Christopher Middleton (10 June 1926 – 29 November 2015)[1] was a British poet and translator, especially of German literature.
Life
He was born John Christopher Middleton in Truro, Cornwall, in 1926. Following four years' service in the Royal Air Force,[2] he studied at Merton College, Oxford, matriculating in 1948.[3] He then held academic positions at the University of Zürich and King's College London.[3] In 1966 he took up a position as Professor of Germanic Languages & Literature at the University of Texas, Austin, retiring in 1998.[4] Middleton has published translations of Robert Walser, Nietzsche, Hölderlin, Goethe, Gert Hofmann and many others. He has received various awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translation.[5]
Middleton married Mary Freer in 1953; they had two daughters and a son.[3] They divorced in 1969.[1] Middleton died on 29 November 2015.[1][6]
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
 - Carminalenia (1980)
 - The Pursuit of the Kingfisher (Carcanet Press, 1983) essays
 - 111 Poems (Carcanet Press, 1983)
 - Serpentine (1984)
 - Two Horse Wagon going by (Carcanet Press, 1986)
 - Selected Writings (Carcanet Press, 1989)
 - The Balcony Tree (Carcanet Press, 1992)
 - On a Photograph of Chekhov (1995)
 - Intimate Chronicles (Carcanet Press, 1996)
 - The Swallow Diver (1997)
 - Jackdaw Jiving (Carcanet Press, 1998)
 - The Redbird Hexagon (1999)
 - Faint Harps and Silver Voices: Selected Translations (Carcanet Press, 2000)
 - Twenty Tropes for Doctor Dark (2000)
 - The Word Pavilion and Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2001)
 - The Anti-Basilisk (Carcanet Press, 2005)
 - Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2008)
 - Collected Later Poems (Carcanet Press, 2014)
 
Translations
- Selected Stories by Robert Walser (Carcanet Press, 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
References
- 1 2 3 "Christopher Middleton, poet - obituary". telegraph.co.uk. The Daily Telegraph. 18 December 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
 - ↑ "Christopher Middleton". The Poetry Archive. Retrieved 17 February 2013.
 - 1 2 3 Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900-1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 392.
 - ↑ "Christopher Middleton". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
 - ↑ "The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German Translation: Past Winners". The Society of Authors. Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
 - ↑ Christopher Middleton: Poet celebrated for his urgent and vivid verse and his translations, especially from German