“That’s Me, Not Whitman”: Tin Ujević and Ivan V. Lalić as Whitman’s Yugoslav Poet-Translators

Aćamović, Bojana (2024) “That’s Me, Not Whitman”: Tin Ujević and Ivan V. Lalić as Whitman’s Yugoslav Poet-Translators. In: Oxford Handbook of Walt Whitman. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, pp. 586-605. ISBN 9780192894847

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Abstract

This essay discusses two book-length translations of Walt Whitman’s work into Serbo-Croatian, both of which appeared in the late twentieth century and merit special attention as important breakthroughs in Whitman’s Yugoslav reception. They were produced by Tin Ujević (1951) and Ivan V. Lalić (1974), eminent poets of different generations who shared a long-standing interest in Whitman; each considered him their poetic forefather as well as a spiritual contemporary. Ujević’s and Lalić’s own artistic sensibilities fundamentally shaped their Whitman editions. The essay examines their relationships with Whitman and his poetry, and considers the specific historical context in which they worked—the decades following World War II, marked by the Cold War and political tensions as well as important cultural shifts in socialist Yugoslavia.

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