Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl
Born	3 February 1887(1887-02-03) Salzburg, Duchy of Salzburg
Died	3 November 1914(1914-11-03) (aged 27) Cracow, Austria-Hungary (now Poland)
Occupation	Pharmacist
Citizenship	Austro-Hungarian
Alma mater	University of Vienna (pharmacy)
Literary movement	Expressionism

A poem by Trakl inscribed on a plaque in Mirabell Garden, Salzburg.

Georg Trakl (3 February 1887, Salzburg – 3 November 1914, Kraków) was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.^[1]

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),^[2] was a dealer of hardware from Hungary, while his mother, Maria Catharina Halik (17 May 1852, Wiener Neustadt – 1925), was a housewife of Czech descent with strong interests in art and music.

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. At age 13, Trakl began to write poetry. As a high school student, he began visiting brothels, where he enjoyed giving rambling monologues to the aging prostitutes. At age 15, he began drinking alcohol, and using opium, chloroform, and other drugs. By the time he was forced to quit school in 1905, he was a drug addict. Many critics think that Trakl suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia.

After quitting high school, Trakl worked for a pharmacist for three years and decided to adopt pharmacy as a career. It was during this time that he experimented with playwriting, but his two short plays, All Souls' Day and Fata Morgana, were not successful.

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 also met the local artistic community. Ludwig von Ficker, the editor of the journal 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.

In 1912, he was stationed in Innsbruck, Austria, where 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.

At the beginning of World War I, Trakl was sent as a medical official to attend soldiers in Galicia (comprising portions of modern-day Ukraine and Poland). Trakl suffered frequent bouts of depression.^[3] 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 at a military hospital in Cracow 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 went to the hospital, but found that Trakl had died of a cocaine overdose.^[4] Trakl was buried at Cracow'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 Mühlau near Innsbruck (where they now repose next to Ficker's).

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, ed. Christopher Middleton, trans. Robert Grenier et al., Jonathan Cape, 1968 ^[5]
• 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

Poetry portal

• List of Austrians
• List of Austrian writers
• Sebastian im Traum, 2004 orchestral composition by Hans Werner Henze based on Trakl's work.

References

1. ^ "Georg Trakl" (in German). Project Gutenberg. Spiegel Online. http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=19&autor=Trakl,%20%20Georg&autor_vorname=%20Georg&autor_nachname=Trakl. 
2. ^ Hardware dealer Tobias Trakl from West Hungary relocated to Wiener Neustadt for professional reasons. [1], [2], [3], [4]
3. ^ "Georg Trakl - Life and work, Critical appraisal, Online texts, Bibliography". http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/8356/Georg-Trakl.html. Retrieved 9 December 2009. 
4. ^ James Wright and Robert Bly (2008-08-22). "Georg Trakl: Twenty Poems". Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/4956922/Georg-Trakl-Twenty-Poems. Retrieved 22 April 2009. 
5. ^ Library of Congress catalogue listing, retrieved 2011-06-25.

External links

• Hearing Heidegger and Saussure Trakl's poem, "A Winter Evening," in Heidegger's theory of language.

Online texts

• Translation of Trakl Poem
• Red Yucca - German Poetry in Translation (trans. Eric Plattner)
• 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

Persondata
Name	Trakl, Georg
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	3 February 1887
Place of birth	Salzburg, Duchy of Salzburg
Date of death	3 November 1914
Place of death	Cracow, Then Austria, now Poland