Camden, N.J.
April 8, '89
The enclosed was brought this morning by the carrier. Suppose you received some
copies of the "Grashalme,"1 as I did from Rolleston.2
Am still laid up here by disablement and paralysis—am confined entirely to my
room and mostly to my chair. I received your acknowledgment of the big book
"Complete Works."3
Dr. Bucke4 is well—hard at work managing the big Insane
Asylum at London, Ontario, Canada. My dear friend O'Connor5 is
very ill at Washington. Am sitting here in big arm chair (with great wolf skin
spread back) as I write—raw dark day—keep up pretty good spirits.
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Karl Knortz
(1841–1918) was born in Prussia and came to the U.S. in 1863. He was the
author of many books and articles on German-American affairs and was
superintendent of German instruction in Evansville, Ind., from 1892 to 1905. See
The American-German Review 13 (December 1946),
27–30. His first published criticism of Whitman appeared in the New York
Staats-Zeitung Sonntagsblatt on December 17, 1882,
and he worked with Thomas W. H. Rolleston on the first book-length translation
of Whitman's poetry, published as Grashalme in 1889. For
more information about Knortz, see Walter Grünzweig, "Knortz, Karl (1841–1918)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).
Notes
- 1. Whitman is referring to Grashalme, the German translation of Leaves of Grass by Karl Knortz and Thomas W. Rolleston. The poet
received his copies on February 25, 1889. See his letter of February 25, 1889, to William Sloane
Kennedy. [back]
- 2. 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). [back]
- 3. Knortz's acknowledgment is
not extant. Whitman is referring to his Complete Poems &
Prose (David McKay, 1888). Traubel records the poet's first reactions
to the new book in Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in
Camden, Wednesday, January 23, 1889. Also, on January
23, Whitman wrote to Bucke: "a handsome substantial volume—not
that I am overwhelmed or even entirely satisfied by it, but as I had not put my
calculations high & was even expecting to be disappointed, I shall accept
it." [back]
- 4. Richard Maurice Bucke (1837–1902) was a
Canadian physician and psychiatrist who grew close to Whitman after reading Leaves of Grass in 1867 (and later memorizing it) and
meeting the poet in Camden a decade later. Even before meeting Whitman, Bucke
claimed in 1872 that a reading of Leaves of Grass led him
to experience "cosmic consciousness" and an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
Bucke became the poet's first biographer with Walt
Whitman (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), and he later served as one
of his medical advisors and literary executors. For more on the relationship of
Bucke and Whitman, see Howard Nelson, "Bucke, Richard Maurice," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
- 5. William Douglas O'Connor
(1832–1889) was the author of the grand and grandiloquent Whitman pamphlet
The Good Gray Poet: A Vindication, published in 1866.
For more on Whitman's relationship with O'Connor, see Deshae E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas (1832–1889)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]