GIDE André (1869-1951) Lot n° 57

Autograph MANUSCRIPT, [Poems of Walt Whitman]; 12 pages in-4, and annotated blue-gray paper folder, all mounted on tabs on wove paper ff., all bound in midnight blue half morocco with corners (Semet & Plumelle). Manuscript of his translation of eight poems by Walt Whitman, for the volume Poèmes de Walt Whitman, published by the NRF in 1919. First draft manuscript of these poetic translations of Walt WHITMAN, with erasures and corrections. The eight poems translated by Gide are: - Song of Myself [Chant de moi-même], 75 lines: "Walt Whitman, a cosmos, of Manhattan the son, /Turbulent, plump, sensual, eating, drinking, and procreating... - From pent-up aching rivers, 80 lines: "From pent-up aching rivers; / From this of myself, without which I would be nothing"... - O Hymen! o hymenes! [Children of Adam], 6 lines: "O hymen! o hymenae! Why do you tantalize me in this way"... - I am he that aches with love [Je suis celui que l'amoureux désire], 6 lines: "I am he that the lover torments"... - Instants naïfs [Native moments], 22 lines: "Instants naïfs - when you come to me"... - Once I passed through a populous city, 13 lines: "Once I passed through a populous city, imprinting in my brain, in order to use it later, its aspects"... - Beat! drums! sound, bugles! [Beat! Beat! Drums!], 24 lines: "Beat! Drums! - Sound, bugles! sound! Over the traffic of the cities"... - A march in the ranks hard pressed, 38 lines: "March in the ranks, hard pressed"... André Gide's admiration for Walt Whitman was one of the most constant for the author of Les Nourritures terrestres. Begun before the First World War, the translation of the poems of the author of Feuillets d'herbe continued until the eve of the armistice. The NRF edition of Whitman's Selected Works was published in 1919, based on the earlier work of Louis Fabulet and Jules Laforgue and with the collaboration of Valery Larbaud, Jean Schlumberger and Francis Vielé-Griffin. It gave Gide the opportunity to translate himself some of the great American poet's most famous poems. The folder bears the original titles of Whitman's poems in Gide's handwriting.