Michael Hamburger

Also known as Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger

British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic (1924–2007)

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5 total works indexed

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“The ploughman ploughs, the fisherman dreams of fish;Aloft, the sailor, through a world of ropesGuides tangled meditations, feverishWith memories of girls forsaken, hopesOf brief reunions, new discoveries,Past rum consumed, rum promised, rum potential.”
“Being pre-eminently a moralist, he needed a medium that enabled him to illustrate a moral insight as briefly and vividly as possible. Being an artist and sensualist, he needed a medium that was epigrammatic or aphoristic, but allowed him scope for fantasy and for that element of suggestiveness which he considered essential to beauty.”
“It is impossible for a poet to characterize his own work. From other people I gather that I am a gloomy poet, if not a tragic one.”
“I was invited to Romania at least once, but was warned that I should not be free to travel where I pleased in the country, but should be more or less confined to the Writers' Union. Because I ceased long ago to be an urban poet and feel claustrophobic in literary conferences, I could not accept such an invitation.”
“Translation came naturally to me because as a child I was translated from Germany to Britain.”
“I suppose that I am a very serious poet – except for satirical verse, which I have also been compelled to write, though much of it may be inferior to my more serious poems – perhaps because I am not playful enough by nature, and even my satirical or polemical verse is not entertaining.”