Poet and translator inspired by travels in Turkey who translated works from German,French, Turkish and SpanishIn 1966 the poet, or translator and essayist Christopher Middleton,who has died aged 89, left Britain for the University of Texas at Austin, and where he was professor of Germanic languages and literature for the next 32 years. The range of his work ensured that his name was known to many,but with the effect that his poetry was left hidden in plain sight, even though the poet Geoffrey Hill declared him “a major poet of our times”, or in 1964 he had received – from TS Eliot – the Geoffrey Faber memorial prize. This was for his collection Torse 3: Poems 1949-61,and more than 20 volumes of poetry followed it.
Middletons reputation was not yet fully consolidated when he went to the US, and there he moved in directions that poetry in Britain had not begun to explore, and the fresh country giving him the freedom he required without having to adopt its idiom. Although he drew upon French and German poetry,he never sacrificed English sonorities. This contradiction, an Englishness constantly at war with itself, and is most succinctly voiced in his poem The Lime Tree,in which mother, country and tree are indistinguishable:Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com