Surrender to Night
Page 13
So earnest O summer twilight.
From weary mouth
Your golden breath sank into the valley
To the places of shepherds,
Sinks into leafage.
A vulture rises at the forest’s edge
The stony head—
An eagle’s glance
Shines through grey cloud
Night.
Wildly glow
The red roses by the fence
Glowing dies
The loving in wave of green
A faded rose.
CHRONOLOGY
1887 Georg Trakl is born during the evening of 3rd February at the Schaffner house on Waagplatz in Salzburg, to Tobias and Maria Catharina Trakl.
1892 Trakl enters the Übungschule des Lehererseminars (primary school). Religious teaching in the Protestant rectory.
1897 Trakl enrols at the humanist-inclined Staatsgymnasium (state secondary school).
1905 Trakl abandons his studies to train as a pharmacist. He embarks on a period of work practice in Carl Hinterhuber’s pharmacy “Zum weissen Engel” on the Linzergasse. (This Apotheke still exists today and is now called “The Angel”.)
1906 Performance of dramatic pieces “Totentag” and “Fata Morgana” in the Stadttheater, Salzburg. Both are considered a failure by their author after a lacklustre reception.
1908 First appearance of a poem (“Morning Song”, in the paper Salzburger Volksblatt). Termination of pharmacy practice. Trakl enrols to study pharmacy at the University of Vienna.
1909 At the suggestion of his close friend Erhard Buschbeck, also in Vienna, he begins assembling his poems for a first collection.
1910 Meeting with the artist Oskar Kokoschka, leading to long-term friendship. Achieves his Master’s degree in pharmacy. Death of Tobias Trakl. Enters voluntarily for a year’s military practice.
1911 End of military service in Vienna. Returns to Salzburg disillusioned with life in the capital. Assumes a position at “Zum weissen Engel” again, with responsibility for prescriptions.
1912 April: Accepts a new post in the pharmacy of the military hospital in Innsbruck. Crucial meeting with Ludwig von Ficker, the publisher of the bi-monthly journal Der Brenner, who publishes the first poem, “Suburb in the Föhn”; Trakl’s work is subsequently included in every issue of the journal. Ficker becomes the unofficial guardian and benefactor of the vulnerable, poverty-stricken poet. Trakl regularly visits Kokoschka, who paints The Bride of the Wind, inspired by his friend’s poetry and his own doomed love affair with Alma Mahler. In autumn Trakl joins the reserves.
1913 The manuscript of Poems is accepted by Kurt Wolff Publishers (Leipzig). Trakl moves to Vienna and works as an accounts clerk in the War Ministry. Communication with Karl Kraus and Adolf Loos. Vacation trip to Venice, which Trakl describes as “the gateway to hell”. Returns in despair to Innsbruck.
1914 Submits the manuscript of Sebastian in Dream to Kurt Wolff publishers. Travels to Berlin to meet his sister Grete. In March meets the poet Else Lasker-Schüler, who later dedicates two poems to their brief friendship. Along with Rilke, receives financial endowment from Ludwig Wittgenstein after guidance from Ficker. Outbreak of war. On 24th August Trakl departs on a military convoy in the role of medical orderly. Trakl’s unit, Field Hospital 7/14, stationed in Galicia, is obliged to care for the traumatized and wounded after the battle of Grodek. He is admitted to the garrison hospital in Kraków for observation following his mental collapse and suicide attempt. On 24/25 October Ludwig von Ficker visits him in Kraków. On 3rd November Georg Trakl dies of heart failure following an overdose of cocaine smuggled in by a sympathetic guard. He is buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków. At Ficker’s request Trakl’s remains are moved to the cemetery in Mühlau near Innsbruck in 1925.
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STEFAN ZWEIG · EDGAR ALLAN POE · ISAAC BABEL TOMÁS GONZÁLEZ · ULRICH PLENZDORF · JOSEPH KESSEL VELIBOR čOLIĆ · LOUISE DE VILMORIN · MARCEL AYMÉ ALEXANDER PUSHKIN · MAXIM BILLER · JULIEN GRACQ BROTHERS GRIMM · HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL GEORGE SAND · PHILIPPE BEAUSSANT · IVÁN REPILA E.T.A. HOFFMANN · ALEXANDER LERNET-HOLENIA YASUSHI INOUE · HENRY JAMES · FRIEDRICH TORBERG ARTHUR SCHNITZLER · ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY MACHI TAWARA · GAITO GAZDANOV · HERMANN HESSE LOUIS COUPERUS · JAN JACOB SLAUERHOFF PAUL MORAND · MARK TWAIN · PAUL FOURNEL ANTAL SZERB · JONA OBERSKI · MEDARDO FRAILE HÉCTOR ABAD · PETER HANDKE · ERNST WEISS PENELOPE DELTA · RAYMOND RADIGUET · PETR KRÁL ITALO SVEVO · RÉGIS DEBRAY · BRUNO SCHULZ · TEFFI EGON HOSTOVSKÝ · JOHANNES URZIDIL · JÓZEF WITTLIN
COPYRIGHT
Pushkin Press
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English translation © 2019 Will Stone
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
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ISBN 13: 978–1–78227–518–3
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
A significant portion of the poems in this volume first appeared in To the Silenced: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl (Arc Publications, 2005), a bilingual edition edited by Jean Boase-Beier. The translator and publisher would like to express their gratitude to Arc for permission to republish these translations here.
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