelling I–V''. Agenda Editions, London 1973, * ''Ownerless Earth. New & Selected poems''. Carcanet Press, Cheadle, Cheshire 1973, , * ''Travelling VI''. I.M. Imprimit, London 1975 * ''Real Estate''. Carcanet, Manchester 1977, , * ''Moralities''. Morden Tower Publications, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1977, * ''Variations in Suffolk, IV''. Sceptre Press, Knotting 1980 * ''Variations''. Carcanet New Press, Manchester 1981, * ''In Suffolk''. Five Seasons Press, Hereford 1982 * ''Collected Poems. 1941–1983''. Carcanet Press, Manchester 1984, * ''Trees''. Embers Handpress, Llangynog 1988, * ''Selected Poems''. Carcanet, Manchester 1988, * ''Roots in the Air''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 1991, * ''Collected Poems. 1941–1994''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 1995, * ''Late''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 1997, * ''Intersections. Shorter Poems 1994–2000''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 2000, * ''From a Diary of Non-Events''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 2002, * ''Wild and Wounded. Shorter Poems 2000–2003''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 2004, * ''Circling the Square''. Anvil Press Poetry, London 2006,

Other

* Hamburger, Michael. "T. S. Eliot." In ''T. S. Eliot: A Symposium'', edited by Richard March and Tambimuttu, 178. London: Editions Poetry, 1948.

Notes

References

Theo Breuer Theo Breuer (born 30 March 1956) is a German poet, essayist, editor, translator and publisher. Life and work Theo Breuer was born in Bürvenich, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany and educated at Cologne University where he studied German ...

, Still He is Turning – Michael Hamburger; in: T.B., Aus dem Hinterland. Lyrik nach 2000, Edition YE 2005.

External links

Obituary in The IndependentObituary from the Times newspaper
''Poet, translator and academic, more acclaimed in Germany than in Britain''
Michael Hamburger at the Poetry ArchiveRemembering Poet and Translator Michael Hamburger
an appreciation by Joshua Cohen at ''The Jewish Daily Forward'' published 19 June 2007

interview with Michael Hamburger, conducted by Lidia Vianu, Published in ''The European English Messenger'', Spring 2006 (pp. 35–37)

poet Mark Scroggins's appreciation for the work of Michael Hamburger
Unpicked Apples – Memories of Michael Hamburger by Will Stone
published 10 March 2010 * Archival material at {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamburger, Michael 1924 births 2007 deaths Academics of University College London Academics of the University of Reading Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford British Army personnel of World War II English Jews German–English translators Jewish poets Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Westminster School, London Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin 20th-century translators English male poets 20th-century English poets German emigrants to the United Kingdom Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Writers from London 20th-century English male writers