Georg Trakl (3 February 1887 – 3 November 1914) was an Austrian poet and the brother of the pianist Grete Trakl. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.[1] He is perhaps best known for his poem "Grodek", which he wrote shortly before he died of a cocaineoverdose.
Trakl was born and lived the first 21 years of his life in Salzburg. His father, Tobias Trakl (11 June 1837, Ödenburg/Sopron – 1910),[2] was a dealer of hardware from Hungary, while his mother, Maria Catharina Halik (17 May 1852, Wiener Neustadt – 1925), was a housewife of partly Czech descent; she was a drug addict and left the education to a French "gouvernante", who brought Trakl into contact with French language and literature at an early age. His sister Grete Trakl was a musical prodigy; with her he shared artistic endeavors. Poems allude to an incestuous relationship between the two.[3]
Trakl attended a Catholic elementary school, although his parents were Protestants. He matriculated in 1897 at the Salzburg Staatsgymnasium, where he had problems in Latin, Greek, and mathematics, for which he had to repeat one year and then leave without Matura. At age 13, Trakl began to write poetry.
After quitting high school, Trakl worked for a pharmacist for three years and decided to adopt pharmacy as a career; this facilitated access to drugs, such as morphine and cocaine. It was during this time that he experimented with playwriting, but his two short plays, All Souls' Day and Fata Morgana, were not successful. However, from May to December 1906, Trakl published four prose pieces in the feuilleton section of two Salzburg newspapers. All cover themes and settings found in his mature work. This is especially true of "Traumland" (Dreamland), in which a young man falls in love with a dying girl who is his cousin.[4]
In 1908, Trakl moved to Vienna to study pharmacy, and became acquainted with some local artists who helped him publish some of his poems. Trakl's father died in 1910, soon 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 unsuccessful and he re-enlisted, serving as a pharmacist at a hospital in Innsbruck. There he became acquainted with a group of avant-garde artists involved with the well-regarded literary journal Der Brenner, a journal that began the Kierkegaard revival in the German-speaking countries. Ludwig von Ficker, the editor of Der Brenner (and son of the historian Julius von Ficker), 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 during 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.
At the beginning of World War I, Trakl served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was sent as a medical officer to attend soldiers on the Eastern Front. Trakl suffered frequent bouts of depression. On one such occasion during the Battle of Gródek (fought in autumn 1914 at Gródek, then in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria), 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 at a military hospital in Kraków and observed closely, Trakl lapsed into worse depression and wrote to Ficker for advice. Ficker convinced him to communicate with Wittgenstein. Upon receiving Trakl's note, Wittgenstein travelled to the hospital, but found that Trakl had died of a cocaine overdose.[5] Trakl was buried at Kraków's Rakowicki Cemetery on 6 November 1914, but on 7 October 1925, as a result of the efforts by Ficker, his remains were transferred to the municipal cemetery of Innsbruck-Mühlau (where they now repose next to Ficker's).
Themes and motifs
While Trakl's very earliest poems are more philosophical and do not deal as much with the real world, most of his poems are either set in the evening or have evening as a motif.[6] Silence is also a frequent motif in Trakl's poetry, and his later poems often feature the silent dead, who are unable to express themselves.[7]
Bibliography
Selected titles
Gedichte (Poems), 1913
Sebastian im Traum (Sebastian in the Dream), 1915
Der Herbst des Einsamen (The Autumn of The Lonely One), 1920
Gesang des Abgeschiedenen (Song of the Departed), 1933
Literary works 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
Georg Trakl: Poems, trans. Lucia Getsi, Mundus Artium Press, 1973
Georg Trakl: A Profile, ed. Frank Graziano, Logbridge-Rhodes, 1983
Song of the West: Selected Poems, trans. Robert Firmage, North Point Press, 1988
The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl, 1887–1914, trans. Jamshid Shirani & A. Maziar, Ibex Publishers, 1994
Autumn Sonata: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl, trans. Daniel Simko, Asphodel Press, 1998
Poems and Prose, Bilingual edition, trans. Alexander Stillmark, Libris, 2001
Re-edition: Poems and Prose. A Bilingual Edition, Northwestern University Press, 2005
To the Silenced: Selected Poems, trans. Will Stone, Arc Publications, 2006
In an Abandoned Room: Selected Poems by Georg Trakl, trans. Daniele Pantano, Erbacce Press, 2008
The Last Gold of Expired Stars: Complete Poems 1908 - 1914, trans. Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt, Loch Raven Press, 2011
Song of the Departed: Selected Poems of George Trakl, trans. Robert Firmage, Copper Canyon Press, 2012
"Uncommon Poems and Versions by Georg Trakl", trans. James Reidel, Mudlark No. 53, 2014
Poems, trans. James Reidel, Seagull Books, 2015
Sebastian Dreaming, trans. James Reidel, Seagull Books, 2016
A Skeleton Plays Violin, trans. James Reidel, Seagull Books, 2017
Autumnal Elegies: Complete Poetry, trans. Michael Jarvie, 2019
Surrender to Night: The Collected Poemsof Georg Trakl, trans. Will Stone, Pushkin Collection 2019
Collected Poems, trans. James Reidel, Seagull Books 2019
Critical studies
Richard Millington, Snow from Broken Eyes: Cocaine in the Lives and Works of Three Expressionist Poets, Peter Lang AG, 2012
Richard Millington, The Gentle Apocalypse: Truth and Meaning in the Poetry of Georg Trakl, Camden House, 2020
Hans Joachim Schliep, on the Table Bread and wine- poetry and Religion in the works of Georg Trakl, Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP), 2020, ISBN978-6200537300
Poetry of Trakl in music
Experimental black metal artist Jute Gyte uses the entirety of Trakl’s “Helian” on the (2021) album with the same name
The band Dead Eyed Sleeper uses Trakl's poem Menschheit as lyrics to the song of the same name, on the 2016 album Gomorrh.[9]
Paul Hindemith: Die Junge Magd - Sechs Gedichte von Georg Trakl für eine Altstimme mit Flöte, Klarinette und Streichquartett, opus 23 Nr.2
6 Lieder nach Gedichten von Georg Trakl, Op. 14 by Anton Webern.[10]
Peter Maxwell Davies: Revelation and Fall, Monodrama for soprano and instrumental ensemble, 1966.[11]
Russian composer David Tukhmanov wrote a triptych for mezzo-soprano and piano titled Dream of Sebastian, or Saint Night, which is based on the poems of Trakl. The first performance took place in 2007.[14]
Kristalliner Schrei, a 2014 setting of three poems from Gedichte for mezzo-soprano and string quartet, by Henry Breneman Stewart[15]
"Silence Spoken: ...quiet answers to dark questions", an intersemiotic translation of five poems by Trakl into dance, choreographed by Angela Kaiser, 2015.[17]
Movies related to Georg Trakl
Tabu - Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden (31 May 2012)[18]
^. Project Gutenberg (in German). Spiegel Online. Archived from the original on 3 May 2010.
^Hardware dealer Tobias Trakl from West Hungary relocated to Wiener Neustadt for professional reasons. [1], . Archived from the original on 16 May 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2009., [2], [3]
^Marty Bax: Immer zu wenig Liebe. Grete Trakl. Ihr feinster Kuppler. Ihre Familie. Amsterdam 2014, E-Book "Immer zu wenig Liebe. Grete Trakl. Ihr feinster Kuppler. Ihre Familie - Art, Culture, History - BaxBooks - Books". Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014..
^Sieglinde Klettenhammer, Georg Trakl in Zeitungen und Zeitschriften seiner Zeit: Kontext und Rezeption (Vienna: Inst. für Germanistik, 1990).
^James Wright and Robert Bly (22 August 2008). . Archived from the original on 7 April 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2009 – via Scribd.
^Brown, Russell E. (January 1969). "Time of Day in Early Expressionist Poetry". PMLA. Modern Language Association. 84 (1): 20–28.
^Lyon, James K.. (Winter 1970). "Georg Trakl's Poetry of Silence". Monatshefte. University of Wisconsin Press. 62 (4): 340–356.
^"6 Lieder nach Gedichten von Georg Trakl, Op.14 (Webern, Anton) - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music". imslp.org. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
^. maxopus.com. Archived from the original on 14 April 2015.
^"Schweigen und Kindheit" (in German). Schott. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
^(in Russian) Official site of David Fyodorovich Tukhmanov 16 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine
^"Verfall And De Profundis". Retrieved 27 January 2019 – via soundcloud.com.
^. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^Kevin Kaiser. "Transformation of Evil - Featuring Lake Angela (Angela Parker/Kaiser)". Archived from the original on 11 December 2021. Retrieved 27 January 2019 – via YouTube.
^"Tabu - Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden". Retrieved 27 January 2019 – via www.imdb.com.
Further reading
Lindenberger, Herbert. Georg Trakl. New York: Twayne, 1971.
Sharp, Francis Michael. The Poet's Madness: A Reading of Georg Trakl. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981.
Online texts
Red Yucca – German Poetry in Translation (trans. Eric Plattner)
Translation of Trakl Poem 27 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine
Translations of Trakl on PoemHunter — PDF[dead link]
— PDF file of a 1961 translation, listed in Bibliography
The Complete Writings of Georg Trakl in English – translations by Wersch and Jim Doss
[4] Trakl texts set to music, translated by Bertram Kottmann
Works by Georg Trakl at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to Georg Trakl.
German Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Georg Trakl
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georg Trakl.
Photos of the graves of Ludwig von Ficker (left) and Georg Trakl (right) at the cemetery of Innsbruck-Mühlau: Photo 1 2 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Photo 2
January 07, 2023
georg, trakl, february, 1887, november, 1914, austrian, poet, brother, pianist, grete, trakl, considered, most, important, austrian, expressionists, perhaps, best, known, poem, grodek, which, wrote, shortly, before, died, cocaine, overdose, born, 1887, februar. Georg Trakl 3 February 1887 3 November 1914 was an Austrian poet and the brother of the pianist Grete Trakl He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists 1 He is perhaps best known for his poem Grodek which he wrote shortly before he died of a cocaine overdose Georg TraklBorn 1887 02 03 3 February 1887Salzburg Duchy of Salzburg Austria HungaryDied3 November 1914 1914 11 03 aged 27 Krakow Austria Hungary now Poland OccupationPoet pharmacist writerCitizenshipAustro HungarianAlma materUniversity of Vienna pharmacy Literary movementExpressionismA poem by Trakl inscribed on a plaque in Mirabell Garden Salzburg Contents 1 Life and work 2 Themes and motifs 3 Bibliography 4 Poetry of Trakl in music 5 Poetry of Trakl in dance 6 Movies related to Georg Trakl 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 9 1 Online texts 10 External linksLife and work EditTrakl was born and lived the first 21 years of his life in Salzburg His father Tobias Trakl 11 June 1837 Odenburg Sopron 1910 2 was a dealer of hardware from Hungary while his mother Maria Catharina Halik 17 May 1852 Wiener Neustadt 1925 was a housewife of partly Czech descent she was a drug addict and left the education to a French gouvernante who brought Trakl into contact with French language and literature at an early age His sister Grete Trakl was a musical prodigy with her he shared artistic endeavors Poems allude to an incestuous relationship between the two 3 Trakl attended a Catholic elementary school although his parents were Protestants He matriculated in 1897 at the Salzburg Staatsgymnasium where he had problems in Latin Greek and mathematics for which he had to repeat one year and then leave without Matura At age 13 Trakl began to write poetry After quitting high school Trakl worked for a pharmacist for three years and decided to adopt pharmacy as a career this facilitated access to drugs such as morphine and cocaine It was during this time that he experimented with playwriting but his two short plays All Souls Day and Fata Morgana were not successful However from May to December 1906 Trakl published four prose pieces in the feuilleton section of two Salzburg newspapers All cover themes and settings found in his mature work This is especially true of Traumland Dreamland in which a young man falls in love with a dying girl who is his cousin 4 In 1908 Trakl moved to Vienna to study pharmacy and became acquainted with some local artists who helped him publish some of his poems Trakl s father died in 1910 soon 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 unsuccessful and he re enlisted serving as a pharmacist at a hospital in Innsbruck There he became acquainted with a group of avant garde artists involved with the well regarded literary journal Der Brenner a journal that began the Kierkegaard revival in the German speaking countries Ludwig von Ficker the editor of Der Brenner and son of the historian Julius von Ficker 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 during 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 At the beginning of World War I Trakl served in the Austro Hungarian Army and was sent as a medical officer to attend soldiers on the Eastern Front Trakl suffered frequent bouts of depression On one such occasion during the Battle of Grodek fought in autumn 1914 at Grodek then in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria 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 at a military hospital in Krakow and observed closely Trakl lapsed into worse depression and wrote to Ficker for advice Ficker convinced him to communicate with Wittgenstein Upon receiving Trakl s note Wittgenstein travelled to the hospital but found that Trakl had died of a cocaine overdose 5 Trakl was buried at Krakow s Rakowicki Cemetery on 6 November 1914 but on 7 October 1925 as a result of the efforts by Ficker his remains were transferred to the municipal cemetery of Innsbruck Muhlau where they now repose next to Ficker s Themes and motifs EditWhile Trakl s very earliest poems are more philosophical and do not deal as much with the real world most of his poems are either set in the evening or have evening as a motif 6 Silence is also a frequent motif in Trakl s poetry and his later poems often feature the silent dead who are unable to express themselves 7 Bibliography EditSelected titlesGedichte Poems 1913 Sebastian im Traum Sebastian in the Dream 1915 Der Herbst des Einsamen The Autumn of The Lonely One 1920 Gesang des Abgeschiedenen Song of the Departed 1933Literary works in EnglishDecline 12 Poems trans Michael Hamburger Guido Morris Latin Press 1952 Twenty Poems of George Trakl trans James Wright amp Robert Bly The Sixties Press 1961 Selected Poems ed Christopher Middleton trans Robert Grenier et al Jonathan Cape 1968 8 Georg Trakl Poems trans Lucia Getsi Mundus Artium Press 1973 Georg Trakl A Profile ed Frank Graziano Logbridge Rhodes 1983 Song of the West Selected Poems trans Robert Firmage North Point Press 1988 The Golden Goblet Selected Poems of Georg Trakl 1887 1914 trans Jamshid Shirani amp A Maziar Ibex Publishers 1994 Autumn Sonata Selected Poems of Georg Trakl trans Daniel Simko Asphodel Press 1998 Poems and Prose Bilingual edition trans Alexander Stillmark Libris 2001 Re edition Poems and Prose A Bilingual Edition Northwestern University Press 2005 To the Silenced Selected Poems trans Will Stone Arc Publications 2006 In an Abandoned Room Selected Poems by Georg Trakl trans Daniele Pantano Erbacce Press 2008 The Last Gold of Expired Stars Complete Poems 1908 1914 trans Jim Doss amp Werner Schmitt Loch Raven Press 2011 Song of the Departed Selected Poems of George Trakl trans Robert Firmage Copper Canyon Press 2012 Uncommon Poems and Versions by Georg Trakl trans James Reidel Mudlark No 53 2014 Poems trans James Reidel Seagull Books 2015 Sebastian Dreaming trans James Reidel Seagull Books 2016 A Skeleton Plays Violin trans James Reidel Seagull Books 2017 Autumnal Elegies Complete Poetry trans Michael Jarvie 2019 Surrender to Night The Collected Poems of Georg Trakl trans Will Stone Pushkin Collection 2019 Collected Poems trans James Reidel Seagull Books 2019Critical studiesRichard Millington Snow from Broken Eyes Cocaine in the Lives and Works of Three Expressionist Poets Peter Lang AG 2012 Richard Millington The Gentle Apocalypse Truth and Meaning in the Poetry of Georg Trakl Camden House 2020 Hans Joachim Schliep on the Table Bread and wine poetry and Religion in the works of Georg Trakl Lambert Academic Publishing LAP 2020 ISBN 978 6200537300Poetry of Trakl in music EditExperimental black metal artist Jute Gyte uses the entirety of Trakl s Helian on the 2021 album with the same name The band Dead Eyed Sleeper uses Trakl s poem Menschheit as lyrics to the song of the same name on the 2016 album Gomorrh 9 Paul Hindemith Die Junge Magd Sechs Gedichte von Georg Trakl fur eine Altstimme mit Flote Klarinette und Streichquartett opus 23 Nr 2 6 Lieder nach Gedichten von Georg Trakl Op 14 by Anton Webern 10 Peter Maxwell Davies Revelation and Fall Monodrama for soprano and instrumental ensemble 1966 11 Wilhelm Killmayer set several of his poems in two song cycles Trakl Lieder in 1993 12 and Schweigen und Kindheit in 1996 13 Heinz Winbeck Symphony No 3 Grodek for alto speaker and orchestra 1988 Sebastian im Traum 2004 orchestral composition by Hans Werner Henze based on Trakl s work Russian composer David Tukhmanov wrote a triptych for mezzo soprano and piano titled Dream of Sebastian or Saint Night which is based on the poems of Trakl The first performance took place in 2007 14 Kristalliner Schrei a 2014 setting of three poems from Gedichte for mezzo soprano and string quartet by Henry Breneman Stewart 15 Trakl Gedichte by Philippe Manoury published by Editions Durand 16 Wild Winter Lament V by Thea MusgravePoetry of Trakl in dance Edit Silence Spoken quiet answers to dark questions an intersemiotic translation of five poems by Trakl into dance choreographed by Angela Kaiser 2015 17 Movies related to Georg Trakl EditTabu Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden 31 May 2012 18 See also Edit Poetry portalList of Austrian writersReferences Edit Georg Trakl Project Gutenberg in German Spiegel Online Archived from the original on 3 May 2010 Hardware dealer Tobias Trakl from West Hungary relocated to Wiener Neustadt for professional reasons 1 Georg Trakl ELibraryAustria Archived from the original on 16 May 2009 Retrieved 31 May 2009 2 3 Marty Bax Immer zu wenig Liebe Grete Trakl Ihr feinster Kuppler Ihre Familie Amsterdam 2014 E Book Immer zu wenig Liebe Grete Trakl Ihr feinster Kuppler Ihre Familie Art Culture History BaxBooks Books Archived from the original on 15 November 2014 Retrieved 21 November 2014 Sieglinde Klettenhammer Georg Trakl in Zeitungen und Zeitschriften seiner Zeit Kontext und Rezeption Vienna Inst fur Germanistik 1990 James Wright and Robert Bly 22 August 2008 Georg Trakl Twenty Poems Archived from the original on 7 April 2009 Retrieved 22 April 2009 via Scribd Brown Russell E January 1969 Time of Day in Early Expressionist Poetry PMLA Modern Language Association 84 1 20 28 Lyon James K Winter 1970 Georg Trakl s Poetry of Silence Monatshefte University of Wisconsin Press 62 4 340 356 Library of Congress catalogue listing retrieved 2011 06 25 Dead Eyed Sleeper Menschheit Studioclip retrieved 22 April 2021 6 Lieder nach Gedichten von Georg Trakl Op 14 Webern Anton IMSLP Petrucci Music Library Free Public Domain Sheet Music imslp org Retrieved 27 January 2019 Revelation and Fall maxopus com Archived from the original on 14 April 2015 Trakl Lieder I in German Schott Retrieved 23 August 2017 permanent dead link Schweigen und Kindheit in German Schott Retrieved 24 August 2017 in Russian Official site of David Fyodorovich Tukhmanov Archived 16 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine Verfall And De Profundis Retrieved 27 January 2019 via soundcloud com Archived copy Archived from the original on 19 April 2014 Retrieved 5 April 2014 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Kevin Kaiser Transformation of Evil Featuring Lake Angela Angela Parker Kaiser Archived from the original on 11 December 2021 Retrieved 27 January 2019 via YouTube Tabu Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden Retrieved 27 January 2019 via www imdb com Further reading EditLindenberger Herbert Georg Trakl New York Twayne 1971 Sharp Francis Michael The Poet s Madness A Reading of Georg Trakl Ithaca Cornell UP 1981 Online texts Edit Red Yucca German Poetry in Translation trans Eric Plattner Translation of Trakl Poem Archived 27 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine Translations of Trakl on PoemHunter PDF dead link 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 4 Trakl texts set to music translated by Bertram Kottmann Works by Georg Trakl at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Georg Trakl at Internet Archive Works by Georg Trakl at LibriVox public domain audiobooks External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to Georg Trakl German Wikisource has original text related to this article Georg Trakl Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georg Trakl Photos of the graves of Ludwig von Ficker left and Georg Trakl right at the cemetery of Innsbruck Muhlau Photo 1 Archived 2 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine Photo 2 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Georg Trakl amp oldid 1116937732, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
