Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl (Salzburg, 1887) is unanimously considered one of the most important poets in the German language. He began writing poetry at the age of 13, seemingly in response to his family context: an absent father and a drug-addicted mother. His and his sister's education was entrusted to a French governess, who opened the doors to a remarkable poetic tradition early on. After high school, he worked for a few years as a pharmacist, shaping his future. In 1908, he went to study pharmacy in Vienna, integrating himself into its extraordinary cultural life, where figures like Ludwig Wittgenstein, who read and supported him, were prominent. This also granted him access to drugs, which became central to his life from an early age. His participation in the First World War as a medical officer aggravated his depressive state, almost always linked to an incestuous relationship with his sister, somehow present in some of his poems. He died on November 3, 1914, in Krakow, from a cocaine overdose, at only 27 years old.