John Payne (23 August 1842 – 11 February 1916[1]) was an English poet and translator. Initially he pursued a legal career and had associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing and the Villon Society.
John Payne | |
|---|---|
 A photograph of John Payne, 1904 | |
| Born | 23 August 1842 Bloomsbury, London, England |
| Died | 11 February 1916 (aged 73) South Kensington, London, England |
| Occupation | Poet, translator, solicitor |
He is now best known for his translations of Boccaccio's Decameron,[2] The Arabian Nights and the Diwan Hafez.
After completing his translation of Omar Khayyam, Payne returned to the rendition of Hafez that was eventually published in 3 volumes. in 1901. Payne argues that Hafez takes the "whole sweep of human experience and irradiates all things with his sun-gold and his wisdom".[3]
Payne once said that Hafez, Dante and Shakespeare were the three greatest poets of the world.[1]
Archives
editPapers of John Payne are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.[4]
Works
edit- The Masque of Shadows and other poems (1870)
- Intaglios; sonnets (1871)
- Songs of Life and Death. (1872)
- Lautrec: A Poem (1878)
- The Poems of François Villon.(1878)
- New Poems (1880)
- The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (1882–4) translation in nine volumes
- Tales from the Arabic (1884)
- The Novels of Matteo Bandello, Bishop of Agen (1890) translation in six volumes
- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (1886) translation in three volumes
- Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein Ul Asnam and The King of the Jinn: (1889) editor and translator
- The Persian Letters of Montesquieu (1897) translator
- The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nisahpour (1898)
- Poems of Master François Villon of Paris (1900)
- The Poems of Shemseddin Muhammed Hafiz of Shiraz (1901): translation in three volumes
- Oriental Tales: The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night [and other tales]. (1901) verse and prose translation in 15 volumes, edited by Leonard C. Montesquieu Smithers
- The Descent of the Dove and other poems (1902)
- Poetical Works (1902) two volumes
- Stories of Boccaccio (1903)
- Vigil and Vision: New Sonnets (1903)
- Hamid the Luckless and other tales in verse (1904)
- Songs of Consolation: New Poems (1904)
- Sir Winfrith and other poems (1905)
- Selections from the Poetry of John Payne (1906) selected by Tracy and Lucy Robinson
- Flowers of France: Romantic Period (1906)
- Flowers of France, The Renaissance Period (1907)
- The Quatrains of Ibn et Tefrid (1908, second edition 1921)
- Flowers of France: the Latter Days (1913)
- Flowers of France: The Classic Period (1914)
- The Way of the Winepress (1920)
- Nature and Her Lover (1922)
- The Autobiography of John Payne of Villon Society Fame, Poet and Scholar (1926)
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ a b Wright, Thomas (1919), The Life of John Payne, T. Fisher Unwin, retrieved 30 July 2011
- ^ "Review of The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio translated by John Payne, illustrated by Louis Chalon, 1893 ..." The Quarterly Review. 188: 473–493. October 1898.
- ^ "The John Payne Society". johnpaynesociety.org. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
- ^ "UoB Calmview5: Search results". calmview.bham.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
External links
edit- Works by John Payne at Project Gutenberg
- Works by John Payne at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by or about John Payne at the Internet Archive
- Arabian nights (Volume 1–13), translated by John Payne can be found online at the Internet Archive