The Occident (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Georg Trakl
- First Published: 1914
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Culture, 1910’s, Spiritual life or spirituality, Beauty, Death or dying, Storms, Bible, biblical imagery, or biblical symbolism, Western Europe or western Europeans, Moon or moons, Joy or sorrow, Sun, Stars, Night, Spring
The Poem
The poem’s German title, “Abendland,” usually translated as “The Occident,” names the West as the land of evening (Abend), the land where the sun sets. In Georg Trakl’s time, the word referred primarily to the Western European nations. In haunting imagery of evening and approaching night, the poet found a perfect metaphor for what he saw as the late hour in the decline of Western culture, a powerful tool for expressing his sense of foreboding about the depth of night to which that decline might lead. The poem was written in the last months before the...
[The entire page is 1611 words long]
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