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Walt Whitman and the Nibelungenlied
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Walt Whitman's interest in epic poetry bespoke his intention to become the bard of the masses. Whereas Shakespeare and Goethe had been epic poets of the aristocracy, Whitman envisaged himself as the poet of democracy. His work was to be the epic of the common man, and its style must be determinedly subjective. In 1856 Whitman wrote, “Leaves of Grass must be called not objective, but altogether subjective—‘I know’ runs through them as a perpetual refrain. Yet the great Greek poems, also the Teutonic poems, also Shakespeare and all the great masters have been objective, epic—they have all described characters, wars, heroes, etc.”
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1965
References
1 The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace L. Traubel, 10 vols. (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902), ix, 43. Hereafter cited as Works.
2 Henry A. Pochmann, German Culture in America. 1600–1900 (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1957), pp. 466 and 779–784 passim.
3 Pochmann, p. 467.
4 “Nibelungenlied,” Encyclopedia Americana, ed. Francis Lieber (Philadelphia: Lee & Blanchard, 1849), ix, 276–279.
5 Horace Traubel, “Round Table with Walt Whitman,” in In Re Walt Whitman, ed. Horace Traubel (Philadelphia: McKay, 1893), p. 323.
6 A few “selected” passages from the Nibelungenlied had been published here and there in English prior to Birch's translation. The most notable of these appeared in Henry Weber's Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (Edinburgh: Ballantyne, 1814), pp. 167–210. Both Carlyle and Gostwick were acquainted with Weber.
7 Robert P. Falk, “Walt Whitman and German Thought,” JEGP, xl (1941), 315–316.
8 Francis E. Sandbach, The Nibelungenlied and Gudrun in England and America (London, 1904), p. 39.
9 Sandbach, p. 46. Braunfels' edition appeared in 1846.
10 Whitman saw the American Edition of the Edinburgh Review, published in New York by Leonard Scott and Co., 1848.
11 C. C. Fauriel, Histoire de la poésie provençale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1846). M. l'Abbé De la Rue, Essais historiques sur les bardes, les jongleurs et les trouvères normands et anglonormands, 3 vols. (Caen, 1834). Arthur Dinaux, Les Trouvères cambresiens (Paris, 1837). A. W. v Schlegel, Observations sur la littérature provençale: Essais littéraires et historiques (Bonn, 1842). Friedrich Diez, Leben und Werke der Troubadours. Ein Beytrag zur näherer Kenntnisse des Mittelalters [sic] (Zwickau, 1829).
12 C. C. Fauriel, History of Provençal Poetry, trans. G. J. Adler (New York, 1860). Subscribers to this translation included such distinguished figures as Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, and Melville.
13 Isaac W. Dyer, A Bibliography of Thomas Carlyle's Writings and Ana (Portland, Maine, 1928), pp. 189, 196.
14 Sandbach, p. 85.
15 While some of Sandbach's criticism of Carlyle's translations are justified, his term “fantastic” (p. 86) is not. It did not occurr to Sandbach that Carlyle was translating from the 1820 Breslau edition of Von der Hagen, and not from Bartsch, as he suggested by comparing Bartsch's edition of the original with Carlyle's English version. Carlyle relied for much of his knowledge of the Heldenbuch on Weber (see n. 6). Weber's section on the Heldenbuch (pp. 45–166) immediately precedes his treatment of the Nibelungenlied, and in his brief introduction he compares the two.
16 Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Centennial Edition, 4 vols. (Boston, 1901), ii, 198.
17 Carlyle, p. 246.
18 Ibid.
19 Joseph Gost[w]ick, German Literature (Philadelphia: Lippincott and Gambro, 1854), pp. 18–31. In subsequent editions the name is spelled Gostwick. I shall use the latter spelling in this article.
20 See W. B. Fulghum, Jr, “Whitman's Debt to Joseph Gostwick,” American Literature, xii (1941), 491–496. Also Pochmann, pp. 778–789; Falk, pp. 315–330 passim, and Newton Arvin, Whitman (New York, 1938), p. 192.
21 Clarence Gohdes and Rollo G. Silver, eds., Faint Clews & Indirections (Durham, N.C., 1949), pp. 20–22.
22 Ellen Frances Frey, Catalogue of the Whitman Collection in the Duke University Library. Being a Part of the Trent Collection (Durham, N.C., 1945), p. 23.
23 Gohdes and Silver, p. 20.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid. Whitman had some difficulty with this paragraph; the manuscript contains several significant changes: “productions” has been substituted for “poems” in the first sentence, and in the last, “Some of” occurs (crossed out) before “The knights.”
26 Edinburgh Review (July 1848), pp. 8, 12. See n. 10 above.
27 Gohdes and Silver, p. 20.
28 Gohdes and Silver, pp. 21–22.
29 Gostwick, pp. 18–31, 31–32.
30 Gostwick, p. 21.
31 Gostwick, pp. 31–32.
32 Sandbach, p. 89.
33 Gostwick, pp. 30–31.
34 Several curious parallelisms occur between Gostwick's translation and Weber's, which strongly suggest that, although Gostwick generally translated from the original, he nonetheless had Weber's work at hand. The case of Hildebrand striking Kriemhild in the side appears also in Weber: “Grimly he struck his falchion all through the lady's side” (p. 209).
35 Cf. Weber's rendering of the same line: “Thus evermore does love, with pain and sorrow send” (p. 210).
36 See Pochmann, pp. 778–789 passim; also n. 20 above; Sister Mary Eleanor, “Hedge's Prose Writers of Germany as a Source of Whitman's Knowledge of German Philosophy,” MLN, lxi (1946), 381–388; David Goodale, “Some of Walt Whitman's Borrowings,” American Literature, x (May 1938), 202–213; Mody C. Boatright, “Whitman and Hegel,” Univ. of Texas Studies in English, ix (July 1929), pp. 146–147.
37 The Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman, ed. Emory Holloway, 2 vols. (New York, 1932), i, 242.
38 See Gay W. Allen, “Walt Whitman and Jules Michelet,” Études Anglaises, iii (May 1937), 1–8. I am indebted to Professor Allen for calling my attention to his article.
39 Gohdes and Silver, p. 20.
40 The many corrections, deletions, and additions in Whitman's manuscript suggest that he devoted considerable thought to the passage. See n. 25 above. Gohdes and Silver (p. 20) suggest that this fragment “may be the ‘running sketch’ which is mentioned but not printed in the ‘Notes and Fragments’” (Works, ix, 187). The passage to which they refer is merely another reworded extract from Gostwick. Gostwick (p. 19) writes: “Accordingly he [the Nibelungen poet] collected them [the ballads] and wrote connecting passages, which may be easily distinguished in some manuscripts. The ‘Nibelungen-Lied’ may therefore be regarded as a series of ballads belonging to several ages, but united so as to form one plot.” Whitman (Works, ix, 187) writes: “the ballads … were collected by this rhapsodist … and fused into one connected Epic The critics say they can tell the connecting passages; and they point to marked differences of style and contradictions. The Niebelungen is thus, by high authorities, stated to have been formed from ballads belonging to several ages … united upon the thread of one main plot.”
41 Frey, p. viii.
42 Falk, p. 319; Pochmann, p. 781; Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman: The Creation of a Book (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), p. 283.
43 [Joseph Gost[w]ick,] Hand-Book of German Literature (London and Edinburgh: W. and R. Chambers, 1849). Gostwick's name does not appear on the title page, but at the end of the preface he gives the initials “J. G.” (p. vi).
44 Joseph Gost[w]ick, The Spirit of German Poetry (London: Wm. Smith, 1845).
45 Gostwick, German Literature (1854), pp. 278–280.