GEORG TRAKL'S POETRY OF SILENCE

JAMES K. LYON Harvard University

Words and images dealing with silence recur with higher frequency in Trakl's poetry than almost any others. Their usage bespeaks a near obsession with the phenomenon of silence. This fixation becomes increas- ingly evident following Trakl's encounter with Rimbaud's poetry. He uses metaphors of silence in various combinations to characterize four basic conditions. They are 1) the innocence of childhood; 2) the holy, detached state of the "unborn" called Abgeschiedenheit; 3) the state of fallen man; and 4) the muteness accompanying the dead. Following a pattern found throughout the lyrics, "Kindheit" and "Jahr" juxtapose the present silence of man's desolate state with the blissful quiet of past innocence or of the Abgeschiedenheit of the unborn. Elsewhere communion with the muted dead seems to represent the poetic ego's attempt to evoke his former in- nocent sell. Metaphors of silence also represent the dread which man senses when he realizes God has withdrawn and his childhood faith is gone. The poem "Psalm" bitterly indicts a silent God, while "De profundis" uses the central image of "drinking God's silence" to express man's despair. Finally, Trakl's war poems, especially "Die Schwermut" and "Grodek," employ the image of "muted" or "broken" mouths to represent the unre- deemed silent state of the damned. (JKL)

I. Trakl's uses of silence

When Mallarm6 described a certain type of modern poetry as a "musicienne de silence" ("Sainte"), he touched on an essential similarity between much modern musical and poetic composition. Just as rests and pauses are a basic stuff for composers, so, too, many modern poets find that rests, silence, and the inexpressible are as essential to poetic creation as words are.

Georg Trakl's commentators have repeatedly called attention to his efforts to express the inexpressible by shaping silence and working with what lies near or beyond the limits of speech. Rilke's description of the poem "Helian" will suffice to summarize what many consider to be an essential trait in Trakl's poetry:1 "Jedes Anheben und Hingehen in diesem schinen Gedicht ist von einer unsaiglichen SiiMigkeit, ganz ergreifend ward es mir durch seine inneren Abstlinde, es ist gleichsam auf seine Pausen

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aufgebaut, ein paar Einfriedigungen um das grenzenlos Wortlose: so stehen die Zeilen da. Wie Z~une in einem flachen Land, tiber die hin das Einge- ziunte fortwlihrend zu einer unbesitzbaren grolSen Ebene zusammen- schligt.'"2 While Rilke's description of a poem "built on its pauses," of the "infinite wordless" which is staked off with a few words, and of "inner spaces" separating parts of the poem is highly impressionistic, a routine word count in Trakl's other poems would confirm Rilke's impression that Trakl's poetry often deals with the phenomenon of silence and the inexpres- sible. Nouns such as Schweigen or Stille, verbs such as schweigen and verstummen, and related adjectives, adverbs, and gerunds such as namen- los, schweigend, sprachlos, still, stumm, unsdiglich, etc., occur with such frequency that they demand more than fleeting attention.

While word counts and cataloging of images are low in order of critical importance, they do help establish a writer's preoccupation or obsession.3 Curiously, no one has investigated Trakl's near obsession with words and images of stillness, silence, quiet, and muteness, though scarcely a critic fails to mention them. Nor has anyone investigated how he uses them or what role they play in his poetry. Leitgeb's word count of Trakl's poetry does list thirty-three occurrences of the noun Stille and twenty-six of Schweigen from the 108 poems and three prose works representing Trakl's mature writing.4 But he fails to record all the other occurrences of words relating to this image cluster, e.g. twenty occurrences of schweigen in some form (schweigend, schweigsam, etc.), nine of stumm, nine of still, seven of sprachlos, plus such peripheral words as verstummen, namenlos, and unsiiglich. Taken together, they represent a formidable word group (second only to images of darkness and night) and underscore what can safely be taken as a preoccupation.5

The density of such words increases in the last half of the volume known as Dichtungen. Though this is not arranged in exact chronological order, it does reflect the general progression from early to late poems. In the last sixty-three poems, more than a quarter of them have two or more occurrences of words from this image cluster (many have four or five such words), and nearly all reflect the motif of silence or muteness by using other images not directly within this word cluster. For this reason, later poems provide the best examples of images and metaphors of silence in Trakl's poetry.

When such words and metaphors of silence occur in the volume of early poems entitled Aus goldenem Kelch (which Trakl rejected as im- mature) or in the early poems of Dichtungen, one is struck by their unimag- inative, derivative usage: "... .Girten,/ Die sich in Paradiesesschweigen sonnen,"(II,85); "Ihr Schweigen breiten die Wolken am Hiigel" (II,109); "Rund schweigen Wilder wunderbar" (1,34). The conventional usage of

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"Schweigen" in an early poem by that title (II,88) is only one example of an apparently indifferent usage of both the term and the metaphor. Trakl at this point apparently had no obsessive concern with silence, mute- ness, and related metaphors and motifs. This observation is confirmed by comparing the relatively low frequency of this word cluster in the early poems with the higher frequency in later poems.6

Sometime during the last two years or so of Trakl's life, this pattern of usage changes. One now encounters tropes such as "Gottes Schweigen/ Trank ich aus dem Brunnen des Hains" (1,67); "schweigender Anblick der Sonne" (1,147); "Aber stille blutet in dunkler Hihle stummere Mensch- heit" (1,131); "Sonjas Leben, blaue Stille" (1,119). It is tempting to relate this increased occurrence and sovereign usage to Trakl's encounter with Rimbaud in the Karl Klammer (K.L. Ammer) translation. Grimm dates this encounter around 1911-1912, just when this word cluster begins to appear with increasing frequency and to assume increasing importance.' But in Grimm's exhaustive documentation of everything Trakl seems to have borrowed, there is virtually no evidence that Trakl appropriated anything from Rimbaud relating to the motif of silence. Rather it appears to have been an independent development, since there are almost no words, images, or motifs in the Klammer translation which might have provided the necessary impulses. It seems that the encounter with Rimbaud helped Trakl find his own style, but that Trakl developed this word cluster and its metaphoric significance autonomously.

This does not imply that Trakl created in a vacuum and was totally out of touch with the thought and temper of his times. The contrary is probably true. The skeptical attitude toward language in the writings of Fritz Mauthner and Gustav Landauer during the first two decades of this century, the various testimonials of Sprachnot by Hofmannsthal, the long periods of silence in Rilke and Val6ry, and general distrust toward con- ventional poetic language found in many writers from Mallarm6 to T.S. Eliot are all symptomatic for a prevailing habit of mind.8 While Trakl's indebtedness to his contemporaries cannot be clearly established, his pre- occupation with silence and the inexpressible is only a highly individualistic manifestation of the prevailing climate of opinion, regardless of whether one calls it Sprachnot, Sprachskepsis, or awareness of the limitations of poetic language.

In his poetic struggle to articulate, Trakl's usage from the word cluster of silence ranges over a scale from accepted, traditional syntax and imagery ("die schweigenden Wiilder" 1,183; "Stille der Diirfer" 1,167) through catachrestic constructions ("blaue Stille" 1,119; "die milde Stille" 1,121) on to the most jolting, unconventional symbolic and syntactical structures ("seine stillere Kindheit" 1,133; "iiber der griinen Stille des Teichs" 1,137; "Stille leuchtet die Kerze" 1,166).

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Silence is a dominant feature in Trakl's world, though one might more accurately speak of "muteness," since there often are sounds such as the singing of birds or the activities of workmen. But human speech is almost totally lacking in the poetic landscape. When a figure does speak, his speech is usually qualified by a restrictive adjective or adverb implying quiet or near muteness, e.g. "Leise sagend vergessene Legende des Walds" (I,111) or "Die dunkle Klage seines Munds" (I,113).

Metaphors of silence play an essential role in nearly every phase of human existence. They range over a spectrum from childhood and innocence through man's fallen state of wickedness on to the state of death. One might classify "conditions of silence" according to their uses in recurrent situations.

First, the innocence of childhood is nearly always attended by meta- phors of silence ("Dunkle Stille der Kindheit" 1,168; "Jener ging . .. In seine stillere Kindheit" 1,133; "Geduld und Schweigen der Kindheit" I,143; "Der Platz vor der Kirche ist finster und schweigsam, wie in den Tagen der Kindheit" 1,63). Usually this state is blissful and serene.

In a second category closely connected with childhood, silence often attends the Ungeborenen, the unborn innocents nearly always portrayed as youths who have not yet incurred guilt through "birth" into the sinful adult world.

Trakl usually gives specific names to these innocents, e.g. Kaspar Hauser, Elis, Helian, and Sonja, though certain generic designations also seem to apply, e.g. "Der Schauende," "Der Novize," etc. But whatever the designation, they are either partially or completely silent. Elis lives in "vollkommene Stille" (1,96); in "Helian" one reads "Schin ist die Stille der Nacht" (1,84); in "Afra" one hears of quiet evening coolness and of "des Holunders Schweigen" (I,123); and Sonja's life itself is "blaue Stille" (1,119).

Martin Heidegger calls the pure, innocent state in which they exist A bgeschiedenheit.9 This term, deriving from German mystics (notably of Meister Eckhart's school),1o originally denoted a state of spiritual disinter- estedness or self-denial, the detachment and withdrawal from the world necessary to allow God to enter the subject. In the course of time the meaning of spiritual separation from the world was gradually reduced to mean separation from the world by death. Trakl's poem "Gesang des Abgeschiedenen" (1,174), which seems to extend the term again to com- prehend many aspects of its original meaning of separation and isolation from the world, provided Heidegger with his formulation for what he sees as the prevailing mood, the inner condition, and the state of mind in Trakl's entire poetic world."

According to Heidegger, silence and muteness are fundamental to this state of A bgeschiedenheit. He asks, "Ist die Abgeschiedenheit nicht ein

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einziges Schweigen der Stille? Wie kann die Abgeschiedenheit ein Sagen und Singen auf den Weg bringen?"'12 He answers by pointing out that in Trakl's world silence in the unborn innocents is something holy and trans- cendent, a more profound aspect of speech in which the true essence of language and music is found. This is not incongruous when one considers how often Trakl structures his poetic world in antitheses comprehended in such terms as Gut-BWise; Paradies-Hblle; Schuld-Gerechtigkeit; Often- barung-Untergang; and Traum-Umnachtung.13 Silence is not only the antithesis of speech; it is also quintessential speech, for as he puts it, "das Wesen der Sprache" is nothing more than "das Geliut der Stille," a silent sounding which remains unarticulated, but which the unborn figures perceive.14 This would explain the frequency of the verbs liiuten, tinen, and klingen in these poems. Elis, for example, hears the sounding of bells within him: "Ein sanftes Glockenspiel t6nt in Elis' Brust" (1,96). It would also explain why another unborn innocent called "Der Einsame" in "Der Herbst des Einsamen" (1,121) listens in silence and hears ". .. die milde Stille/ Erfiillt von leiser Antwort dunkler Fragen." The inner harmony of these unborn innocents enables them to perceive the ineffable. They are mute, but silence here is by definition a higher form of communication.

This is no longer the case in a third category of silent existence. Here man has incurred unspeakable guilt by being "born," i.e. coming in contact with sin and evil ("Grol ist die Schuld des Geborenen" 1,132; "Weh, der unsiiglichen Schuld, die jenes [Grab] kundtut" 1,158). The characteristic harmonious silence of unborn innocents has been supplanted by over- whelming muteness in the face of enigmatic human existence ("Unsiiglich ist der Vi5gel Flug, Begegnung/ Mit Sterbenden" 1,123), inexpressible dread of the ineffable ("Uber Stoppelfeld und Pfad/ Banget schon ein schwarzes Schweigen" 1,122), and silent resignation to man's fallen state ("Aber stille blutet in dunkler Hihle stummere Menschheit" 1,131; "Ein Herz/ Erstarrt in schneeiger Stille" 1,173). Existence has lost all meaning, and man has been left helpless and inarticulate. A letter Traki wrote to Ludwig von Ficker sometime during November, 1913, laments the loss of coherent existence in his personal life. His anguished tone intimates how ineffable he considered such suffering to be: "Es ist so ein namenloses Ungliick, wenn einem die Welt entzweibricht. O mein Gott, welch ein Gericht ist iiber mich hereingebrochen" (III,170).

One might say Trakl's world begins and ends in innocence, the inno- cence characterized by two large groups--children; and those whom Trakl would call "the unborn" (die Ungeborenen). This silent condition of primeval innocence ("ruhig wohnte die Kindheit/ In blauer HShle" 1,102), i.e. not having incurred the guilt inherent in adult existence by entrance into the world of sin, does not necessarily symbolize a private experience.

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Rather it stands as a metaphor for all mankind before falling from grace. In light of this interpretation, one can comprehend Trakl's wish expressed in an earlier version of "Passion" that he who is born into the world might die before tasting the bitter fruit of guilt-ridden existence:

Weh, des Geborenen, dab er stiirbe Eh er die gliihende Frucht, Die bittere der Schuld genossen.

Physical birth alone does not bring guilt. Guilt comes through exposure to and immersion in human sinfulness. "Birth" into life and loss of inno- cence come with this increased awareness ("GroB ist die Schuld des Geborenen" 1,132), a situation which in Christian terms would correspond to man after the fall of Adam.

In a fourth and final use of metaphors of silence, the dead, too, are almost always described in such terms. One recalls the meaning of the word Abgeschiedenheit denoting death. In some cases the dead actually return to the beatific state of silent innocence upon dying: "Jener aber ging .../ In seine stillere Kindheit und starb" (1,133). Just as often, however, death means ultimate loss of articulation ("Stille bliiht die Myrthe iiber den weiBl3en Lidern des Toten" 1,147; "O [weh] der Verwesten, da sie mit silbernen Zungen die H511e schwiegen," 1,161; "Vom Hiigel .../ Stiirzt das lachende Blut [der Soldaten] - / Unter Eichen/ Sprachlos . . ." 1,181).

II. Blissful Silence: Past Innocence and Present Recall

Among the characters in Trakl's poetic landscape, the child and der Ungeborene appear most often. Both seem to be counters for the poet himself, the poet's "anti-self" as Yeats would call it. Both have not yet entered life, have not been "born," i.e. initiated into sinfulness. Trakl once confessed to Hans Limbach, "Ich bin ja erst halb geboren" (II1,115). According to Limbach, he claimed to be totally unaware of the world about him until age twenty. The connection between this personal aspect of Trakl's life and those Ungeborenen living detached from the world is obvious.

The poem "Kindheit" (1,102) illustrates the blissful, serene state of silence which obtained during childhood:

Voll Friichten der Holunder; ruhig wohnte die Kindheit In blauer Hdhle. tOber vergangenen Pfad, Wo nun briunlich das wilde Gras saust, Sinnt das stille Gelist; das Rauschen des Laubs

Ein gleiches, wenn das blaue Wasser im Felsen tint. Sanft ist der Amsel Klage. Ein Hirt Folgt sprachlos der Sonne, die vom herbstlichen Hiigel rollt.

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Ein blauer Augenblick ist nur mehr Seele. Am Waldsaum zeigt sich ein scheues Wild und friedlich Ruhn im Grund die alten Glocken und finsteren Weiler.

Frammer kennst du den Sinn der dunklen Jahre, Kiihle und Herbst in einsamen Zimmern; Und in heiliger Bliue liuten leuchtende Schritte fort.

Leise klirrt ein offenes Fenster; zu Trinen Riihrt der Anblick des verfallenen Friedhofs am Hiigel, Erinnerung an erzihlte Legenden; doch manchmal erhellt sich die Seele Wenn sie frohe Menschen denkt, dunkelgoldene Friihlingstage.

Here images of a sheltered, peaceful world intermingle with images of silence and darkness. Ruhig, sanft, scheu, friedlich, leise, dunkelgolden in lines one, six, fourteen, and seventeen describe the mood, while still and sprachlos in lines four and seven refer to the silence of childhood. Closer examination shows that adjectives in the first group (with the possible exception of the last one) also either imply or denote the silent condition. The basic situation is peaceful (ruhig); the sound of the black bird is barely audible (sanft); the animal, often a counter for the poetic ego ("Du, ein blaues Tier" 1,128; "er, ein wildes Tier" 1,157), has the same qualities a silent child has (scheu, friedlich); the window rattles quietly (leise). Trakl's ambiguous use of adjectives subtly reinforces the basic condition.

The shepherd, the "blue cave" of childhood security, the deer, and the "holy blue" connected with childhood here are standard components wherever Trakl sketches this silent landscape of innocence. Even the sounds made by the swaying grass, the rustling leaves, the water striking the rocks, and the blackbird's cry underscore the muteness of this landscape where no human voice is heard. The entire poem to this point might be viewed as an extended metaphor for the silent tranquillity of childhood.

Not until the final line where the transitive usage of denkt describes the soul thinking of or recalling joyful days does one realize that the poem is actually reflecting on the past. This may refer to the childhood of the poetic ego; more likely it is a metaphor for the childhood of the race. The past tense (wohnte) used in the first line to describe how peaceful and quiet childhood once was confirms that this state no longer obtains. The season is autumn, as the ripened elderberry bushes and the brown grass in stanza one and the "autumn hill" in stanza two testify. While the speaker walks along a path familiar from childhood, the "quiet" branches, the soft rustling of leaves, and the "sound" of the blue waters combine to evoke the memory of this innocent A bgeschiedenheit. Everything in this landscape familiar to the speaker from youth combines to produce the "blue moment

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of recall" mentioned in stanza three. Blue in this poem apparently refers to that lost age of innocence (cf. the opening lines), though critics have established how difficult it is to assign one meaning to colors (and most other images) in Trakl. The last line suggests that the color gold also has some connection with childhood.

Trakl sometimes equates the time of childhood tranquillity with the spring season. This is explicit in "Jahr" (1,168) with the lines "Dunkle Stille der Kindheit. Unter griinenden Eschen/ Weidet die Sanftmut bliu- lichen Blickes," and is implied in many other poems. Such usage contrasts sharply with the subject's present location in the symbolic autumn season where he knows the darkness, coldness, and loneliness of the intervening years ("Friammer kennst du den Sinn der dunklen Jahre,/ Kiihle und Herbst in einsamen Zimmern"). These "darker years" imply the inex- pressible nature of sin which the subject (or mankind) experienced after leaving the primeval state. Thus the recall of the spring of childhood, which momentarily dispels the darkness of the soul ("doch manchmal erhellt sich die Seele,/ Wenn sie frohe Menschen denkt, dunkelgoldene Frtihlingstage"), stays within a consistent frame of reference, since the verb erhellen means both visionary recall and relief from the oppressive darkness often associated with sinful silence.15 If the view of a cemetery in the final stanza is read as a symbolic reminder of dead childhood or youth (either of the individual or of mankind) one understands how it can help evoke the vision of guiltless silence which is the focal point of this poem.

The poem "Jahr" (1,168) contrasts the "quiet" of man in his fallen state of "autumn" with the bliss of virtuous Abgeschiedenheit. This juxta- position prevails in many poems. While the twelve lines here might suggest a symbolic "Jahr der Seele," the poem actually begins in the spring of childhood and ends in autumn (or, one might conclude, at the onset of winter):

Dunkle Stille der Kindheit. Unter griinenden Eschen Weidet die Sanftmut bliiulichen Blickes; goldene Ruh. Ein Dunkles entziickt der Duft der Veilchen; schwankende Ahren Im Abend, Sonnen und die goldenen Schatten der Schwermut. Balken behaut der Zimmermann; im diimmernden Grund Mahlt die Miihle; im Hasellaub wdlbt sich ein purpurner Mund, Miinnliches rot tiber schweigende Wasser geneigt. Leise ist der Herbst, der Geist des Waldes; goldene Wolke Folgt dem Einsamen, der schwarze Schatten des Enkels. Neige in steinernem Zimmer; unter alten Zypressen Sind der Triinen niichtige Bilder zum Quell versammelt; Goldenes Auge des Anbeginns, dunkle Geduld des Endes. (1,168)

Again Trakl sketches a mute landscape. No human voice is heard, though

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sounds of human industry are present. The quiet of childhood pervades the first four lines. The next four lines portraying human activity allude to human guilt (lines six and seven probably refer to erotic experience). The autumnal season is quiet ("Leise ist der Herbst"), but now muteness no longer seems to be blissful. In the poem "Kindheit" (1,102) man spent autumn alone "in einsamen Zimmern"; here man is "Der Einsame," the embodiment of human desolation.

The golden cloud following man, which is simultaneously a vision of an "unborn" grandchild, shows affinities to the cemetery in "Kindheit." Just as the resting place of the dead there evoked a vision of innocence to which one longed to return, so the shades of an unborn generation here (or perhaps of a dead child?) allude to the condition of innocence to be found in non-life. Again the implication of prevailing silence is overwhelm- ing. The connection between the innocent state of the Enkel who has not yet been born, and the "unborn" whom Trakl refers to in several poems, nearly compels one to equate the silence of the unborn with the state of those who have not yet entered "life."

In this poem one glimpses an eschatological vision structured out of silence. It is as though death were a new beginning of innocence, a return to the starting point. While the cypress tree, an ancient symbol of death, announces the end of suffering, the "Goldenes Auge des Anbeginns" simultaneously means a new beginning.

Wherever Trakl treats this apparent cyclical movement from inno- cence into adult culpability (and sometimes back again--cf. "Abend- liindisches Lied" 1,137; "Ruh und Schweigen" 1,108; and "Traum und Umnachtung" 1,161), he does it in terms of silence. This implies varying types of silence, since the muteness of suffering mankind ("Aber stille blutet in dunkler Hihle stummere Menschheit" 1,131) is radically different from the seemingly serene and joyful silence of the dead in such poems as "'An einen Friihverstorbenen" (1,133), which describes how a young person died and returned to his "quieter childhood":

Jener aber ging die steinernen Stufen des Mainchbergs hinab, Ein blaues Liicheln im Antlitz und seltsam verpuppt In seine stillere Kindheit und starb. Und im Garten blieb das silberne Antlitz des Freundes zuriick, Lauschend im Laub oder im alten Gestein . . .

(Lines 6-11)

The muteness of death and of childhood Abgeschiedenheit are equated here. It is as though death had restored man to pristine unity and redeemed him from present guilt. In effect, the silence of death represents a return to man's starting point. The speaker's communion with the quiet dead

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person ("da .. ./ Der Geist des Friihverstorbenen stille im Zimmer erschien") who was once the speaker's intimate playmate ("Da wir sanfte Gespielen am Abend waren") during their age of innocence, implies what one often suspects in other poems-that the dead being represents the speaker's alter ego, his lost innocent self whom he seeks to recognize again, and to whom he flees to find release from his present guilt-ridden condition. In effect, this is but another evocation or vision of former bliss. In this poem, communion with the dead in their silent A bgeschiedenheit represents a partial fulfillment of longing for a lost state of peaceful inarticulation.

III. God's Silence-The State of Fallen Man

The type of Trakl interpretation in Eduard Lachmann's Kreuz und Abend and similarly oriented studies16 has given rise to such oversimplifica- tion and Procrustian stretching that it is now considered almost disrepu- table to view Trakl's poetry in light of the Christian religion. Yet if one considers questions of good and evil, sin and suffering, corruption and innocence, or guilt and redemption to be religious matters, Trakl's poetry has indisputable religious content, however devoid it might be of confession- ally oriented matters.7 This is important, because it is precisely man's tortured relationship to a God whose very existence is questionable which underlies much of the bitterness and suffering Trakl expresses. An apparent invocation addressed to God alludes to this inexpressibility of shattered existence: "Unstiglich ist das alles, O Gott, da3 man erschtittert ins Knie bricht" (I,101).

In several poems Trakl employs metaphors of silence to equate loss of the primeval Abgeschiedenheit with loss of what seems to be religious faith. In "Abendlied" (1,81), for example, the city, Trakl's symbol for man's total exposure to evil,18 blots out the memory of the spiritual past: "FriihlingsgewiSlke steigen tiber die finstre Stadt,/ Die der M6nche edlere Zeiten schweigt." And one passage in "Abendlindisches Lied" (1,137) utters a wish for a return of innocent childhood stillness where personal communion with God was possible:

O, ihr Zeiten der Stille und goldener Herbste, Da wir friedliche Mdnche die purpurne Traube gekeltert; Und rings ergliinzten Hiigel und Wald. O, ihr Jagden und Schlisser; Ruh des Abends, Da in seiner Kammer der Mensch Gerechtes sann, In stummem Gebet um Gottes lebendiges Haupt rang.

(Stanza three)

But the days of stillness when righteous beings communed with God in silent prayer are lost. They have been transformed into a silence of desola- tion and despair at man's fallen state.

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The poem "Psalm" (1,61) is an anguished portrait of man's senseless suffering. Despite its title, it is no sacred song of praise or worship directed to God, but rather the opposite. The first section depicts the loss of original harmony and closes with the lamentation "O unser verlorenes Paradies." The second section catalogs human weaknesses and desolation before closing with an image of man's total exposure to elemental suffering: "Ein weil3er Dampfer am Kanal triigt blutige Seuchen herauf." The third section ends with the image of a blind girl which evokes a bitter sense of lost inno- cence and present grief. Images of death, decay, and damnation in the fourth section converge in a traditional image of the evil which pervades life and exercises almost magical control over men: "In seinem Grab spielt der weile Magier mit seinen Schlangen."

The underlying tone of accusation would be enough if Trakl stopped here. But he adds a single telling line which summarizes his indictment and names the cause of man's condition: "Schweigsam iiber der Schlidelstlitte iiffnen sich Gottes goldene Augen." Above this symbolic Golgotha, the place of suffering and death which is man's dwelling place, is a silent God whose promise of beauty and redemption is intimated by golden eyes, but who is otherwise unconcerned with man. Underlying the metaphor of a silent God is an awareness of the terror and brutality of a world abandoned by God.

Trakl's poems contain several intimations that it is impossible to commune with God through prayer or any other form, for God has deserted man and withdrawn into silence. The plaintive cry "Gottes Schweigen/ Trank ich aus dem Brunnen des Hains" (1,67) is one such intimation. Another is the use of the cry "O," which in Trakl's poetry lies somewhere between an apostrophe and invocation. The statement "Unstiglich ist das alles, o Gott, daB man erschiittert ins Knie bricht" (I,101) is representa- tive of the many cases where it is uncertain whether the poet uses it as an invocation to God, an apostrophe to God, or an interjection of complete despair ("O, die bittere Stunde des Untergangs" 1,137; "O des Menschen verweste Gestalt" 1,138; "O dunkle Angst" 1,176; "O Herz" 1,177; "O Schweigen"; "O Schmerz" 1,179). But in the dozens of poems where Trakl uses it--often three or four times in the same poem--this "o" clearly bespeaks a dual problem: the lack of anyone or anything to whom to address the lament or complaint, and the incapacity of the speaker to articulate what he feels. From Trakl's usage of this rhetorical device alone one could make a persuasive argument for his fear of total muteness and his frustration in finding someone or something to address. Such highly fragmented forms as "O Herz" (1,177) or "O Schweigen" (I,179), which in no way further describe or expand on the object of invocation, also testify that much remains unsaid.'9

Another hint that an inaccessible God, a deus absconditus, cannot be

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reached by man is found in a frequent image Trakl uses in connection with God--the wind. There is an obvious relationship between this image, the Greek pneuma, and such New Testament passages as "The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3,8). But Trakl reverses this traditional Christian usage and makes the wind a symbol of desolation, emptiness, and silence.20 Again adjectives play the decisive role in mapping out Trakl's world. One hears their determining force in "Gottes einsamer Wind" (I,97) and "Gottes eisiger Odem" (1,130).21 In another passage "God's wind" can be read as a synonym for silence: "Ein umnachteter Seher sang jener an verfallenen Mauern und seine Stimme verschlang Gottes Wind" (1,160). The foregoing evidence illuminates a passage where the poet portrays man's desolate con- dition with the term "Windesstille der Seele" (I,138), which must be inter- preted to symbolize God's absence. Or the passages "Immer tint/ An schwarzen Mauern Gottes einsamer Wind" (1,97) and "Gottes eisiger Odem" (1,130) seem to be recombined in the passage "Tant ein eisiger Wind an den Mauern des Dorfs" (1,132). But without stretching the concept to comprehend every image of wind, there is enough evidence to bolster the argument that Trakl's awareness of God is primarily of his absence or loss.

This awareness permeates the poem "De profundis" (1,67). In con- trast to the 130th Psalm, this cry from the depths of despair never achieves the hope and trust in a loving God's forgiveness found in its Biblical counterpart:

Es ist ein Stoppelfeld, in das ein schwarzer Regen fidllt. Es ist ein brauner Bau, der einsam dasteht. Es ist ein Zischelwind, der leere Hiitten umkreist- Wie traurig dieser Abend.

Am Weiler vorbei Sammelt die sanfte Waise noch spirliche Ahren ein. Ihre Augen weiden rund und goldig in der Diimmerung Und ihr SchoB harrt des himmlischen Brliutigams.

Bei der Heimkehr Fanden die Hirten den siil3en Leib Verwest im Dornenbusch.

Ein Schatten bin ich ferne finsteren Darfern. Gottes Schweigen Trank ich aus dem Brunnen des Hains.

Auf meine Stimrne tritt kaltes Metall. Spinnen suchen mein Herz. Es ist ein Licht, das in meinem Mund erlischt.

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Nachts fand ich mich auf einer Heide, Starrend von Unrat und Staub der Sterne. Im Haselgebiisch Klangen wieder kristallne Engel.

Familiar elements seen earlier make most aspects of this poem accessible. The waste land in stanza one represents the barrenness of man's desolate condition in the autumn season. Stanza two portrays a child who would normally evoke the memory of A bgeschiedenheit in the viewer, but the effect is quickly nullified when the child's decomposing body is discovered in stanza three.

The entire poem turns on stanza four, since what follows is only a further modification of man's bleak state. Here unrelieved despair is repre- sented in the image of "drinking God's silence." An earlier version had the speaker drinking "Hal3 und Bitternis" instead of "Gottes Schweigen." "Gottes Schweigen," however, is more than a synonym; it unlocks other levels of meaning. Besides hatred and bitterness, this image expresses the terror and agony man senses at God's absence, God's inaccessibility, and His silence. Man has no one to whom he can address prayers for aid or forgiveness.

The metaphors of silence Trakl uses in relation to God have an affinity to the tradition of Christian mysticism where the language of God can be heard only in a muted state on a sub-auditory level.22 One poem apparently deals with this type of silent orison ("Ruh des Abends/ Da in seiner Kammer der Mensch Gerechtes sann,/ In stummem Gebet um Gottes lebendiges Haupt rang" 1,137); in general, however, the most frequent metaphors of silence are those of alienation, suffering, and despair at a godless world where no answer to man's silent prayer is forthcoming.23

IV. Conclusion: The Silence of the Unredeemed Dead

An increasing number of Trakl's later poems depict the silent dead (cf. "Abendland" 1,170; "Vorhlle" 1,172; "Schwermut" 1,181; "Der Abend" 1,183; "Im Osten" 1,195; "Grodek" 1,197). While the use of silence in the context of death is hardly peculiar to Trakl, some of his metaphors are. In several late poems he seems to equate death with the inability of the dead to articulate. In "De profundis" (1,67) one reads "Es ist ein Licht, das in meinem Mund erl6scht." By comparing this with the opening lines of "Die Schwermut" (1,181), it becomes evident that the "light in one's mouth" which is extinguished, and the "dark mouth within" are images of muteness or inability to articulate:

Gewaltig bist du dunkler Mund Im Innern, aus Herbstgew6lk Geformte Gestalt, Goldner Abendstille

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In fact the text states that the dark mouth within is formed from the "golden stillness of evening," a corroboration that silence and the image of the mouth are somehow interrelated. Apparently Trakl uses the synec- dochial image of the mouth to represent the entire human, because he at- taches such significance to man's only means of articulation. Articulation is indeed a "matter of life or death" here.

"Grodek" (1,197), an apocalyptic vision of death and ultimate silence, uses the image of "dying mouths" to symbolize death. A few lines will illustrate:

Am Abend . . .

. . umfingt die Nacht Sterbende Krieger, die wilde Klage Ihrer zerbrochenen Miinder. Doch stille sammelt im Weidengrund Rotes Gewilk, darin ein ziirnender Gott wohnt, Das vergolne Blut sich, mondne Kiihle; Alle Stral3en miinden in schwarze Verwesung. Unter goldnem Gezweig der Nacht und Sternen Es schwankt der Schwester Schatten durch den schweigenden Hain, Zu grii8en die Geister der Helden, die blutenden Hiiupter . . .

The images of blood collecting on the battlefield ("stille sammelt im Weidengrund/ Rotes Gewdlk") and the shade of the sister moving through the silent grove ("durch den schweigenden Hain") strengthen the impression of total silence in death. The key image, however, is that of "zerbrochene Minder" of the dead and dying. In normal German usage this expression is meaningless. Trakl apparently coined the term as an analogue to the common expression for death, "das Auge brach," an image for the loss of life from the eye. Here it serves to emphasize the muteness induced by death, and though the dying raise a "wild lamentation," it is clear that they are about to become totally mute. In fact, one wonders whether their "wild lamentations" are even audible, for in several other poems Trakl chooses to repeat images of scarcely audible sound set up by the souls of the muted dead. The second stanza of "Im Osten" (1,195) speaks of those who have died in battle and whose souls can only utter half-audible sighs:

Mit zerbrochnen Brauen, silbernen Armen Winkt sterbenden Soldaten die Nacht. Im Schatten der herbstlichen Esche Seufzen die Geister der Erschlagenen.

"Der Abend" (1,183), which begins: Mit toten Heldengestalten Erfiillst du Mond Die schweigenden Wilder ..

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describes these dead warriors in its final lines as uttering the same quiet moans portrayed above:

Ihr mondverschlungenen Schatten Aufseufzend im leeren Kristall Des Bergsees.

The scarcely audible sighs and the muteness suggested by the hardness of crystal again emphasize that death in these war poems is not a redeeming force, but the avenue to absolute negative silence. Trakl himself explained this type of death in a conversation with Theodor Diiubler when he claimed the way we die is immaterial, since it transcends anything preceding or following: "Wir fallen in ein Unfal3bar-Schwarzes" (111,13). Had Trakl gone on writing, he might have added "into total silence."

There is probably no single adequate reason to explain why Trakl inter- laced his poetry with various images and metaphors of silence, nor is an answer necessary. The fact is that he does, and what begins as a conven- tional device becomes an obsession. One wonders to what degree this preoccupation was a reflection of Trakl's concern with poetic articulation as a meaningful form of existence. Whatever the case, his work often corre- sponds to that description of poetry cited at the beginning as the "musi- cienne de silence"--in this case a musician consciously working with those rests and pauses represented by muteness, quiet, and inarticulation.

1 For two other examples, cf. Walther Killy, "Er notierte das Unausdriickbare. Zum fiinfzigsten Todestag von Georg Trakl," Die Zeit, Nov. 6, 1964, p. 23, and Martin Heidegger, "Die Sprache im Gedicht. Eine Erbrterung von Georg Trakls Gedicht," Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen, 1959), pp. 37-82.

2 Letter from Rilke to Ludwig von Ficker, February, 1915, published in Erinnerung an Georg Trakl. Zeugnisse und Briefe (Salzburg, 1959), p. 10. All cita- tions from this and other volumes containing Trakl's works will follow the procedure used in Trakl studies of designating the volume with a Roman numeral and the page number with an Arabic numeral. Die Dichtungen, 10. Auflage (Salzburg, n.d.) is vol. I; Aus goldenem Kelch, 4. Auflage (Salzburg, n.d.) is vol. II; and Erinnerung an Georg Trakl. Zeugnisse and Briefe, 2. Auflage (Salzburg, 1959) is vol. III.

8 Cf. Joseph Warren Beach's study Obsessive Images. Symbolism in the Poetry of the 30's and 40's (Minneapolis, 1960), p. 12, for a study which charts the pre- occupations of American poets during the 30's and 40's on the basis of recurrence and frequency of images.

4 Joseph Leitgeb, "Die Trakl Welt. Zum Sprachbestand der Dichtungen Georg Trakls," Wort im Gebirge, Folge III (1951), 7-39.

5 This group of "silent words" could be expanded to include such words as leise, sanft, seufzen, wehen, and other images which at first seem unrelated. Later interpretation will clarify why the group listed initially represents only the basic outline of a larger word and image cluster.

6 For early examples, cf. the early prose works "Traumland" (11,11-16) and "Verlassenheit" (11,27-30). Cf. also 11,52,58, and 62.

7 Reinhold Grimm, "Georg Trakls Verhiiltnis zu Rimbaud," GRM IX (1959), 308-309. Cf. also Bernhard Boeschenstein, "Wirkungen des franzisischen Sym- bolismus auf die deutsche Lyrik der Jahrhundertwende," Euphorion 58 (1964), 393,

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who tends to play down the importance of Trakl's borrowing from Rimbaud, but who seems to agree with Grimm's dates for the Rimbaud encounter.

8 Cf. Alfred Liede, Dichtung als Spiel. Studien zur Unsinnspoesie an den Grenzen der Sprache I (Berlin, 1963), pp. 273-349, for an interpretation of Morgenstern's nonsense verse as an effort to escape the bankruptcy of traditional poetic language. Cf. also the chapter entitled "Sprachskepsis und Mystik," Dichtung als Spiel I, pp. 254-272, where Liede treats Mauthner and Landauer and their attitudes in relation to their times.

o Cf. Heidegger, p. 52: "Weil die Dichtungen dieses Dichters in das Lied des Abgeschiedenen versammelt sind, nennen wir den Ort seines Gedichtes die Ab- geschiedenheit"; p. 58: "Zur Abgeschiedenheit gehbrt die Friihe der stilleren Kind- heit, gehirt die blaue Nacht, geharen die nichtigen Pfade des Fremdlings, geh6rt der n~ichtliche Fltigelschlag der Seele, gehort schon die Dimmerung als das Tor zum Untergang"; . . . p. 67: "Ist die Abgeschiedenheit nicht ein einziges Schweigen der Stille?"

10 Cf. Meister Eckhart's tracts Von abgescheidenheit and Von der abgescheiden- heit unde von haben gotes for two prominent examples which delineate the meaning the word had in medieval Catholic mysticism. This word appears repeatedly in Catholic mystics from Suso and Tauler up to Angelus Silesius in the seventeenth century and even continues in Protestant mysticism as late as the eighteenth century in the verses of Gerhard Tersteegen.

11 Trakl apparently became aware of the significance of Abgeschiedenheit through a series of articles his friend Karl Borromiius Heinrich published in Der Brenner of 1913 entitled "Briefe aus der Abgeschiedenheit," in which the frame of reference is to a state or condition similar to what Trakl portrays in his poems. Trakl even dedicated the poem "Gesang des Abgeschiedenen" (1,174) to Heinrich.

12 Heidegger, p. 67. 13 Clemens Heselhaus, "Die Elis-Gedichte von Georg Trakl," D VLG XXVIII

(1954), 396-397; 409, demonstrates how helpful these categories can be in inter- preting many poems. Cf. also Reinhold Grimm, "Georg Trakls Sonne," Strukturen. Essays zur deutschen Literatur (Gittingen, 1963), p. 155; 157; 166, where Grimm discusses this structuring in antitheses.

14 Heidegger, p. 30. For a further interpretation of Heidegger's somewhat ab- struse thoughts in his Trakl essay and other essays where he refers to Trakl, cf. Walter Falk, "Heidegger und Trakl," Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch der Gijrresgesellschaft, n.F. IV (1963), 200.

1 Trakl uses more images of darkness and night than any other type. It is tempting to relate them to muteness or inarticulation, and Trakl himself does this on several occasions, e.g. "dunkle Stille der Kindheit" (I,168) or "Es ist ein Licht, das in meinem Mund erlischt" (1,67).

16 Eduard Lachmann, Kreuz und Abend. Eine Interpretation der Dichtungen Georg Trakls (Salzburg, 1954), and Alfred Focke, Georg Trakl. Liebe und Tod (Vienna, 1955) are the chief interpreters of Trakl's poetry in a purely religious, i.e. Christian context.

17 Many of Trakl's personal statements confirm his struggle with Christianity. One which appeared posthumously as the motto of the 1915 Brenner Jahrbuch (p. 15) underscores his own intense guilt feelings and his imperfect attempts at expiation through his poetry. It can hardly be considered other than religious in tone and intent: "Gefiihl in den Augenblicken toteniihnlichen Seins: Alle Menschen sind der Liebe wert. Erwachend fuhlst du die Bitternis der Welt; darin ist alle deine ungelaste Schuld; dein Gedicht eine unvollkommene Siihne." 18 According to Erwin Mahrholdt, III,54, who claims to have heard this view from Trakl during associations with the poet. Trakl also decries the evils of the city in conversations reported by Hans Limbach, III,116-117. In a letter to Erhard Buschbeck written in April, 1912, Trakl again expresses his view of the wicked

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world embodied in the city; "Ich hfitte mir nie gedacht, daB ich diese fiir sich schon schwere Zeit in der brutalsten und gemeinsten Stadt wiirde verleben miissen, die auf dieser beladenen und verfluchten Welt existiert" (III,141). 19 If Trakl's letters have any bearing on his poetry, use of the word "Gott" or the interjective "o" in the letters tends to be an exclamatory figure of speech similar to the colloquial "mein Gott!" or "Ach, Gott!" Cf. "Gott, nur einen kleinen Funken reiner Freude und man wiire gerettet" (Letter to Ludwig von Ficker, June 26, 1913, III,164); "O mein Gott, welch ein Gericht ist iiber mich hereingebrochen" (Letter to Ludwig von Ficker, November, 1913, no date, III,170). Even if this is a simple col- loquial usage, it reinforces the argument that God is not really invoked, since such colloquialisms use a secularized form devoid of religious significance.

2o Heinrich Goldmann, Katabasis, oder der Abstieg zur Unterwelt. Zur Symbolik der Farben, Gestalten und Vorgiinge in den Dichtungen Georg Trakls (Salzburg, n.d.), p. 63: "Der Wind erscheint mehrmals als Gottes Odem . . . Gott wird iiberhaupt mit Wind verbunden, wie in der Symbolik im allgemeinen. Aber es handelt sich hier nicht um befruchtendes Pneuma, sondern etwas Leeres, Zehrendes."

21 ".... fast jedes Hauptwort enthiilt ein Epitheton, eine Stiitze: sanftes Glocken- spiel, schwarzes Kissen, blaues Wild ... Der Eindruck geht nicht allein von ihrem Sinn aus, sondern von dem was hinzukommt." Walther Killy, "Die Entstehung von Georg Trakls Gedicht 'Melancholie'," Text und Kritik. Zeitschrift fiir Literatur 4 (1964), 202.

22 In fact, silence is so basic to mystical communication that it has been called a "Zwiegesprlich mit Gott" by Ismail Djavid, Das philosophische Problem des Schweigens (Berlin, 1938), p. 18.

23 In a letter to Ludwig Ficker on July 26, 1913, Trakl speaks of his overwhelm- ing sense of sinfulness in the "godless age" in which he lives; it is evident that God has completely gone out of his world: "Ich sehne den Tag herbei, an dem die Seele in diesem armseligen von Schwermut verpesteten Kdrper nicht mehr wird wohnen wollen und k6nnen, an dem sie diese Spottgestalt aus Kot und Fiiulnis verlassen wird, die ein nur allzugetreues Spiegelbild eines gottlosen, verfluchten Jahrhunderts ist" (III,163-164).