4 THE POEMS
This section contains the books and poems from Leaves of Grass on which we have been working up to now. After much re-working, we believe they are now ready to be presented to public appreciation. As we know, a translator’s work is never finished, for every time we revise the texts we find new errors that were invisible before. However, we can at least present the text now at its current final version. Naturally, they will be re-worked whenever we go back to them, as we have done with the books translated for our Master’s thesis. As we continue our work, we will also add new foot-notes and comments when we think they are convenient or necessary to a better understanding of their content. By the way, the poem “Do Berço Infindamente Embalando” (“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”) had appeared as an annex in our Master’s thesis (SARAIVA, 1995, p.162), since it was referred in that work as an expression of Whitman’s love for opera, of which this poem is an example. The poet himself said that he was greatly indebted to opera, and even stated that he would not have written Leaves of Grass without having been “saturated” by this musical experience. Consequently, there are traces of this experience in his poems, especially in “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”, which formally is an aria. Whitman especially admired Marietta Alboni (1826-1894), “the greatest coloratura soprano [and contralto] in the history of opera”, whose performances in New York were all attended by him; Geremia Bettini, the tenor; and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), the composer. Naturally, as an opera lover, he loved Gioachino Rossini, too (1792-1868), who was Verdi’s master. In his New York years, the poet was driven to tears by these wonderful artists, a fact that he remembered with joy in his old age (ALLEN, 1955, pp.113-5). As a matter of fact, these artists are mentioned by Whitman in another poem, “Proud Music of the Storm”, which resembles an “operatic overture” (a prelude), in which Alboni is depicted as “The lustrious orb, Venus contralto, the blooming mother, / Sister of loftiest gods” (WHITMAN, 2002, pp.339-45). As we have proposed in the Introduction, we have been able to re-create this poem as well. Actually, all the SEA-DRIFT cluster has been re-created.
