The First Translations of Walt Whitman’S Leaves of Grass Into Catalan, French and Spanish: the Special Case of Cebrià Montoliu
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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Departament de Traducció, Interpretació i Estudis d’Asia Oriental THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF WALT WHITMAN’S LEAVES OF GRASS INTO CATALAN, FRENCH AND SPANISH: THE SPECIAL CASE OF CEBRIÀ MONTOLIU TESIS DOCTORAL AUTORA A Kaiser DIRECTOR Francesc Parcerisas i Vázquez Departament de Traducció, Interpretació i Estudis d’Asia Oriental Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Bellaterra, June 2017 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Departament de Traducció, Interpretació i Estudis d’Asia Oriental THE FIRST TRANSLATIONS OF WALT WHITMAN’S LEAVES OF GRASS INTO CATALAN, FRENCH AND SPANISH: THE SPECIAL CASE OF CEBRIÀ MONTOLIU DOCTORAL THESIS PRESENTED by A Kaiser DIRECTED by Francesc Parcerisas i Vázquez Signature of the Author Signature of the Director Bellaterra, June 2017 To Cebrià Montoliu and his discreet yawp for the utopia of a democratic world. THANKS I would first of all like to thank my thesis advisor, Francesc Parcerisas, poet, translator and Professor Emeritus at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He has been a wise and patient guide throughout this multifarious adventure. Eternally inquisitive, he has been interested in what I have been discovering, encouraging me along the way. His knowledge of Catalan history and culture is tremendous and both his facts and often wry opinions on matters, shared with me where we would often meet, in the courtyard at the Ateneu, helped me keep in mind something which is important in daily life as well as in historical research, that is, that the past is many things, including an older version of the present! It was also a pleasure to work with someone who would take the time to meet me on the corner of Diagonal and Passeig de Gracia one morning to pass off to me a power drill - for building more bookshelves, of course. Endless thanks to the librarians who helped me with this multi-national research project Cebrià Montoliu led me on: from Barcelona to Madrid to Paris to New York, Boston, Fairhope, Kansas City, and, yes, Albuquerque. Despite the physical distance between us, their love for knowledge – and its organization – as well as an innate sleuthing instinct, had them assisting me in unexpectedly generous ways. I was able to discover along with them so much on Montoliu and his world, to say nothing of new avenues of research, both technologically hot off the press and old school. Montoliu, himself a librarian and detailed-oriented archivist would be pleased with their efforts, their sense of knowledge being a publicly-held resource and their dissemination of both the facts and good will. Additionally, I would not be here today were it not also for the treasure trove on all things Whitman, and then some, that is The Walt Whitman Archive. To colleagues and friends who were there for me, who might have had some doctoral hints to help clear my path; who invited me to email and in-person conversations on my topic, or theirs, and related subject matter; who shared their love of learning with me; who knew a rare and used book bookseller who might have an a propos find to advance my research; who have been present, over these years; and those who have more recently appeared, miracles, to help me bring this part of my research to fruition. To all of you who have lent an ear to and asked a question about my ever-evolving project of examining the first translations of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass into French, Catalan and Spanish, with the increasing focus on the fascinating Cebrià Montoliu and the Catalan part of the story. To my family, of course, now more knowledgeable about these topics than they would have ever imagined! Thank you, as always, for being there. TABLE of CONTENTS Abstract I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 My Interest 1.2 Methodology 1.3 Structure II. WALT WHITMAN 2.1 Biography: Whitman’s World: Life, Times & Mind Historical Moment–Family-Professional Life-Birth of the poet and Leaves of Grass-civil war 2.2 Leaves of Grass: Reception and Translations 2.2.1 England, Ireland and Canada 2.2.2 Italy 2.2.3 Germany and German-speaking countries 2.2.4 France 2.2.5 Spain and Latin America III. CEBRIÀ MONTOLIU 3.1 Biography: Montoliu’s World: Life, Times & Mind Historical Moment – Family - Professional Life 3.2 Work on Whitman 3.2.1 The Poems: Fulles d’Herba 3.2.2 The Study: Walt Whitman: L’home i sa tasca 3.2.2.1 The Man 3.2.2.2 The Work 3.2.2.2.1 La Pensa Whitmaniana 3.2.2.2.2 Etica: Qüestió sexual 3.2.2.2.3 Política 3.2.2.2.4 Estètica 3.2.2.2.5 Art Poètica 3.2.2.2.6 L’Herencia de Whitman 3.2.2.2.7 Endreça IV. CONCLUSIONS Bibliography Appendices ABSTRACT Cebrià Montoliu was an urbanista working in Barcelona when in 1909, his translations of twenty-three of Whitman’s poems from Leaves of Grass were published, the first Whitman poems translated into Catalan. Four years later, he would publish a critical work on Whitman’s oeuvre: Walt Whitman: L’home i sa tasca (1913). What was the relationship of this town planner to the social, political, scientific and artistic ebullition in Barcelona at this time? When and how was Montoliu – student of law, multi-lingual librarian, writer, translator and activist - exposed to Whitman? What did Montoliu see in Whitman’s work that appealed to him and which he wanted to share? Why did he translate the particular poems he did? What was the objective of the “prolonged” introduction, or critical essay to Whitman’s work? What did Montoliu propose in it? Why has this work, more than a century on, never been looked into in any significant manner? As Founder and Secretary of the Societat Cívica Catalana, la Ciutat Jardí, Montoliu’s personal mission was the “garden city”, an idea he found responded to the exponential growth of the urban landscape at the time, and also impossible to advance in a Barcelona beholden to private ownership and interest. A surprising conclusion, given, what would be termed today, the progressive political and social idea sharing and development of the era; development that was spear-headed by people of Montoliu’s milieu: the educated and well-off. In 1919, Montoliu, after extensive urban research travels across Europe, left for the US, birthplace of the author of Leaves of Grass. Seeking to realize his ideas and ideals, he participated in the “utopian” project, Fairhope (AL), a single–tax community, promoted Hispanic literatures in Boston, taught Spanish in Kansas City, and, in 1923, died in New Mexico while on a road trip west with his partner. If Walt Whitman could (also) be thought of as the poet recording the US industrial revolution and its effects on cities and the residents of both, can we better understand the interest of Montoliu, and some other translators in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, with their own cultures’ steeped in industrial revolutions, in Whitman’s Leave of Grass, and their subsequent motivation/s for, in particular, translating the latter within an intense period, from 1908 to 1912, that is, from French (Léon Bazalgette), Catalan (Montoliu), and Spanish (the Uruguayan, Álvaro Armando Vasseur)? How was Montoliu’s work on Whitman different from the others? The reception of Whitman and his work, especially outside of the US, the biography of this elusive Cebrià (de) Montoliu – a man of multi-faceted talents - a review of his era and, more specifically, his in-depth study, Walt Whitman: L’home i sa tasca will be examined here. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Interest Every society brings to literature its own form of expression, and the history of the nations can be told with greater truth by the stages of literature than by chronicles and decades. Cuban poet, journalist, and revolutionary, José Martí, in his 1887 homage to Whitman, “El poeta Walt Whitman”1 My interest in my topic, in which Walt Whitman, his life and work figure significantly stems from a childhood that contained, concurrently, elements of non-expansiveness and expansiveness. Yes, I contradict myself…that is, books, but little poetry in the house except for some works such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot and Carl Sandburg, while, at the same time, Emerson’s essays were there, as were my parents who instilled in us their belief in a world of possibility both for individuals and for society to develop towards greater equality, justice and opportunity. It seemed to me that Whitman both celebrated the present and maintained as a refrain in Leaves of Grass this confidence for the future, and, amid this exaltation, the reader, I, my individual me, was brought into society and woven part and parcel into a fabric of diverse landscapes and variety of other individuals walking about the vast outdoors as well as the city. As for the poets in the house, I read, like (and read) all three, but found Whitman to contain aspects of the political I did not capture in Dickinson’s poetry and to supersede T.S.