431 Stevens Street Camden New Jersey1
Sept: 11 '83
In a note rec'd from you quite a while ago (from Johnstown, Pa: ) you mention some German translations of my poems by Dr ?2 at Berlin (since dead)—Would you please give me
the Dr's name exactly—& some particulars ab't the translations? Did you get Dr. Bucke's volume, which was sent you
June 21, last? I have received the translations into German, (slips, papers,
&c) you have so kindly sent me from time to time3—have not (otherwise) heard from you for some four months—I continue
(though a half paralytic) well as usual—
Walt Whitman
Notes
- 1. This letter is addressed:
Karl Knortz | Cor: Morris avenue | & 155th Street | New York City. It is
postmarked: Philadelphia | Pa. | Sep 11 83 | 3 PM; P. O. | 9-(?)-83 | (?)-1P |
N.Y. [back]
- 2. Whitman's question mark.
In his reply, dated September 14 by Whitman,
Knortz wrote that Dr. Adolf Stodtmann (1829–1879) had translated eight of
Whitman's "smaller poems" in Amerikanische Anthologie
(Leipzig, 1870), 149–154: "the late Doctor did not, I am very sorry to
say, give you a favorable introduction to the German public." Knortz also
informed the poet that in his "critical history of American literature . . . a
whole chapter (about 20 printed pages) will be devoted to your poetry." This
book, Geschichte der Nord-Amerikanischen Literatur, did
not appear until 1891. [back]
- 3. See the letter from
Whitman to Knortz of June 19, 1883. [back]