Athanasius Diedrich Wackerbarth

Athanasius Francis Diedrich Wackerbarth (30 January 1813 – 10 June 1884) was a translator and hymnwriter, but he is known especially for his 1849 translation of Beowulf. While working at the Astronomical Observatory in Uppsala, Sweden, he published several papers on astronomy.

Biography

Early life Francis Diedrich Wackerbarth was born into a German family; his grandfather, George Wackerbarth moved to the East End of London in 1752 and founded a sugar refinery. Francis's father John Henry Wackerbarth took on the refinery; he died in 1818, leaving ten children. Francis Diedrich was chosen to be educated for the Church of England clergy at Laing's school, Clapham, and then at Queens' College, Cambridge. He gained his B.A. in 1835. taking the baptismal name Athanasius.

Wackerbarth took an interest in astronomy, and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1849.

Beowulf translation

Wackerbarth's translation of Beowulf followed the familiar Victorian era convention of Walter Scott-like romance language with "Liegeman true" and "princely Wight", and using rhyme and modern metre (iambic tetrameters) in place of any attempt to imitate the Old English alliterative metre. Here, the Danish watchman challenges Beowulf and his men as they arrive at Heorot:

+ Wackerbarth's archaic, but not Anglo-Saxon, diction Beowulf 331–337 Wackerbarth's 1849 romance verse ... | þā ðǣr wlonc hæleð ōretmecgas | æfter æþelum frægn: 'Hwanon ferigeað gē | fǣtte scyldas, grǣge syrcan, | ond grīmhelmas, heresceafta hēap ? | Ic eom Hrōðgāres ār ond ombiht. | Ne seah ic elþēodige þus manige men | mōdiglīcran.' A Hero proud, of th' valiant Men: 'Whence bring ye solid Shields away. And Helmets grim, and Hawberks grey. And Sheaf of spears ? I pray explain,— I Hróth-gár's Herald am and Thane:— And Strangers have I never seen So many of so noble Mien.'

Family life

In 1859 he married Kristina Lovisa Ekman, daughter of a Swedish priest; they had no children. He died suddenly on 10 June 1884, and was buried in Uppsala.