Expressionism

Decentralized

• Die Brücke – “The Bridge” 1905• Der Blaue Reiter – “The Blue Rider” 1912

• Ulrich Weisstein – “the Expressionists, more or less ignoring historical truth, wished to pierce the outer shell of ordinary reality and to descend from surface to depth, from appearance to essence. . . with the intention of subsequently projecting that core, in a highly condensed and concentrated form. . . and with the utmost intensity, back into external reality, causing the latter to be—or at least appear to be—distorted.”

Grodek

In the evening the autumnal forests resoundWith deadly weapons, the golden plainsAnd blue lakes, over which the sunRolls more somberly; night embracesDying warriors, the wild lamentOf their broken mouths.Yet silently in the meadowA red cloud, in which an angry god dwells,Gathers spilled blood, moony coolness;All roads end in black rot.Under golden branches of night and starsThe sister's shadow staggers through the silent groveTo greet the ghosts of heroes, the bleeding heads;And quietly the dark autumn flutes resound in the reeds.O prouder grief! you brazen altars,An enormous pain today nourishes the hot flame of the spirit,The unborn grandchildren.

Grodek

• Feelings more than meanings, though meanings can be assigned to parts of the poem

• A mind actively perceiving and interpreting/imagining

Grodek

“Yet silently in the meadowA red cloud, in which an angry god dwells,Gathers spilled blood, moony coolness;All roads end in black rot.”

-Sunset-Death

Grodek

• “Georg Trakl’s Poetry of Silence” James K. Lyon– Silence is used in certain combinations to

metaphorically indicate spiritual conditions– 1) “the innocence of childhood”– 2) “the holy detached state of the ‘unborn’”– 3) “the state of fallen man”– 4) “the muteness accompanying the dead”

The Outsider

“Under golden branches of night and starsThe sister’s shadow staggers through the silent groveTo greet the ghosts of heroes, the bleeding heads”

-Grete-Elis-Helian-Sebastian

Kaspar Hauser