Longtime UL professor, author Raffel dies

Longtime professor, author and translator Burton Raffel has passed away. He was 87.

Raffel’s career brought him to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he taught for more than a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s before retiring. In 2003, he retired and was named a professor emeritus in the university’s Department of English.

Raffel was perhaps best known for his translations of the classics “Beowulf” and “Don Quixote.” According to his UL website, he also was the author of “Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems,” “The Art of Translating Prose” and “Yankee Doric: America Before the Civil War.”

His teaching and research areas included comparative literature, modern fiction, prosody, linguistics, science and literature, according to his UL website.

“Burton was passionate about everything and one of the most knowledgeable people that I’ve ever known,” said Richard Cusimano, a close friend of Raffel’s and former dean of UL’s College of Liberal Arts. “More than just having an interest in literature, he was interested in world affairs and everything going on in the news.”

Cusimano said Raffel also was a frequent traveler and went to places around the globe, including a stint teaching English at universities in Indonesia, where he was a Fulbright lecturer.

At UL, Cusimano said Raffel taught undergraduate and graduate courses.

“He was a superb teacher. Students genuinely liked him,” Cusimano said. “He made the work very hard, and if anyone complained, it was because of the amount of work he gave them. But even with that, he was well-liked and extremely knowledgeable about literature.”

Raffel was fluent in several European languages, and could translate literary works from different eras. Cusimano said he also annotated several Shakespeare works, which became helpful for students and scholars across the country.

“It was just wonderful to have him here,” Cusimano said. “Having him on the faculty raised the reputation of the Department of English. He helped us establish a creative writing program. He was probably one of the best-known and most renowned translators in the United States, and it was a feather in the cap of UL to have him at our university.”

Funeral arrangements are pending. Martin and Castille Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.