The Sorrows of Young Werther
"The world at once took possession of The Sorrows of Young Werther and it took possession of the world....It seemed as though the public in all countries, secretly and without their own knowledge, had been awaiting this very book by an unknown young man from a German Imperial city; that this book with revolutionary, liberating power emancipated the fettered yearnings of the civilized world. Napoleon, the iron man of destiny, had the French translation in his knapsack through Egyptian campaign. He claimed to have read it seven times." --Thomas Mann
One of the world's first best-sellers, this tragic masterpiece attained an instant and lasting success upon its 1774 publication. A sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist, the tale addresses age-old questions--the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemption--in the form of Werther's alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. Goethe's portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers and continues to speak to modern readers.
There is no doubt about the literary poignancy of this book, or for that matter the masterful mind of its author. But it must be said that the undeniably strong sorrows of young Werther came from an all-consuming love of himself-not from love of another. Or rather he seemed in love with the idea of having someone to consume his idle days and, what he imagined, his large and thoughtful mind. His precipice, from which he condescended to view his every move, thought and encounter, was lofty indeed.
The pastoral atmosphere of the book is what captivated this reader. It's a pity Werther couldn't heed Albert and Lotte's sound advice about retuning his strong emotions...or at least spend more time under Linden trees with his Homer (this would have been my suggestion to him). Perhaps it was the poetry of the equally love-torn Ossian, which came to replace his classic text, that helped spur on his emotional demise. Whatever the case, it was painful to read of his self-indulgent romance with his ideas of love and devotion. He was kidding himself in the grandest and noblest fashion imaginable.
Please don't think me a heartless soul, or someone who couldn't possible understand such an intense love; I just didn't see it that way. However much frustration I felt at Werther's extreme pathos, I remained in awe of the beauty of Goethe's emotive and descriptive writing. Am I contradicting myself here...with talk of emotion? You be the judge. --Reviewer: Charles Ryder from Tokyo
For anyone who has ever entered into the absurdities of love, compulsion, and confusion, this book will hold a lot of meaning. The book is absurd on a lot of levels, but the annoying self-pity contrasted what may or may not be a love story cast light on the confusing nature of humanity. --Reviewer: monetorbit from Washington, D.C. United States
I always find it sad that more people do not read Goethe for pleasure alone. Yes, he was a "scholarly" writer but his works, although profound, are written in an easily understandable style. I think too many people have been needlessly scared off by Goethe's monumental intelligence and his philosophy. This is too bad. His books revolve around themes that are universal, subjects to which all of us can relate: romantic love, nature, God, beauty.
Eighteenth-century German literature was propelled by a revolution in romanticism, and writers such as Goethe celebrated their most cherished ideals in as ornate and eloquent a manner as possible. While the tendency of American and British writers to ignore the sublime and the romantic in favor of stark realism does have its place, that does not mean that the sublime and the romantic should be casually tossed aside.
The Sorrows of Young Werther is not Goethe at this best (you need to read Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship for that) but it the best introduction to Goethe anyone could find and a lovely novella in its own right. The Sorrows of Young Werther opens more amazingly than any book I have ever read and it is not overstating things a bit to say that Goethe gives us something profound and beautiful on each and every page.
The Sorrows of Young Werther is comprised, for the most part, of letters written by a hopelessly romantic young man named Werther to a friend named Wilhelm. These letters not only detail Werther's doomed love for the beautiful Charlotte, they also contain the most beautiful meditations on just about everything important in life: love, beauty, nature, philosophy, art, religion.
In Werther, Goethe clearly shows us the problems inherent in loving and idealizing something a bit too much. I think many readers will have a problem with the character of Werther. He is simply too romantic to be real. And then there will be those who will wonder how a man who is capable of uttering the most gorgeous and flowing words about beauty, art and nature can fall so hopelessly in love with one woman that he seems to forget all else that he holds dear. Well, Werther, in the best romantic tradition, has invested all the emotion he feels for art, beauty, religion, etc. in Charlotte. Once readers realize this, I think the ending of this novella will make sense to them. Yes, Werther is an extreme but once you come to understand him, he does make perfect sense.
As I said, this isn't Goethe at this best or his most sublime or even, believe it not, his most romantic, but this is certainly the best place to begin if you are just beginning your study of this monumental author or of German romanticism in general. --Reviewer: A reader from Switzerland and Cagnes-sur-Mer, France
