Life
1793-1867 [John Martin Anster]; b. Charleville, Co. Cork, and educated
TCD, schol. 1814; converted from Catholicism to the Church of Ireland;
winner of Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize; grad. BA, 1816; bar, 1824;
contrib. prose essays in North British Review and 28 poems to
the Amulet (1826); and eventually became Regius Professor of Civil
Law at TCD, having held office as registrar of the Admiralty Court, from
1837; first trans. of Goethe’s Faust, of which extracts appeared
in Blackwood’s in 1820 and the first part, as Faust: A Dramatic
Mystery, in book-form in 1835, the second part appearing in 1864;
his lyric "The Fairy Child" was included in Charles Gavan Duffy’s
Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1845); wrote entries for James Will’s
Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen; contrib. poems and articles
to the Dublin University Magazine, 1837-56, including an essay
on Schiller (Dublin University Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 37; Jan.
1856); wrote on Irish Question in North British Review, 1847 onwards;
published Study of Roman Civil Law (1851); contrib. to James Wills’
Illustrious Irishmen; Civil List pension; d. 9 June; called ‘the
unapproachable translator of the great master’ by Freeman Wills in
biog. of his br. W. G. Wills; Faustus kept up in Germ. Tauchnitz
Series (Leipniz 1867); the Cassell edn. was illustrated by Harry Clarke
(Harrap 1991; rep. 1985). CAB DNB TAY RAF DIW DIB
MKA OCIL DIL
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Works
Ode to Fancy, with Other Poems (Dublin: Milliken 1815); Lines
on the Death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales
[... &c.] (Dublin: R. Milliken; London: Longman 1818) [pamph.]; Poems
with Some Translations from the German (Dublin: R. Milliken; London:
Cadell & Davies; Edinburgh: Blackwood 1819); trans. of Goethe’s Faust
(1820); Xeniola (1824); Faust (London: Harrap 1925); trans.,
Faustus: A Dramatic Mystery; The Bride of Connth; The First Walpurgis
Night, ‘translated by J.A.’ (London: Longman 1835); Xeniola:
Poems including Translations from Schiller and de la Motte-Fouqué
(Dublin: R. Milliken 1837); Charles Gavan Duffy, ed. Ballad Poetry
of Ireland (1845) [includes Anster’s lyric “The Fairy Child”];
Introductory Lecture on the Study of the Roman Civil Law (Dublin:
Hodges & Smith 1850) [var. 1851]; ‘Schiller’, Dublin University
Magazine, Vol. VII, No. 37 (Jan. 1856); Faustus: The Second Part,
from the German of Goethe (London: Longman 1864); ‘German Literature
at the Close of the Last Century and the Commencement of the Present’,
in Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art (Dublin: Hodges &
Smith; London: Bell & Daldy 1864), pp.151-95.
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- James Mangan, ‘Goethe’s posthumous works, in Dublin University Magazine, Vol. II (Oct. 1833), pp.361-85;
- James Mangan, review of Faust, 'Anthologica Germanica V: Faust, and the Minor Poems of Goethe', Dublin University Magazine, Vol. VII (March 1836), pp.278-302;
- James Mangan, ‘Anster’s Translation of Faust’, Dublin University Magazine, Vol. VI (July 1835), pp.96-118;
- James Clarence Mangan, The Irishman (21 April 1849), [infra];
- Charles Gavan Duffy, editorial notice to "The Fairy Child", Ballad Poetry of Ireland (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), p.59 [infra];
- W. R. Le Fanu, Seventy Years of Irish Life (London: Edward Arnold 1894) [infra];
- Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, Vol. 1 (1980), pp.43, 159, 302;
- Joseph Spence, ‘"The Great Angelic Sin": The Faust Legend in Irish Literature, 1820-1900’, Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, Vol 1, No. 2 (Autumn 1994), pp.47-58, espec. pp.51-54;
- Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996) [infra];
- Irish Book Lover, Vol. 2.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)