The New International Encyclopædia/Donner, Johann Jakob Christian

DON′NER, Johann Jakob Christian (1799-1875). A German translator of the classic poets. He was born at Krefeld, and, after studying at Tübingen, was professor at Stuttgart from 1843 to 1852, when he resigned his professorship to devote himself entirely to literary labors. He rendered the works of the Greek and Roman poets into German, in their original metres. Among his translations are those of the satires of Juvenal (1821); Persius (1822); and the tragedies of Sophocles (1838-39, 11th ed. 1889). This work, his masterpiece, is still the basis for almost all the metrical translations of Sophocles. It was followed by translations of Euripides (1841-53); Æschylus (1854); the Iliad (1855-57); the Odissey (1858-59); Pindar (1860); and Aristophanes (1861). His translations of Terence (1864), Plautus (1864-65), and Quintus Smyrnæus (1866) were less successful.