Georg Trakl is an important lyric poet in German literature of the early twentieth century. Critics associate his work with various modern artistic movements, and he is viewed as one of the principal writers to set the dark, introspective tone that later influenced the course of German expressionism. Affinities with imagism have also been noted in Trakl's strikingly visual style. In addition, the dreamlike flow of images in his poems has indicated to some commentators a compositional method similar to the automatic writing of the surrealists, with whom Trakl also shared a preoccupation with violence, perversity, and death. Trakl's strongest literary affiliation, however, is with the French symbolists of the nineteenth century, primarily Arthur Rimbaud, whose disordered and conflict-ridden genius is said to be incarnated in the Austrian poet.

He truly loved the purple sun, descending from the hills,The ways through the woods, the singing blackbirdAnd the joys of green.

Sombre was his dwelling in the shadows of the treeAnd his face undefiled.God, a tender flame, spoke to his heart:Oh son of man!

Silently his step turned to the city in the evening;A mysterious complaint fell from his lips:“I shall become a horseman.”

But bush and beast did follow his waysTo the pale people’s house and garden at dusk,And his murderer sought after him.

Spring and summer and – oh so beautiful – the fallOf the righteous. His silent stepsPassed by the dark rooms of the dreamers.

At night he and his star dwelled alone.He saw the snow fall on bare branchesAnd in the murky doorway the assassin’s shadow.Silvern sank the unborne’s head.

Georg Trakl

In just two years Trakl managed to produce the poems that place him among the most important and original poets of the German language. His language was simple and clear, even in translation, resembling the work of Hoelderlin, with strong and precise imagery, darkly brooding sensitivity, and an adept feeling for color. He wrote about death, decay, and doom,

hiding himself in lyrical metaphor and the ambiguity of his images. Trakl saw the world collapsing around him and taking him with it; and while his poetry is overwhelmingly negative, critics find in it a gesture of affirmation. Internal evidence of the poems and statements made by Trakl have indicated to many commentators that he was a Christian or at least gave voice to Christian doctrine, and thus balanced his visions of damnation with the possibility of ultimate redemption. He described poetry as "imperfect penance" for "unabsolved guilt." Other critics see in this more positive side to his work the influence of pantheistic views acquired from Hoelderlin. Herbert Lindenberger wrote in Georg Trakl, "The lofty stance, the cosmic range, and the haunting music of Trakl's poetry now mark him, with Rilke, as perhaps the last great representative of what could be called the sublime tradition in German."

The Ravens

Over the black corner at midday

The ravens rush with hard cry.

Their shadow streaks past the doe

And sometimes they are seen in sullen rest.

O how they disturb the brown silence

Of a field lying ecstatic with itself,

Like a woman ensnared by heavy intuition,

And sometimes one can hear their nagging

Around a carcass scented out somewhere,

And suddenly their flight bends northward

And disappears like a funeral procession