Zusammenfassung
A previously unpublished Oscar Wilde letter, which throws light on his engagement with the works of Heine, recently resurfaced at an auction. The letter, written to the Heine translator, Charles Godfrey Leland, is unknown to both Wilde and Heine scholarship, having remained in various private collections. It was formerly owned by the influential publishers Harry and Caresse (Polly) Crosby, who founded the Black Sun Press in Paris in 1927.
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Notes
1 At the Sotheby’s auction: Fine Autograph Letters and Manuscripts from a Distinguished Private Collection: Part II. Music, Americana, English and Continental Literature. 13 December 2018, Lot 307.
2 Under the Black Sun imprint, the American couple published the early works of many great modernist authors, including D. H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. They were also drawn to Wilde’s proto-modernist works; in 1928, they published exquisite English and French language editions of Wilde’s short story »The Birthday of the Infanta« which included illustrations by their friend Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt).
3 Leland’s »Book of Songs« was not the first English translation of »Buch der Lieder«. It was preceded by the version of the book contained in Edgar Alfred Bowring’s The Poems of Heine. Complete. Translated into the Original Metres with a Sketch of His Life. London 1859. Selected poems from the »Buch der Lieder« had also been translated by John Ackerlos in Selections from the Poetry of Heinrich Heine. London 1854.
4 For a detailed and illuminating discussion of Leland’s collected edition of Heine see Jeffrey L. Sammons: Charles Godfrey Leland and the English Language Heine Edition. – In: HJb (37) 1998, pp. 140–167, reprinted in Sammons’ book Heinrich Heine. Alternative perspectives 1985–2005. Würzburg 2006, pp. 163–187.
5 In a letter of 1882 from Leland to Wilde, now held in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Los Angeles), Leland mentions that Wilde »once welcomed [him] so kindly to Oxford«. Clark Library, L537L W6721 1882 Jan. 18.
6 Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin, MSS_WildeO_2_11_012.
7 Accompanying her letter Lady Wilde sent Leland copies of a number of her published prose writings, including one in which she apparently mentions Leland’s »Hans Breitmann« poems. Speranza’s letter to Leland is now in Trinity College, Dublin. I am enormously grateful to Matthew Sturgis, Wilde’s biographer, for providing me with transcriptions of the three letters referred to in this footnote, and the two footnotes that precede it.
8 In an undated letter, which must date from this period, Wilde invites Leland to dinner; »I want to have a talk with you«, he writes, »on many subjects«. This letter, which is now held in the Clark Library, is published in: The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Ed. by M. Holland and R. Hart-Davis. London 2000, p. 84.
9 According to The Pall Mall Gazette, the pair both attended a meeting of the British Association of Art together on 9 June 1888. Ibid, p. 8.
10 The importance of clubs to a young writer and socialite is also attested to by the letterhead of the St. Stephen’s Club on Wilde’s letter. Wilde had joined the Westminster club while still at Oxford, no doubt with his future transfer to London, and his social and professional progress there, in mind. Many of the letters Wilde penned between the beginning of 1879 and the summer of 1880 were written on the stationery of the club.
11 Examination Held at The Royal School of Portora Easter, 1859. Dublin 1859, p. 12.
12 The Biograph. London 1880, p. 132. For Wilde’s childhood reading of continental literature see Thomas Wright: Oscar’s Books. A Journey Around the Library of Oscar Wilde. London 2008, pp. 54–59.
13 Fortnightly Review, v. 13, 1870; reprinted in Algernon Swinburne’s prose collection Essays and Studies. London 1875. Wilde acquired this book at Oxford and marked it heavily during his undergraduate years. For their help in identifying and analysing the Swinburne quotation, I would like to thank the following scholars: Noreen Doody, Angela Kingston, Algernon Laugen-Kelly, Francis O’Gorman, Iain Ross, Horst Schroeder, John Stokes and Heather White.
14 Robert Sherard: The Real Oscar Wilde. London 1917, p. 304.
15 Oscar Wilde: Some Literary Notes – I. – In: The Woman’s World, January 1889; Literary and Other Notes – IV. – In: The Woman’s World, February 1888. Here Wilde quotes the German author’s description of Madame de Staël as »a whirlwind in petticoats«. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Vol. VII: Journalism II. Ed. by J. Stokes and M. Turner. Oxford 2013, pp. 144 f. and p. 62.
16 Venus or Victory. – In: The Pall Mall Gazette, 24 February 1888. Ibid., p. 68.
17 Ibid., p. 391.
18 The Pall Mall Gazette, 28 December 1886 and 24 July 1885; ibid., p. 289 and p. 268.
19 Richard Ellmann: Oscar Wilde. London 1987, p. 321.
20 Bowring’s The Poems of Heine [see note 3] includes a translation of the poem. The Poems of Heine. Atta Troll and other poems by Heinrich Heine. Translated into English by Thomas Selby Egan had also been published in London in 1876. In his recent, authoritative edition, of »Salomé« (and »Salome«) Joseph Donohue writes: »Could Heywood have read Heine’s Atta Troll?«, but he does not consider the possibility that Wilde himself may have read Heine’s poem. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Vol. V: Plays I: The Duchess of Padua, Salomé: Drame en un Acte, Salome: Tragedy in One Act. Ed. by J. Donohue. Oxford 2013, p. 389.
21 In his authoritative edition of Wilde’s short fiction Ian Small mentions, in passing, that the »Tannhäuser legend« was »interpreted by a number of German Writers, including Heinrich Heine«; however we await a detailed comparison of Heine’s and Wilde’s adaptations of the legend. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Vol. VIII: The Short Fiction. Ed. by I. Small. Oxford 2017, p. 383. Heine is not mentioned in the notes or introduction to the authoritative edition of Wilde’s poetry, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Vol. I: Poems and Poems in Prose. Ed. by B. Fong and K. Beckson. Oxford 2000.
22 Lion Feuchtwanger: Heinrich Heine und Oscar Wilde. Eine psychologische Studie. – In: Der Spiegel. Münchner Halbmonatsschrift für Literatur, Musik und Bühne Nr. 12, 30.9.1908. Reprinted in Lion Feuchtwanger: Ein Buch nur für meine Freunde. Frankfurt a. M. 1984, pp. 17–30. Subsequent attempts by scholars to identify similarities between Heine and Wilde have added little to Feuchtwanger’s insightful analysis. Coulson Kernahan: Wilde and Heine – In: The Dublin Magazine N. S. 15 (1940), pp. 19–26, suggested that both authors were »vain«– hardly the distinctive characteristic of either man, or indeed an uncommon one among writers (or people) generally. For a more recent discussion see Peter Janz: Sind Lachen und Tanzen gottlos? Heinrich Heine und Oscar Wilde. – In: »Gotteslästerung« und Glaubenskritik in der Literatur und in den Künsten. Ed. by Hans Richard Brittnacher and Thomas Koebner. Marburg 2016, pp. 73–85.
23 Charles Ricketts: Self-Portrait taken from the Letters and Journals. Collected and compiled by T. Sturge Moore. Ed. by Cecil Lewis. London 1939, p. 177. Charles Leland’s writings on Heine also help us see the resemblance between the German author and Wilde. In the »Translator’s Preface« to »Pictures of Travel« Leland described Heine with words that might with equal justice have been used of the mature Wilde: »Heine most emphatically belongs to that class of writers, who are a scandal to the weaker brethren, a terror to the strong, and a puzzle to the conservatively wise of their own day and generation, but who are received by the intelligent contemporary with a smile, and by the after comer with thanks […]. He belongs to that great band, whose laughter has been in its inner-soul more moving than the most fervid flow of serious eloquence, to the band which numbered Lucian and Rabelais, and Swift, among its members, men who lashed into motion the sleepy world of the day […]. He possesses in an eminent degree, the graceful art of communicating to the most uneducated mind, refined secrets of art and criticism […]. He has popularized philosophy, and preached to the multitude those secrets which were once the exclusive property of the learned […] and this he does, not like a pedantic professor, ex-cathedra, […] but rather like a friend, who with a delicate regard for the feelings of his auditor, speaks as though he supposed him already familiar with the subject in question. Pedantry and ignorant self-sufficiency […] provoke his attacks […].« Charles G. Leland: Translator’s Preface. – In: Pictures of Travel. Translated from the German of Henry Heine by Charles G. Leland. 2nd edition. Philadelphia 1856, p. 3–8, p. 4 f.
24 This description was written in collaboration with Julia Rosenthal; her intimate knowledge of Wilde and Heine, and her exhibition catalogue For Freedom’s Battle. Heinrich Heine and England. A Bicentenary Exhibition 16 January-6 February 1998. Exhibition and catalogue compiled by Julia Rosenthal in association with the Heinrich Heine Institute. London 1998, were abundant sources of information and inspiration. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Christian Liedtke, for his invaluable comments and suggestions on an early draft of this article.
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Wright, T. (2019). »The exquisite form, or aroma of the original«. In: Brenner-Wilczek, S. (eds) Heine-Jahrbuch 2019. Heine-Jahrbuch. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04905-6_7
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