John Payne (poet)

This article is about the English poet and translator. For the American poet and songwriter, see John Howard Payne.

John Payne (1842-1916), from Selections from the Poetry of John Payne, 1906. Courtesy Internet Archive.

John Payne (August 23, 1842 - February 11, 1916) was an English poet and translator.

Life

Payne in 1904, from The Life of John Payne (1919). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Payne was from Devon. Initially he pursued a legal career, and associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon Society.

He is best known for his translation of the Diwan Hafez, and praises Hafez as the greatest poet of the world. He is also known for his translations of The Arabian Nights and Boccaccio's Decameron.

Writing

The Dictionary of Literary Biography says that Payne's "own poems, most of them written in the 1870s, ranged from ballads to sonnets to bizarre dramatic monologues and showed impressive ingenuity in versification and imagery." However, through his career "his poems failed to progress beyond their Pre-Raphaelite models in subject, mood, or language. The blast of originality never came that could have lifted Payne's work to a level with that of Dante Gabriel Rossetti or A.C. Swinburne."

Recognition

He was survived by a John Payne Society.

Publications

John Payne, New Poems, 1880. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Poetry

• The Masque of Shadows, and other poems. London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1870; London: W.H. Allen, 1884. 
• Intaglios: Sonnets London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1871. 
• Songs of Life and Death. London: Henry S. King, 1872. 
• Lautrec: A poem. London: Pickering, 1878; London: J.W. Allen, 1884. 
• New Poems. London: Newman, 1880. 
• Poetical Works. (2 volumes), London: Villon Society, 1902. Volume I, Volume II. 
• The Descent of the Dove, and other poems: Being a supplement to the poetical works of John Payne. London: privately printed, 1902.
• Vigil and Vision: New sonnets. London: Villon Society, 1903. 
• Hamid the Luckless, and other tales in verse. London: David Nutt, 1904. 
• Songs of Consolation: New poems. London: Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1904. 
• Sir Winfrith, and other poems . Olney, Buckinghamshire, UK: Thomas Wright, 1905.
• Selections from the Poetry of John Payne (selected by Tracy & Lucy Robinson). New York: John Lane, 1906.
• Carol and Cadence: New poems MDCCCCII-MDCCCCVII. London: Villon Society, 1908. 
• Flower o' the Thorn: A book of wayside verse. London: Villon Society, 1909. 
• The Way of the Winepress: Selected poems. Olney, Buckinghamshire, UK: John Payne Society, 1920. 

Non-fiction

• The Autobiography of John Payne of Villon Society Fame: Poet and scholar. Olney, UK: Thomas Wright, 1926.

Translated

• François Villon, The Poems of Master Francis Villon of Paris. Villon Society, 1878.
  • revised as The Poems of Master Francois Villon of Paris. London: Reeves & Turner, 1881.
  • revised edition. Portland, ME: Thomas B. Mosher, 1909.
  • abridged as Francois Villon, Poems. New York: Modern Library, 1918.
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (9 volumes), 1882. (Arabian Nights Volume I, Volume II, Volume III , Volume IV, Volume V, Volume VI, Volume VII, Volume VIII, Volume IX.)
• Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta. New York: R. Worthington, 1884. (Arabian Nights Volume X, Volume XI, Volume XII)
• Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron. (3 volumes), London: Villon Society, 1886
  • London: Bibliopholist Society, 1903; New York: Blue Ribbon Society, 1931; Cleveland, OH: World Publishing, 1947; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.
  • abridged as Tales from Boccaccio. Boston: Stratford, 1918.
• Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp; Zein Ul Asnam and The King of the Jinn: Two stories done into English from the recently discovered Arabic text. London: privately printed, 1901. (Arabian Nights Volume XIII).
• The Persian Letters of Montesquieu (1897) translator
• The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nisahpour (1898)
• The Poems of Hafiz (1901)
• Oriental Tales: The Book of the Thousand and One Nights [and other tales]. (1verse and prose translation in 15 volumes, edited by Leonard C. Montesquieu Smithers). London: Athenaeum, 1901.
• Stories of Boccaccio (1903)
• Flowers of France: The Romantic Period: Hugo to Leconte de Lisle. London: Villon Society, 1906. Volume I, Volume II
• Flowers of France: The Renaissance Period. London: Villon Society, 1907.
• Heinrich Heine, Poetical Works: Now first completely rendered into English verse; in accordance with the original forms. London: Villon Society, 1911. 
• Flowers of France: the Latter Days: Ackermann to Warnery. London: Villon Society, 1913. 
• Flowers of France: The Classic Period (1914)
• The Quatrains of Ibn et Tefrid. Olney, Buckinghamshire, UK: John Payne Society, 1921. 
• The book of François Villon: The little testament and ballads translated into English verse by Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Payne.. Boston: International Pocket Library, 1931.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• 3 poems by Payne: "J.B. Corot," "False February," "June"
• Payne in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "Cadences," "Sibyl," "Thorgerda," "Love's Autumn," "Song's End"
• Payne, John at Representative Poetry Online (8 poems)
• John Payne at Poets' Corner.
• John Payne at PoemHunter (15 poems)
• John Payne at Poetry Nook (427 poems & translations)

Books

• Works by John Payne at Project Gutenberg
• Works by John Payne at Internet Archive
• John Payne 1842-1916 at Amazon.com
• Bibliography of John Payne

About

• The Life of John Payne, by Thomas Wright
• John Payne Society