‘Sharing the world,’ Franklin discovers early Whitman translations

Home Culture ‘Sharing the world,’ Franklin discovers early Whitman translations
‘Sharing the world,’ Franklin discovers early Whitman translations
Assistant Professor of English Kelly Scott Franklin discovered a Spanish translation of Whitman. Courtesy | Kelly Scott Franklin

“Each sharing the earth with all,” ends the first verse of Walt Whitman’s “Salut au Monde,” a poem that celebrates global equality. Virtues such as this brought Whitman beyond the U.S. border to share his ideas with the earth even during his lifetime.

Assistant Professor of English Kelly Scott Franklin contributed a piece to the timeline of Whitman translations in August, when he announced his discovery of the earliest substantial translation of Whitman’s poetry into Spanish in an essay published in the University of Iowa’s Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. His discovery marks Whitman as an influential figure in the futurist literary movement in Spanish-speaking nations.

Franklin, who has his doctorate in English and a master’s degree in Spanish, came across a 15-page translation of eight Whitman poems, including the lengthy “Salut au Monde,” in the Spanish literary and cultural journal Prometeo while researching his dissertation on how Latin-American culture had interpreted the 19th-century poet’s works. He said he did not realize it was the earliest, however, until the summer of 2016 when he began pursuing “agonizing” research to ensure his assertion was correct.

“Whitman has a universal appeal, and he has something to say that is universally true in how it applies and is gripping in all cultures, in all languages,” Franklin said. “His insistence on human equality is a timeless truth. His love of creation, the goodness of the human body, even the transcendent beauty that is in nature, these are things that human beings think universally, know deep down, or we recognize to be true.”

Published in the first of 11 issues of Prometeo in 1912, the poems would have begun circulation in either January or February. “Walt Whitman: Poemas,” originally thought to be the first major Spanish translation, has an introduction from its author, Uruguayan writer Armando Vasseur, dated February 1912, which suggests publication later that year.

Although Franklin’s discovery does not alter the timeline of when Whitman’s poems began being translated into Spanish by much, their appearance in Prometeo, which began as a journal for radical and unorthodox works, demonstrates his influence on Italian futurist literature in Spain and Latin America, Franklin argued in his essay.

“It is partly from this marriage of Prometeo and Futurism that a new Whitman — an avant-garde Whitman — is born into the Spanish-speaking world,” Franklin wrote.

Additionally, the journal’s selection of poems and the translation’s word choice suggest more modern appeals, Franklin said. For example, Prometeo editor Ramón Gómez de la Serna translates “hardly” to “speedily” — “velozmente” — which carries futurist connotations.

“Whitman’s voice motivates people,” Franklin said. “‘I celebrate myself.’ Right away, we’re listening. There’s an assertiveness there that’s fascinating, somebody who has a confident poetic voice. They liked that.”

In historical context, the avant-garde writers who adopted Whitman may not be too far off, said Professor of English Christopher Busch, who also studied Whitman in graduate school. At his time, iambic pentameter was still the dominant form of poetry, but Whitman’s free verse opened the way for other writers such as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound.

“He was revolutionary in what he undertook,” Busch said. “I think he was a profoundly influential and ground-breaking figure.”

Even before Whitman was translated into Spanish, however, he was already an influential voice in Latin America. After Cuban poet and journalist José Martí heard Whitman speak in New York in 1887, his ideas spread throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Ed Folsom, editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and professor of English at the University of Iowa, said translations of Whitman often reflect the traditions of the language and culture.

“In some cultures, like China and Russia, he is often read as a proto-socialist poet, a poet of the working class, and thus very much a political poet,” Folsom said. “In India, however, he is still often read as a kind of Western yoga master, a poet who brought Hindu mysticism into the American vernacular, and thus more of a religious than a political writer…Kelly is building upon and adding to the long tradition of tracing Whitman’s influence outside of Anglophone cultures, and he is showing how Spanish-speaking countries have absorbed Whitman’s work in a variety of increasingly complex ways.”

Franklin’s find comes following discoveries by Zachary Turpin, a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston, of two book-length works from Whitman published in 2016 and early 2017.

“My own discovery is quite a humble one,” Franklin said. “This is an incredibly exciting time to be a Whitmanist.”