EXETER, N.H. – Dain Atwood Trafton, 84, died in Exeter, New Hampshire, on Aug. 25, 2023. He was born on Sept. 22, 1938, in Lewiston, Maine, the son of Stephen D. and Eloise A. Trafton. He grew up on Wood Street, just off the Bates College campus, and attended Lewiston schools and then Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was the president of the class of 1956 and a member of the varsity football, hockey, and lacrosse teams. He graduated magna cum laude in English from Harvard in 1961, and received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968.

Trafton had a long career as a college English professor, initially at Dartmouth College and then, for 24 years, at Rockford College, in Rockford, Illinois. He is remembered gratefully by countless students to whom he introduced Milton, Shakespeare, and other great writers. He also served in various administrative roles, including a year as the director of Dartmouth’s program in France, and four years as the academic dean of Regent’s College in London. He was the author of many scholarly articles and two books, and the co-editor of a book of essays. He was particularly interested in the 16th -century Italian poet Torquato Tasso, and made the first English translations of a number of Tasso’s dialogues (with co-author Carnes Lord). He was awarded numerous academic honors, including a fellowship at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti center in Florence, Italy.

Trafton spent most of the last 25 years of his life in Phillips, Maine, close to trout fishing, hiking, and skiing, and where he worked on both scholarly writing and short stories and poetry. He dedicated a great portion of his retirement to conservation; he served on the Phillips planning board, and was a key leader in a grassroots effort to protect the local “high peaks” and Appalachian Trail from large-scale energy development. He loved northern New England’s woods and mountains; some of his earliest and fondest memories were of skiing down David’s Mountain in Lewiston on winter evenings before dinner, and it was not a coincidence that he was skiing, eighty years later, when a fall brought his outdoor pursuits to an end.

Trafton greatly loved, and was loved by, his family. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Vera (Hagemann) of Exeter, N.H., daughter Mary of Montpelier, Vt., son Stephen and daughter-in-law Melissa of Hopkinton, N.H., grandchildren Mary, Frances, and Elizabeth, brother Thomas Trafton of Augusta, sister Jennifer Nomura of Berkeley, Calif., and three generations of extended family members.

Burial will take place on September 30 at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Auburn, Maine.

Arrangements are by the Stockbridge Funeral Home, Exeter, N.H.

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