artistic expression (regardless of any “realistic” modes of representation). Therefore, it is not a given outer reality that calls for mimetic reproduction in the work of art. Just as Trakl’s poetic images lose their realistic and mimetic content and become imbued with an elusive and highly subjective emotional content, expressionist paintings exhibit a tendency toward loss of detail and toward elementary, “essential” forms, a tendency which ultimately leads to nonrepresentational art. This loss of the mimetic mode can be compared to the configurations of images in Trakl’s mature and late poetry, which are no longer transparent with a rationally definable meaning “behind” the poetic ciphers. The ensuing darkness and elusiveness of Trakl’s poetry (in conjunction with its musical quality) accounts for the often-noted enchanting and captivating effect of his verse.

In spite of all the melodic obscurities in Trakl’s poems, it is possible to abstract from his texts a relatively comprehensive view of life. Although Trakl does not offer a full-fledged and systematic “philosophy,” his poems are informed by a rather consistent and, at the same time, diversified philosophical perspective that is based on his rejection of many aspects of modern reality. Like most of the expressionists of his generation, Trakl experienced modern industrialized society with its metropolitan cities as a pain-inflicting alien world of which he wanted no part. In Trakl’s case, this phobia concerning modern reality was almost paranoiac. The poet’s patron, Ludwig von Ficker, reported that he once took Trakl to a large bank in order to deposit a certain sum in Trakl’s name. The sight of this institution made Trakl physically ill, and he left the building trembling and perspiring heavily.

If there is an underlying guiding principle in Trakl’s thought and poetic style, it is his dread of life in a totally administered, technologically manipulated, and utterly commercialized world. His poetry becomes the expression of his unwillingness to cope with such a life. This is why poetry is the theater of his inner visionary world, which ignores the accepted rules and laws of normal reality. Literature functions as a sanctuary which, while it still reflects some of the evil of life, contains the features of a better antiworld. Trakl’s poetic world is shaped not only by a modern version of Romantic escapism, with all its magical and morbid charm, but also by the harshness of industrial society.

For Trakl, the effects of such a society are manifold. Man feels forlorn, like a stranger in this world. He wanders through life without a goal. The big cities epitomize the plight of modern man, who turns into an anonymous being in a mass society. In an astonishingly prophetic vision, Trakl sees Europe’s metropolitan cities destroyed by fire. The poet does not deplore his somber foreboding, since, in his view, man’s quest for ethical purity and spiritual nobility is being severely undermined by the brutal, materialistic impact of modern city life.

Trakl seems unable to find any solace in Christianity. Nevertheless, his poems contain numerous biblical references, many of which are an integral part of descriptions of landscapes. It must remain an open question whether Trakl secularizes the religious content of certain biblical words and phrases or whether he imbues nature with a new religious quality. He frequently claims in his poetry that religion is no longer alive. Having degenerated into a lifeless ritual, it has ceased to be a guiding and sustaining power in the life of modern man. Where religion fails, the door to the realm of God can be reopened only through the use of drugs, as expressed in Trakl’s poem “Traumerei am Abend” (“Daydreaming in the Evening”).

Among the abstract concepts (which are not images and thus not ciphers) that recur in Trakl’s poetry are decay, disintegration, disease, and, ultimately, death. These concepts all point to a facet of reality which elicits the poet’s lament even though it cannot be regarded as the fruit of modernity. Trakl often links decay and disintegration with man’s sinfulness and with an undefined sense of guilt from which man cannot be freed.

The mood in many of Trakl’s poems is one of melancholy, anxiety, and desperation. Subdued emotions such as melancholy, however, prevail over the harsher expressions of negative emotions. The poet frequently establishes a connection between expressions of negative emotions and the themes of decay and sinfulness, which are in turn interrelated.

Trakl’s view of life and human destiny is a somber and often gloomy one. Having become alienated from his world, especially from the world of the big city, man finds no comfort in religion and thus blindly pursues a meaningless life, drifting in the stream of time. Because everything ends in decay or death, time can be equated with suffering. In such a view, reality is difficult to love or even to accept. Nevertheless, life offers beauty and peace to those who know how to look for them in a hostile world. In Trakl’s poems, one indeed finds a peculiar fusion of threatening and attractive features. It is hard to decide whether the positive ingredients belong to the descriptive-mimetic dimension in Trakl’s work—which is, after all, still present to some degree—or whether they are the product of his inner poetic intuition. Nonmimetic expression and mimetic rendering of perceived impressions are often hardly distinguishable in Trakl’s texts.

A closer look at Trakl’s principles of poetic composition reveals that the expressionist style breaks down in many different ways the established, “normal” modes of perception and logical thinking. The new expressionist “perspective” that emerges as Trakl’s poetry matures is one that disengages the reader from the customary and conventional manner in which he grasps phenomenal reality as it appears to him—to his senses and his mind.

Trakl’s “arsenal” of images, protagonists (the sister, the boy, the dreamer, the lovers, the child, the hunters, the shepherd, the farmer, the monk, the lepers), and abstract concepts is surprisingly small. The immense variety of the real world has been drastically reduced to a small number of images and concepts which are presented in various guises and which appear in ever-new configurations. This reduction represents a subtle first step toward the expressionist, nonmimetic mode of poetic composition.

Another stylistic device derived from the same basic artistic premises might be called “defocusing.” Trakl likes to use nouns derived from past participles or adjectives. In the first stanza of his poem “The Occident I,” one finds expressions such as ein Totes (something dead) or ein Krankes (something sick). The image has been reduced to its essential core (being dead, sick, and so forth), but no further individualizing details are given. It is almost impossible for the reader to “picture” anything concrete when such blurred images are evoked.

A very effective as well as expressive technique, the nonmimetic thrust of which goes far beyond mere defocusing, is the tendency to present images which denote destruction, dismemberment, and dissolution. This is a stylistic device used by many expressionist writers and artists. Here is an example taken from one of Trakl’s late poems: “. . . the black face,/ That breaks into heavy pieces/ Of dead and strange planets.” This “destructionism” can be interpreted either as a symptom of the broken and fragmented quality of reality itself (Trakl wrote to his friend Ficker in November, 1913: “It is such a terrible thing when one’s world breaks apart”) or as the poet’s attempt to destroy symbolically a world with which he can no longer identify.

Synesthesia and stylistic devices which run counter to the customary ways of perception constitute yet another (though certainly not new) technique which allows the creative intuition of the expressionist to deform the established structure of reality. Trakl likes to blend heterogeneous qualities and processes that defy the norms and the logic of the real world: Walls are “full of leprosy,” and the laughter of a human being “sinks into the old well.” Inanimate objects take on human qualities, and vice versa.

The poetic inversion of customary modes of perception extends also to the presentation of time in Trakl’s poetry. There are passages of lyrical prose in which the present tense alternates in a completely unrealistic way with the past tense. Furthermore, the “unborn” as well as the “dead” appear and speak in Trakl’s poems, and time is sometimes experienced as “standing still,” its flow abruptly changed to a state of dreamlike timelessness.

Trakl’s lyrical transmutation of reality also leads to the dissolution of the conventional structure of space. The notions of “above” and “below” or “near” and “far” lose their accepted meaning when the poet writes such lines as “A white shirt of stars burns the shoulders which wear it” or “The autumn moon dwells silently near your mouth.”

As mentioned earlier, the first-person singular, so frequently found in Trakl’s early poetry, disappears in the poems written after 1909. It undergoes various transformations which show a tendency toward objectivization. The “I” becomes part of (or fused with) the images of the poet’s imaginary world. It can turn into a “you”; that is, the poet addresses himself in the second person. Parts of the human being who once referred to himself as “I” now represent the lost “whole”: “a heart,” “the soul,” “the forehead,” “a face,” “a head.” A further step toward this objectivist direction can be seen in Trakl’s use of unindividuated, anonymous human protagonists (the “stranger,” the “lonely one,” the “beholder,” the “wanderer”). Here it is no longer possible to verify with any degree of accuracy whether such protagonists are indeed projections of the poet’s self.

Since the expressionist world of Trakl’s poems is a world that does not obey the laws of reality, it is small wonder that one finds it populated with mythical figures such as fauns, nymphs, Tritons, Satyrs, and dryads. The appearance of demons and ghosts occasionally contributes to the dreamlike atmosphere which is so characteristic of many of Trakl’s texts.

Not only is the world described by Trakl an imaginary and in many ways an unreal one, but also the beholding subject, whether intended to be identical with the poet or not, appears in Trakl’s poems as one who has lost the ability to experience reality in a normal, conscious, and sober way. The beholder either is a dreamer or is described as under the influence of alcohol or drugs (an obvious autobiographical reference). Dreaming and intoxication derange the mind in its attempt to order the stimuli received from reality.

In Trakl’s poetry, the derangement of the world as conventionally perceived allows the construction of a new visionary world. This “inner landscape” becomes a haven for the poet, who finds himself unable to cope with the harsh realities of modern industrialized society. Deforming and transmuting reality, however, need not be interpreted only as an escapist gesture. It is equally significant as a gesture of protest (an elegiac rather than a strident one) against the threatening aspects of modernity.

Graziano, Frank, ed. Georg Trakl: A Profile. Durango, Colo.: Logbridge-Rhodes, 1983. This biographical study of Trakl’s work concentrates on the poet’s family relations, drug addiction, poverty, and depression as well as the influence of World War I.

Sharp, Francis Michael. The Poet’s Madness: A Reading of Georg Trakl. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981. Critical interpretation of selected poems by Trakl. Includes the texts of poems in English and German.

Williams, Eric. The Mirror and the Word: Modernism, Literary Theory, and Georg Trakl. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. A critical study of Trakl’s works that focuses on his contributions to modernism in Austria. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Williams, Eric, ed. The Dark Flutes of Fall: Critical Essays on Georg Trakl. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1991. A collection of essays on the works of Trakl. Includes bibliographical references and index.