Trakl, Georg (Salzburg, 1887-1914, Cracow), grew up in a comfortable middle-class environment, left grammar school early and trained as a pharmacist. He took to drugs and eventually became an addict; he was particularly attached to his similarly addicted pianist sister, who died in 1917. Trakl qualified in 1910, served a year as a volunteer (see Einjähriger) in the army medical service, but experienced considerable difficulty in finding an appointment. He was greatly helped by friends, especially L. von Ficker (1880-1967), who also published his early poems in his periodical Der Brenner.
Trakl's first volume of verse was Gedichte (1913); Sebastian im Traum (1915) was published posthumously. His poetry is at all times rich, heavily loaded with imagery of autumn and its associated colours, but is devoid of any affectation, such as commonly accompanies the fin de siècle mood. Trakl was acutely conscious that his world, both personal and external, was breaking apart (‘entzweibricht’ is his own word), and this gave rise to a state of suffering (Leid), which is the keynote of his poetry. Deep anxiety about his sister and about his own subsistence (drugs and drink made him dependent on the help of friends), then the outbreak of war, his call-up as a reserve officer in the medical services, and the primitive and inadequate conditions in which he had to tend excessive numbers of men wounded in the battle of Grodek in Galicia, all overtaxed his resources, and he was sent to hospital at Cracow, where he died of an overdose of cocaine. Whether he intended his death is uncertain. Trakl's poetry developed in his last year or two from the strophic form of the early poems to a hymnic mode, which, while owing something to Hölderlin, is in its stark spareness, concentrated and elliptical syntax, and quivering personal tone, his own unique creation. His quality was early recognized by Rilke, and his influence on later, especially Expressionist, poetry was considerable. Among poems which should be mentioned are ‘Seele des Lebens’, ‘Verklärter Herbst’, ‘An die Verstummten’, ‘Unterwegs’, ‘Klage’, and ‘Grodek’, one of the most celebrated poems of the 1914-18 War. Poems left in his papers were published in 1939 as Aus goldenem Kelch.
Georg Trakl
| German Literature Companion: Georg Trakl |
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Georg Trakl |
Bibliography
See selection of his poems ed. by C. Middleton (1968); biography by H. S. Lindenberger (1971); study by T. J. Casey (1964).
| Wikipedia: Georg Trakl |
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Georg Trakl (3 February 1887, Waagplatz 2 (or 3), Salzburg – 3 November 1914, Kraków) was a pre-eminent Austrian poet.
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Life and work
Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria. His father, Tobias Trakl (11 June 1837, Ödenburg/Sopron - 1910)[1], was a dealer in hardware from Hungary, while his mother, Maria Catharina Halik (17 May 1852, Wiener Neustadt - 1925), was a housewife of
Trakl attended a Catholic elementary school, although his parents were Protestants. He matriculated in 1897 at the Salzburg Staatsgymnasium, where he studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Around the age of 13, Trakl began to write poetry.
After dropping out of high school in 1905, Trakl worked for a pharmacist for three years and decided to pursue pharmacy as a career. It was at this time that he experimented with playwriting, but his two short plays, All Souls' Day and Fata Morgana, failed onstage.
In 1908, Trakl moved to Vienna to study pharmacy, and fell in with a group of local artists and bohemians who helped him publish some of his poems. Trakl's father died in 1910, shortly before Trakl received his pharmacy certificate; thereafter, Trakl enlisted in the army for a year-long stint. His return to civilian life in Salzburg was a disaster and he re-enlisted, serving as a pharmacist at a hospital in Innsbruck. There he also met the local artistic community, which recognized his budding talent. Ludwig von Ficker, the editor of the journal Der Brenner, became his patron: he regularly printed Trakl's work and endeavored to find him a publisher to produce a collection of poems. The result of these efforts was Gedichte (Poems), published by Kurt Wolff in Leipzig in the summer of 1913. Ficker also brought Trakl to the attention of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who anonymously provided him with a sizable stipend so that he could concentrate on his writing.
On the outbreak of World War I, Trakl was sent as a medical official to attend to soldiers in Galicia (comprising portions of modern-day Ukraine and Poland). Trakl suffered frequent bouts of depression[citation needed], exacerbated by the horror of caring for severely wounded soldiers. During one such incident in Gródek, Trakl had to steward the recovery of some ninety soldiers wounded in the fierce campaign against the Russians. He tried to shoot himself from the strain, but his comrades prevented him. Hospitalized in Kraków and placed under close observation, Trakl lapsed into deeper depression and wrote to Ficker for advice. Ficker convinced him to contact Wittgenstein. Upon receiving Trakl's note, Wittgenstein went to the hospital, but found that Trakl had committed suicide from an overdose of cocaine three days before.[2]
Online texts
- Ten poems (English) by George Trakl
- Twenty Poems, trans. by James Wright and Robert Bly — PDF file of a 1961 translation, listed in Bibliography
- The Complete Writings of Georg Trakl in English - translations by Wersch and Jim Doss
Bibliography
Selected titles:
- Gedichte (Poems), 1913
- Sebastian im Traum (Sebastian in the Dream), poetry 1915
- Der Herbst des Einsamen (The Autumn of The Lonely), 1920
- Gesang des Abgeschiedenen (Song of The Departed), 1933
In English:
- DECLINE: 12 POEMS trans. Michael Hamburger, Guido Morris / Latin Press, 1952
- Twenty Poems of George Trakl, trans. James Wright & Robert Bly, The Sixties Press, 1961
- Selected Poems, Christopher Middleton, Jonathan Cape, 1968
- Georg Trakl: A Profile, ed. Frank Graziano, Logbridge-Rhodes, 1983
- The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl, 1887-1914, trans. Jamshid Shirani & A. Maziar, Ibex Publishers, 1994
- Song of the West: Selected Poems, trans. Robert Firmage, North Point Press, 1988
- Autumn Sonata: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl, trans. Daniel Simko, Asphodel Press, 1998
- Poems and Prose, Bilingual edition, trans. Alexander Stillmark, Libris, 2001
- In an Abandoned Room: Selected Poems by Georg Trakl, trans. Daniele Pantano, Erbacce Press, Liverpool, 2008
See also
- List of Austrians
- List of Austrian writers
- Sebastian im Traum, 2004 orchestral composition by Hans Werner Henze based on Trakl's work.
References
- ^ Eisenhändler Tobias Trakl siedelte aus beruflichen Gründen aus Westungarn ins Wiener Neustadt. [1], [2], [3], [4]
- ^ James Wright and Robert Bly (2008-08-22). "Georg Trakl: Twenty Poems". Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/4956922/Georg-Trakl-Twenty-Poems.
External links
- Brief, general overview
- A site with many links, in German only. (Click British flag for English text.)
- Hearing Heidegger and Saussure Trakl's poem, "A Winter Evening," in Heidegger's theory of language.
- Translation of Trakl Poem
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