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Stuttgart Hölderlinst, 17
6–9–85
Dear Sir
I am sorry, that your prose & poetry is so very
little known in Germany & I would be glad, to edit a volume with a fine choice
from your works. After Freiligraths death1 I know of no
countryman of mine, who would be able to give a good translation of your poetry.
Perhaps you know of a german friend, who would like & be able, do do the
translation? You would very much oblige me, by letting me know, the adress of such a
man,—he may be in the U. S or in Germany.
With the sincerest wishes for you I remain
yours truly
R. LUTZ, Redakteur
Rob. Lutz
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Correspondent:
Robert Lutz was a publisher
and editor from Stuttgart, Germany. He owned the Robert Lutz publishing house
and was the editor of the renowned literary journal Das
Litterarische Echo.
Notes
- 1. Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810–1876) was a German
poet and translator and friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In his January 16, 1872 letter to Rudolf Schmidt, Whitman
wrote that Freiligrath "translates & commends my poems." Freiligrath's review in the
Augsburg Allgemeinen Zeitung on April 24, 1868 (reprinted
in his Gesammelte Dichtungen [Stuttgart: G. J.
Göschen, 1871], 4:86–89), was among the first notices of Whitman's
poetry on the continent. A translation of the article appeared in the New Eclectic Magazine, 2 (July 1868), 325–329; see
also Gay Wilson Allen, Walt Whitman Abroad (Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1955), 3–7. A digital version is available in
Walter Grünzweig's "Whitman in the German-Speaking Countries," which collects numerous
examples of German reception of Whitman's poetry. Freiligrath had promised his
readers "some translated specimens of the poet's productions," not a complete
translation. A sympathetic article on Whitman in the New York Sonntagsblatt of November 1, 1868, mentioned Freiligrath's admiration
for the American poet. A translation of this article, which Whitman had a
Washington friend prepare, is now in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection. [back]