This controversial study places the work of the Austrian poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914) within the context of the intellectual and cultural milieu surrounding Ludwig von Ficker (1880-1966), the editor of one of the most significant avant-garde periodicals at the time of German expressionism. In contrast to many studies which see Trakl as the literary heir of Rimbaud and Hölderlin, among others, this study concentrates on his heretofore unexamined relationships to other contributors to the Brenner. It uncovers an atmosphere of repressed and tormented sexuality which seems to have been characteristic of provincial Austria at the turn of the century and which erupts menacingly in Trakl's poetry.