Autumn Sonata
Haunted by the "cold radiance" of death, Trakl's poems and two prose pieces collected in this bilingual volume create a romantically heightened interior world of suffering and hoped-for transcendence. "Gone is the gold of day" from this intensely imagined realm, where autumnal imagery--a "stubble-field," a "brown tree that stands alone"--suggests the beginnings of a spiritual and physical "black decomposition." Austrian-born Trakl (1887-1914), who died an apparent suicide by cocaine overdose, was compelled in his writing by "an angry God" and "the icy wave of eternity," and viewed death as an elevating and terrifying power more potent than mortal experience ("The dance of the living appears unreal / And strangely dispersed"). Eminently visual, his work evokes a sometimes frantic sense of doom and a longing for deliverance (a "blue moment") not expected to take place. The prose is relatively direct and visceral; its ferocity of feeling is effectively conveyed by poet Simko, who faces a more difficult task--and occasionally waxes prosaic--in translating Trakl's highly charged, elliptical verse.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.