The Damned: Selected Poems of Georg Trakl

by Georg Trakl, Daniele Pantano (Translator)

Georg Trakl (1887-1914) is commonly seen as one of the leading figures of the Austro-German expressionist movement in literature during the early part of the twentieth century. Marked by the perpetual use of nightmarish visions of disintegration, death, murder, and natural decay, his poems bear haunting witness to a world devoid of faith, meaning, and hope. Nevertheless, Trakl still captures glimpses of beauty in this wasteland, a beauty he usually equates with erotic or familial relationships, a beauty that in his view can only be seen in contrast with death and horror.

166 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2023

About the author

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.

Reviews

[Michael Jarvie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniele Pantano's selection of Georg Trakl includes just over half of the poems published in Gedichte, Sebastian im Traum, and Der Brenner, so it's fairly representative in that respect.
In terms of the actual translations, Pantano is more successful in the free verse poems, not so much in the metrically regular rhymed poems, and his translations make no attempt to convey the rhyme scheme. It's therefore surprising that he includes so many of the metrically regular rhymed poems in this selection.
The best of these translations includes a splendid version of To the Boy Elis. What's missing, however, are the marvellous prose poems, i.e. Metamorphosis of Evil, Winter Night, Dream and Derangement, and Revelation and Decline.
Apart from a minor typo in Limbo (By atumn walls) there are no other issues with the text as it is reproduced in this paperback version. Sometimes the translation can veer from the original - for instance in The Young Maid "Stille schafft sie in der Kammer" becomes "She works to herself in the cell" where one would expect something like "She brings silence to the chamber". Otherwise, these are accomplished translations.