Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl (Austrian German: [ˈtraːkl̩]; 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. He is perhaps best known for his poem "Grodek", which he wrote shortly before he died of a cocaine overdose at the age of 27.

Life and work

Trakl was born and lived the first 21 years of his life in Salzburg. His father, Tobias Trakl (11 June 1837, Ödenburg/Sopron – 1910), was a hardware dealer from Hungary. His mother, Maria Catharina Halik (17 May 1852, Wiener Neustadt – 1925), was a housewife of partly Czech descent who struggled with substance use disorder. She left her son's education to a French governess, who brought Trakl into contact with French language and literature at an early age. His sister Grete Trakl was a musical prodigy with whom he shared artistic endeavors. Poems allude to an incestuous relationship between the two.

From 1892 Trakl attended a Catholic elementary school, but he was released two afternoons a week for religious instruction from a Protestant pastor. 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.

Carolyn Forché notes that "Given his dependence on opiates, his lack of financial independence, and his poetic vocation, he chose somewhat practically to become a dispensing chemist". From 1905, Trakl undertook a 3 year apprenticeship in a pharmacy; 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.