Author: Anster, John Martin
Biography:
ANSTER, John Martin (1793-1867: ODNB)
Poet and Jurist. Born to Catholics John Anster and Mary Ann Hiffernan at Charleville, Co. Cork, on 21 Oct. 1793, he entered Trinity College Dublin in 1810 and was granted a scholarship in 1814. He became a Protestant at TCD. His poem on the death of Princess Charlotte was awarded a college prize in 1819, and Anster included it in his publication of that year along with other poems and translations from a pamphlet he had printed but then suppressed in 1815. His 1820 translation of extracts from Goethe’s Faust, published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, was the first English version. He continued working on Faust until the end of his life, by which time he had translated both the first and second parts and written copious notes. In 1824, Anster was called to the Irish Bar and he obtained his Doctor of Laws a year later. He married Elizabeth Bennett in 1832, and they had two sons and three daughters. Anster served as Registrar to the High Court of Admiralty in Ireland and Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Dublin. Anster contributed extensively on both literary and political matters to the Dublin University Magazine and the North British Review. He died at Dublin on 9 June 1867. (ODNB 11 Jan. 2018; DIB 30 Jan. 2025) SR
Other Names:
- John Anster