Book record
Sebastian dreaming
Georg Trakl
Translated from German by James Reidel
Sebastian dreaming, by Georg Trakl and translated by James Reidel from German, brings Austrian German-language poetry into English through Trakl's dream, blue twilight, decay, and the gorgeous unease of Austrian expressionist lyric. The metadata gives the reader a doorway, but the real value is what happens once the poem begins making its own weather. I would read it for blue, dream, autumn, and the sensation of beauty becoming almost poisonous, not as a fixed lesson about a nation, period, or school. The best entry point is still the poem itself: the line that catches, the image that refuses to explain itself, the feeling that arrives before paraphrase. Sebastian dreaming belongs in the translated poetry library because it offers a classic German-language encounter with atmosphere, ruin, and musical darkness.
- Published
- 2016
- Publisher
- Seagull Books
- Language
- German
- Country
- Austria
- ISBN
- 9780857423313