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Fra
Red. af "For Ide og Virkelighed".
Kjøbenharn, d.
4 April 1873.
Dear Walt Whitman,
I have been in these last months as a haunted deer and still at present I have in many days not an only leisure-hour,
and all this business is not in your american mony -making way, though of the most cumbrous and toilsome sort.
"Democratic Vistas"1 have therefore not appeared in danish translation. The translation loc.01907.006_large.jpg into Danish of your prose is a very difficult task, and I dare not confide it to any
other than myself. But in the next half year the translation shall appear.
I have received to or three american papers from you;—of course you have duly received
from me a little selection of norwegian poetry in english translation? If my article
on you should appear in any american magazine, I should like to have sent a
copy.
"Northamerican Review"2
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Jan, has had an article
on Bj Bjornson3 by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen .4
I wonder, that Clemens Petersen5 who is an infinitely greater
talent has got no entrance into this periodical.
How is it with poor Clausen?6 I long to hear news from him and
from yourself.
Yours
Rudolf Schmidt
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Schmidt
Correspondent:
The Danish writer Peter Carl
Rudolf Schmidt (1836–1899) was the editor of the idealist journal For Idé og Virkelighed ("For Idea and Reality") and
had translated Whitman's Democratic Vistas into Danish in
1874.
Notes
- 1. Whitman's Democratic Vistas was first published in 1871 in New York by J.S. Redfield.
The volume was an eighty-four-page pamphlet based on three essays, "Democracy," "Personalism," and "Orbic Literature," all of which
Whitman intended to publish in the Galaxy magazine. Only "Democracy" and "Personalism" appeared in the magazine. For
more information on Democratic Vistas, see Arthur Wrobel, "Democratic Vistas [1871]," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 2. The North
American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States.
The journalist Charles Allen Thorndike Rice (1851–1889) edited and
published the magazine in New York from 1876 until his death. After Rice's
death, Lloyd Bryce became owner and editor. [back]
- 3. Björnstjerne Björnson (1832–1910),
Norwegian poet, dramatist, and novelist, was co-editor of Rudolf Schmidt's
journal. In his January 5, 1872, letter, Rudolf Schmidt observed: "Hans
Christian Andersen would perhaps not make you very great joy, if you did know
him personally. Björnson would be your man" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden, Thursday, February 7, 1889, 103). Schmidt later altered his opinion
of Björnson, writing at some length on February 28,
1874: "His poetry comes from the source that is throbbing in the
people's own heart. He has been the spoiled darling of the whole Danish public.
But he is a living test of the hideous and venomous serpent, that hides his ugly
head among the flowers of the pantheistic poetry. You have in your 'vistas'
spoken proud words of the flame of conscience, the moral force as the greatest
lack of the present democracy. You have, without knowing it, named the lack of
Björnson at the same time! Björnson owes Denmark gratitude. He has
shown it in the form of deep and bloody offences, that make every honest Danish
heart burn with rage and indignation." [back]
- 4. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848–1895) was a
Norwegian author who immigrated to the United States in 1869. Boyesen's article,
entitled "Björnstjerne Björnson as a Dramatist," was published in the
January 1873 edition of the North American Review, no.
238, 109–138. [back]
- 5. Clemens Petersen (1834–1918),
for ten years a critic for the Danish magazine "Fædrelandet" (Fatherland), left Denmark in 1869 amid police accusations of
homosexuality; accusations that Petersen was inappropriately involved with schoolchildren
were never proven. Petersen remained in the U.S. until 1904, when he returned to
Denmark. Petersen and Norwegian poet Björnstjerne Björnson
(1832–1910) engaged in a long correspondence, suggesting a
close friendship. Rudolf Schmidt pressed Walt
Whitman for his opinion of Petersen, as in his February
28, 1874, letter: "I have asked you at least two times how you did
like Clemens Petersen; you have not replied and most probably you wont speak of
this matter. If that is the case, I shall repeat the question no more." See Who's Who in Gay & Lesbian
History, ed. Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon (London:
Psychology Press, 2000), 2:55, 343; see also Carl Roos, "Walt Whitman's Letters to a Danish Friend,"
Orbis Litterarum, 7 (1949), 43n. [back]
- 6. Carl F. Clausen, who Rudolf Schmidt called "my old
friend and countryman," corresponded with Schmidt after he left Denmark in 1860.
See Carl Roos, "Walt Whitman's Letters to a Danish Friend," Orbis Litterarum,
7 (1949), 34–39. The Directory in 1870 listed him as a draughtsman and in 1872 as a patent agent. He
died of consumption in the middle 1870s. [back]