[I approve of your attempt to translate certain of my poems into the German tongue. Indeed, arrogant as the statement may seem, I had more than my own native land in view when I was composing Leaves of Grass. I wished to take the first step toward calling into existence a cycle of international poems. The chief reason for being of the United States of America is to bring about the common good will of all mankind, the solidarity of the world. What is still lacking in this respect can perhaps be accomplished by the art of poetry, through songs radiating from all the lands of the globe. I had also in mind, as one of my objects, to send a hearty greeting to these lands in America's name. And glad, very glad, should I be to gain entrance and audience among the Germanic peoples.]2
Correspondent:
Thomas William Hazen Rolleston
(1857–1920) was an Irish poet and journalist. After attending college in
Dublin, he moved to Germany for a period of time. He wrote to Whitman
frequently, beginning in 1880, and later produced with Karl Knortz the first
book-length translation of Whitman's poetry into German. In 1889, the collection
Grashalme: Gedichte [Leaves of
Grass: Poems] was published by Verlags-Magazin in Zurich, Switzerland.
See Walter Grünzweig, Constructing the German Walt Whitman (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1995). For more information on Rolleston, see
Walter Grünzweig, "Rolleston, Thomas William Hazen (1857–1920)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D.
Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).