“Barbaric Yawp” in German

This essay presents an overview and analysis of German-language translations of Walt Whitman’s phrase “barbaric yawp” in seven full versions of the poem “Song of Myself ” and in key biographical essays and prefaces by critics and translators in the German-speaking countries. Although the first documented mention of the phrase in the foreword to the Knortz/Rolleston translation (1889) left it untranslated in the English original, many later translators did offer up their versions of Whitman’s phrase in German, often struggling to maintain the allusions and connotations of the original. As this essay shows, Whitman’s “barbaric yawp” fascinated many of his translators and critics alike in the German-speaking countries, whether because they saw in his “barbaric” qualities a positive model to applaud and perhaps emulate or because they regarded the phrase as an apt metaphor for his unique and provocative poetic style.