Lot 344

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Lot 344
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Walt Whitman ALS: "Am preparing an edition of Leaves Of Grass… getting along … better + gayer heart than you might suppose" to Gabriel Sarrazin, French poet and translator
Walt Whitman ALS: "Am preparing an edition of Leaves Of Grass… getting along … better + gayer heart than you might suppose" to Gabriel Sarrazin, French poet and translator
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Walt Whitman ALS: "Am preparing an edition of Leaves Of Grass… getting along … better + gayer heart than you might suppose" to Gabriel Sarrazin, French poet and translator

ALS postcard, 5" x 3", includes three postmarks "Paris / 16 Mai / 89", "Camden / May 4/ 89" with the third being illegible. Signed by Walt Whitman as "Walt Whitman". Boldly scripted with strong contrast entirely in his own hand. Appears to have been forwarded as the card maintains a postmark from Paris, but was ultimately readdressed with an over- stamp to London, England. Front slight discoloration from being in an album, with verso maintaining a few small spots of smeared ink, else near fine.

Whitman's letter reflects on his infamous poem, Leaves of Grass in addition to noting his severe deteriorating health which plagued Whitman his entire life. Letter in full:

"Camden New Jersey US America May 4, '89-The book "Poesie Anglaise" safely rec'd - thanks + thanks again. I am still laid up here lame and paralyzed - kept in for a year but getting along (as we call it) better + gayer heart than you might suppose. Am preparing an edn of Leaves of Grass to be put in pocket book binding with fuller text + shall send you one when ready. For this time I send loving wishes + an old fellow's benison. Walt Whitman"

Called America's first "poet of democracy", a name for Whitman which reflected his ability to write in a singularly American character. Among the most influential US poets, often called the "father of free verse", his work was very controversial, particularly "Leaves of Grass" (1855) which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. He worked as a government clerk and as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War. "Leaves of Grass", published with his own money, was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death. There is a distinct contrast between Whitman's idealized notions of the human body as expressed in his literary work and the actual state of his health as it evolved over the course of his life. The many revisions of Leaves of Grass did not so much parallel his decline in health as much as reinforce his original conception of the natural human being as the divine reflection of the cosmos. Over time this idea as an essential theme of his work began to take precedence over others, serving as both his conception of America's unique characteristic as a people and the archetype of his own self-created myth for the model of healthy masculinity.

As a consequence, the health-imbued persona of mythic proportions he projected in his work fused with new and various aspects of his self-created image as healer in each newly revised edition of the work. Harold Aspiz believes the first three editions of Leaves of Grass illustrate a merger of what he terms the "fact and invention" of Whitman's self-portrayal as the self-endowed symbol of his own magnificent body. His image as "one of the roughs" in the first edition transforms in the second into a magnetic "folk-evangelist," in the third into a "reincarnated Adam" ready to bear healthy children, and in the fourth into the "healer-camerado." With each new edition, the body of the poet is used less and less as a metaphor for the physical vitality that was integral to his philosophy. By the time of this letter, Whitman was already partially paralyzed. Whitman spent his last years in Camden, New Jersey. As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of "Leaves of Grass", the "Deathbed Edition;" he died in 1892, about 3 years after he penned this postcard to Sarrazin.

Sarrazin had just sent him a copy of his "Whitman" article, in January 1889, which Whitman promptly arranged to have William Sloane Kennedy translate. When Whitman read Kennedy s translation, he immediately recognized the importance of the Sarrazin piece. This postcard, dated May 1889, was written shortly after their mutual correspondence: "I don't think anything nobler has been anywhere said about Leaves of Grass, he told Traubel". To Whitman, Sarrazin seemed "fundamentally to have entered into the ideals, methods, upon which, if upon anything, we have built, staked our fortunes. " Whitman arranged to publish Sarasin's article. Although the article would be printed and distributed among Whitman's inner circle of friends, however, it was not until after his death that a translation of the article by Harrison Morris would be published in In Re Walt Whitman (1893).Themes of sex and sexuality have dominated Leaves of Grass from the very beginning and have shaped the course of the book's reception. The first edition in 1855 contained what were to be called "Song of Myself," "The Sleepers," and "I Sing the Body Electric," which are "about" sexuality (though of course not exclusively) throughout. From the very beginning, Whitman wove together themes of "manly love" and "sexual love," with great emphasis on intensely passionate attraction and interaction, as well as bodily contact (touch, embrace) in both. Simultaneously in sounding these themes, he equated the body with the soul, and defined sexual experience as essentially spiritual experience. He very early adopted two phrenological terms to discriminate between the two relationships: "amativeness" for man-woman love and "adhesiveness" for "manly love." Although Whitman did not in the 1855 Preface call direct attention to this element in his work, in one of his anonymous reviews of his book ("Walt Whitman and His Poems," 1855) he wrote of himself and the 1855 Leaves: "The body, he teaches, is beautiful. Sex is also beautiful. . . . Sex will not be put aside; it is a great ordination of the universe. He works the muscle of the male and the teeming fiber of the female throughout his writings, as wholesome realities, impure only by deliberate intention and effort" (Poetry and Prose 535). In subsequent editions of Leaves, Whitman revised and shifted his poems of amativeness and adhesiveness, but by and large his dominant themes became not the body but the soul, not youth but old age—and death. His experience in the Civil War hospitals seems to have provided a turning point for Whitman's focus. This incredible letter/postcard demonstrating Whitman's staunch perseverance to ignore the short comings of his long term health issues and clearly notes his phenomenal eternal positive energy he had for life. A fantastic piece.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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