The Sorrows of Young Werther (Dover Thrift Editions)

I do understand that there are different translations. I haven't read others. This one is perfectly expressed, as far as I am concerned. I have read several translations of Madam Bovary, and I may eventually read other translations of this.

my awesome freind recommended me this book and i fell in love!! really!
it's really flowery and nice and it will get you crying (it got me to cry hahaha)
just try it! it's short and gets to the point! this is a great book!
i loved reading it......and i dont like to read -__-" but it was great!!! so get it and read it!! **

When I head that The Sorrows of Young Werther was one of Alain de Botton favorite book I had to put it on my reading list. Now that I have finally found time to read it I can recommend it most highly. It was a vivid reading experience and I can see why it was a phenomenon when it was first published. It also counted itself as the most pirated book of the time.

This book served its purpose; I enjoyed reading it. However, I ordered the wrong edition for my purposes, but that was my fault. Perhaps be a little more clear on who the translator is for the book, especially for books with many different translations.

This version is written as if the original were translated to Japanese, and then that Japanese was translated to English. It is horrible. Comparing it side by side with better editions (Penguin Classics) you can see all the mistakes that were made.

Werther affirms the suicide. Albert denies the suicide. I am interesting in their discussion . Werther is in love in Lotte. Albert is fiancé of Lotte. In consequence a catastrophe was anticipated from the beginning.
But I hear that the suicide is denied in Christianity.
After all the word of god in this novel is Spinoza philosophy’s god, isn’t it?
I feel god of the pantheism that nature is god .
Werther seems to think that it is natural to suicide when a human being fall into a predicament,.
In Japan, as for the samurai, Harakiri was required in old days when it rose in the worst predicament.
Suicide becomes the great problem in present Japan.
This is because there are nearly 30,000 people a year.
But, in the case of present Japan, there are many serious economic problems.
The main topic of this novel is the suicide by the troubles of pure love.
Pantheism and the suicide.
I have a feeling that Werther has the impulse that he wants to die and be buried in beautiful Nature . In Japan the famous poet of Saigyou-houshi said that he wants to die in the beautiful cherry blossom.
I quote only a sentence of Goethe thought to be the pantheism.
【 Once from the rocks and across the river and as far as those hills I surveyed the valley in its fruit-fulness and saw all things about me budding and welling forth;
And I saw those mountains clad from top to toe in dense tall trees and those valleys shaded in their manifold wanderings by the loveliest woods and the gentle river gliding through the whispering reeds and on its surface the mirrorings of my beloved clouds that are wafted across the heavens by the soft evening breeze; and I heard the birds around me bringing the wood to life and the gnats danced gleefully in millions in the last red beams of the sun whose final glances lifted the humming beetle from out of the grass; and by all the whirring and weaving around me I was alerted to the ground and to the moss that wrests its nourishment from the hard rock, and the hearth growing down the dry sand slopes opened to me the holy fires of the inner life of Nature: how I took all that into my warm heart ,felt myself made like a god in the overflowing fullness, and the figures of the world without end moved in my soul in splendor, giving life to all things.]

The idea of the sensitive young man whose soul is too 'beautiful' and too 'pure' for this world is a literary trope that, honestly, is pretty darn eye-rolling to this jaded reader as he approaches 30. But this is also one of the books that did the most to help inaugurate that trope in the first place.

This is a short, easy read and working through it makes you realize how fundamentally prevalent this kind of character is in so much subsequent literature in one form or another. George Eliot? Jack Kearoac? Henry Miller? Herman Melville? Frederich Nietzsche? Basically ALL Russian and French literature from the 19th century? They all owe a huge debt to the emotionally unstable, love-besotted fool Goethe developed here, and which has become so much a part of our culture that we forget someone had to create the idea in the first place for us to even scoff at it

Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe is one of the giants of German literature. He lived between 1749 and 1832. His influence on numerous writers was significant. His most famous work is Faust, which was first published in 1808, with an operatic version produced in 1814. It has been an essential part of the repertoire of many an opera company ever since. It is also a most useful metaphor for many of the dilemmas of life: making a deal with the "devil" for short-term gratification. The "Sorrows of Young Werther" was first published in 1774. It was Goethe's first novel, and was widely acclaimed, an early "best seller."

The actual novella is only a hundred pages; thus publishers tend to provide additional material to "fill out" their offering. The version that I read was published in 1982, by "Signet Classic," translated by Catherine Hutter, and with a forward by Hermann Weigand. Included in this publication is a 20 page work entitled "Reflections on Werther" which I found of much value, as Goethe explained the themes of his novella, as well as his concept of the German word "Dichtang" which he uses to mean "revelation of higher truths." I also enjoyed "Goethe in Sesenheim" which underscored his admiration for Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (Annotated). (Note: when I first read Goldsmith's work, some 45 years ago, I felt it was rather "pollyannish" since everything turned out wonderful in the end: the proverbial "happy ending" that good teachers of literature warn us is NOT good literature. Goethe admiration for the work has placed it on my re-read list.) The last two works I found a much lesser value. They are "The New Melusina" which is a tale involving German folk myths concerning the small people who were the original creation: pixies. The last work, "The Fairy Tale," I had difficulty finishing.

As for "Sorrows", it involves a young man's infatuation with a charming woman, Lotte, which turns into a deadly obsession (for him.) A lot of us might have been there in our youths, and this was one of the reasons for its immense popularity when it was first published. It reminded me of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. As Goethe describes it, ever since Werther's first waltz with Lotte, "heaven and earth have changed places." There is a major rub: Lotte is engaged to another, Albert, and the two of them eventually marry. Albert is depicted as a "very fine chap," who is openly friendly to Werther. But as time goes on, Albert understandably finds Werther's obsession with his wife more than annoying, and he grows much more distant. Lotte also finds it quite irritating, as Werther cannot "move on," and find another, as so many of us have done. In the "Reflections" Goethe notes that after publication, numerous women became "obsessed" with the idea that they were the one upon whom "Lotte" was modeled. Goethe states that his character is a composite of several women.

In addition to the central theme, there are the incidentals of life in the latter part of 18th century Germany. An educated man like Werther is enthralled with the Greek classics, and normally carries around a copy of the works of Homer. Being of a certain class, he does not appear to have to work, and his one brief fling into a field in which he receives some remuneration ends fairly quickly. And there is that admiration for the joys of the natural world, taking pleasure in eating the peas and cabbage that one has grown, much of which can still be observed in the Europe of today.

Unlike "Wakefield," there is no happy ending, contrived or otherwise, and the one that is provided could edge towards the melodramatic. Still, overall, 5-stars, for a valuable historical novel that has influenced many other writers (and readers).

Lacan's philosophy was that we must have fantasies that are unattainable because once they are attained they are no longer fantasies. The "object petit a" is the phrase that embodies this idea and Werther is the Goethe character that seems to embody it ever-so-perfectly. He desires something he cannot have, the love and affection of a woman named Lotte who is at first promised to another and then married to him. The intricacies of the story, told through Werther's perspective and his letters to, mostly, his friend Wilhelm is immense! He would like to hate Lotte's husband, but he can't. At least, not initially, since he is an amiable character with whom Werther enjoys spending his company. But after time, the rot and disease Werther experiences of repressed love makes him dislike Lotte's husband. Throughout the story, other incidents of love gone awry (normally into obsession) is boldly faced. Rape, death, murder, suicide, they are all proposed to Werther through circumstances of another. But, as the story goes, he is on an express train to suicide.

This is one of the first works of literature that focus on suicide, and Goethe did not go unscathed because of it. In a highly religious society, it was looked down upon to commit such a selfish act of taking the life God has given you. The book seemed, to some, to praise the art of suicide as the only answer to some unanswerable circumstances in life, the ones that fill you up and keep you from living properly. Quite the contrary, it was supposed to evoke a sense of disdain for it and pity for those who follow in Werther's footsteps. Unfortunately, those that felt the same as young Werther did, sometimes, follow and Goethe was scalded for it.

The book is based quite readily on Goethe's life as an academic and also the life of a fellow peer named Jerusalem who did, in fact, take his life with a pistol shot to the head after he was denied his life's love. Although Goethe had not followed Jerusalem's ideal, he was fascinated and curious about the concept of being so absorbed, so obsessed, and so in love to take one's life if one could not have what they so desperately craved. It's a throw back to the Shakespearean tragedy, but with a German Romantic twist.

Werther was an important and influential novel of the Sturm und Drang period. Goethe was 26 when he wrote it. It was his first novel and brought him instant fame. It is something of a young person's novel, overbrimming with emotional drama. In later life, Goethe distanced himself from it somewhat.

I found the early part too overheated for my taste (a bit too much of a Sturm in a teacup) but Werther's obsessive passion becomes more authentic and compelling later in the story. And, some way through the book, there are very fine descriptive passages. The ending is extraordinary - dark, dramatic, disturbing. It is difficult now to understand the impact the novel had at the time, as it was so perfectly suited to the zeitgeist, so different from our own.

I read the Modern Library Classics edition, translated and introduced by Burton Pike. I have not read other editions, so cannot compare them, but I can tell you that this one is excellent. Werther presents a particular challenge to the English translator, because it includes a sizeable extract from The Songs of Ossian, by James Macpherson, translated into German. So does the translator attempt a translation of Goethe's German version, which is rather more passionate and free-flowing than the original, or is it better to simply revert to the original English version? Pike chooses the latter course, wisely in my opinion, and adds an explanatory footnote. He also discusses the issue in the Introduction.

If you want to get to know Goethe's work (and if you enjoy good literature, you should) then this first novel is a logical place to start, but be assured that his more mature work is far better.
[PeterReeve]

In Goethe's time, he was quite the star. Previously the world had idolized playwrights such as Shakespeare and respected authors long dead (like Homer); but it was Goethe who penned The Sorrows of Young Werther and was propelled into the spotlight. I did venture into this book with some trepidation, figuring that many of the most revered old novels tend to be... well... old. But instead I found a richly told and heartbreaking tale of love and loss.

What I found most striking about this work is the similarity to the upcoming work (in that time) of Franz Kafka. Something about those central European writers around this time that draws me in. But like Kafka, his protagonist isn't exactly Johnny Awesome. He is frail and fraught with insecurity, sadness, and even embarrassment. He is human and as such is fallible, and often held prisoner by his emotions.

Without giving away too much, this story really focuses on Werther's journey as a human being and his longing for an unavailable love. The story is written in a series of letters or diary entries (if you will). This style gives great weight to the internal emotions and struggles of young Werther.

This is one story that I am very glad I read. It lays a great foundation for much of the upcoming fiction of the central European states until the 20th century. It is a quick read. And just dive into it ready to just accept the mopey protagonist and his pining. It's very difficult to pin this book into a particular style, but it definitely is not romance or melodrama. Just great fiction about a pained individual.

I have the Modern Library edition, and it is a fantastic version.

I went into this book knowing virtually nothing about it. I remembered a vague reference to it from reading Frankenstein last year (the monster discovers and reads this book and relates strongly to Werther) but beyond that, and the general "sorrow" of the central character, I hopped in blind.

The book is written in epistolary style with each letter being sent from Werther to his friend Wilhelm (a couple of the letters seemed addressed to his brother as well?). We never read any responses written to Werther but can sometimes infer the reactions from Wilhelm. Still, the core of the story is told in Werther's letters themselves.

Because of the epistolary style, the narrative is a little 'jumpy' as it skips over time in between letters...sometimes a day or two, sometimes weeks or more. Some of the letters are very lengthy and pour out large segments of plot and action. Others are very short segments of exclamation or emotion. Sometimes even the longer letters don't advance the "plot" so much as provide insight into the thoughts and emotions of Werther.

Through the letters, we follow Werther as he moves to the country and encounters a young girl named Lotte. He is immediately transfixed by her and professes undying love. She coyly allows his advances and it seems as though a romance may appear between them. Quickly we learn that Lotte is betrothed to another man named Albert. Werther is taken aback by this, but still persists in being close to Lotte with the hope of perhaps persuading her to love him. When the time comes, Lotte does marry Albert, much to Werther's dismay, but the three of them remain friendly. Werther visits them frequently and seems to hover incessantly over Lotte. He grows more and more jealous of Albert, which creates some tension in the group and Albert begins to leave the room when Werther comes to visit.

Werther's obsession with Lotte grows more and more intense as time goes on. He battles with himself over the emotions he feels and writes his friend for advice, although it is very clear that Werther does not feel able to (nor does he desire to) make a break from Lotte and strive to love another. He does finally move away from Lotte and spends some time trying to move on with his life. He becomes more and more discontent in his work and more and more obsessed with returning to her.

He finally does move back to live by them again. Albert is more offstandish and put off by Werther's presence. Werther continues to be insistent in his own mind (and sometimes to Lotte or Wilhelm) that there must be a way for her to love him. At the same time, he is emotionally conflicted because he knows she "belongs" to another man and he does not feel it is right to try and take her from him. She eventually tells Werther that he needs to stop coming around so often (he'd been visiting almost daily) but says that he's still a friend and should come by for Christmas as she's made him a gift.

__*** SPOILER ***__

Shortly after (the day after) Lotte tells Werther to back off a bit, he finds Lotte alone one night and again professes his love and pushes on her and kisses her passionately. She forces him off and tells him how wrong he's behaving. He's again in turmoil but does leave, though he announces (somewhat veiled) that she won't see him again...ever. He returns home and writes a few more notes in preparation of his suicide. He sends a note to Lotte and Albert to borrow their pistols for "a trip he's taking." Lotte realizes what's going on, but sends the pistols anyway. He shoots himself in the middle of the night and dies the next morning. He's buried without clergy, graveyard or cemetery.

__*** END SPOILER ***__

The presentation of love versus obsession is very interesting here and is very well done. You get a very good sense of the turmoil that Werther's going through...of the pain he's feeling as well as the desire he has but cannot fulfill. After reading the book, I looked up some info on it and found that it is actually fairly autobiographical. Apparently Goethe fell in love with his own Lotte who refused him and married another. He was obsessed for some time and found it hard to work or concentrate. There was a quote I read where Goethe indicates that he actually used Werther (and particularly the ending) to save himself [Goethe].

The story itself is intriguing though not particularly entrancing. It's really the presentation of the mental anguish of Werther that makes this noteworthy to me. Getting into his head and participating in the psychology of obsessive love was really interesting. A lot of his language was actually very romantic and, had it been spent on someone more receptive, could have been very powerful in enhancing a romantic relationship. Parts of the read were a bit slow, but overall, it was a good read.

****
4.5 out of 5 stars

Famous as a classic of German romanticism, The Sorrows of Young Werther seems overheated with the idealized passion of the supposed author for the unattainable Charlotte. Most of the novel is in the form of letters to his dear friend Wilhelm, as the sensitive young painter suffers through the throes of unrequited love and hypersensitivity to everything in his world--the young children, the "charming" peasants, the dramatic landscapes...However, if the reader considers all the art that arose from this romantic genre, including the darker but no less dramatic heroes of the Brontes, Werther becomes interesting for setting the the style. Worth reading for its place in literary history. But I was glad it was not too long--I couldn't last for many more pages of heartrending protestations of true love.

Famous as a classic of German romanticism, The Sorrows of Young Werther seems overheated with the idealized passion of the supposed author for the unattainable Charlotte. Most of the novel is in the form of letters to his dear friend Wilhelm, as the sensitive young painter suffers through the throes of unrequited love and hypersensitivity to everything in his world--the young children, the "charming" peasants, the dramatic landscapes...However, if the reader considers all the art that arose from this romantic genre, including the darker but no less dramatic heroes of the Brontes, Werther becomes interesting for setting the the style. Worth reading for its place in literary history. But I was glad it was not too long--I couldn't last for many more pages of heartrending protestations of true love.

In his portrayal of the love sick Werther Gothe left to posterity an unparalleled view of a man's obsession with an unattainable desire leading to his self destruction. This book was immensely popular throughout Europe in it's day and is purported to have caused a rash of suicides across the continent. Werther in his letters to a friend is shown to be struggling with questions of his own mortality and ability to live without satisfaction of his one obsessive desire for the love of a woman who is already taken. He spends his days with the couple and as the intensity of his feelings grows his introspective letters to his friend Wilhelm are reminiscent of Hamlet's manic behavior and reflections on taking one's own life.
This short novel is well worth reading for it's significance in the development of self reflective psychologically prescient literature. It spawned numerous imitators and is an important contribution to world literature. Though short it packs a solid hit on the senses.

Goethe (1749-1832) is the most important of the German writers, a poet who surpassed the constraints of his time, being the brightest representative of German Enlightnement. Faust, his masterwork, portrays the inner struggle of a man who had everything on earth but who was profoundly disillusioned by the rigid limits imposed upon human life and creation, that in the search for the infinite of possibilities, sold his soul to the devil in order to grab with both hands whatever might come from the struggle between Good and Evil. Much of that human fight and quest is anticipated in the "Sorrows of the Young Werther", one of Goethe's first works and his very first romance, and a truly good one. Here the theme of the quest for the infinite and meanings in life is ever present and is beneath all the impossible interplay of Werther (Goethe himself), Lotte ( a feminine Lot, always looking backwards to face doom?) and her nondescript husband Albert.
As in Faust, the protagonist (Werther) had it all with books, and the only one he carries and reads is Homer, where, in his own words, no limits were yet established for human growth and expansion. As in "Romeo and Juliet", his is an impossible love, a human triangle that had to be bisected by a voluntary and violent farewell to his beloved Lotte - and to his life, something he finally accomplishes with the full knowledge of his beloved friend. The romance has a magnetic force upon the reader, who follows attentively the protagonist trough his epistolar via crucis with his friend Wilheim, untill the dramatic end. In my opinion, the romance is directly antipodal to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and as good as Madame Bovary, the latter being an ode of form against substance, the primacy of form against substance, while Goethe's romance is sheer substance (love, hate, etc...) at its height, and, along with Madame Bovary, must be reckoned on the list of the 100 best romances ever written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

How can anyone, especially a surly bully like me, presume to review one of the great monuments of European literature, one of the most influential pieces of fiction ever written? And what's worse, I didn't read this edition or even this translation! I dug out my forty-year-old German edition to re-read on a trip to Germany. If you can't read German, I strongly suggest looking at other reviews for guidance about the best translation, because this IS a book you ought to read and perhaps re-read, even if you find it mawkish and/or depressing. It's about a supremely narcissitic young puppy who falls foolishly in love with a maiden already pledged to a 'worthy' man; the puppy behaves atrociously and suffers himself into a suicidal depression. It's said the dozens of ardent puppies all over Europe were so enamoured of his romantic grief that the suicide rate rose appreciably.

So be it. Reading Werther again in my 'senescence' is like finding an old love note from a high school crush, a note never actually sent, in a yellowed volume of poetry; it's above all a poignant embarassment. Werther is an insufferable elitist, a shallower trifler than his creator, for which all German literature can be eternally grateful. In other words, if Werther is read as Goethe's self-portrayal, then Herr Goethe still had a lot to learn about himself when he wrote it. What made Werther potent, what makes the book still worth reading, is the 'sensibility' it espoused: the romantic perception of nature expressed in startlingly simple and resonant language; the emphasis on aesthetic affect as the hallmark of the truly deep soul; the commitment to self-realization outside any and all conventions of propriety.

Whether that Goethean revolution of affect was a blessing or a curse to the following generations is far too large a question to trifle with in this picayune reviewing format.

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" reminds me of an aphorism by Norman Panzica, a Canadian marriage counselor: "A man in love is operating at the lowest level of his intellect." Werther's pain ran deep; he was an intelligent young man whose intellectual propensity was an obvious feature of his personality.

Werther realized there were unknown factors at the heart of his misery, and at one point he said, "It is so difficult to discover the true and innermost motives of men who are not of the common run." He consoled himself by saying, "There is nothing quite so pleasing and reassuring as to find an unusual mind in sympathy with our own." In other words, misery loves company. He realized he had no monopoly on knowledge, but he also knew he, like every mortal, was unique. "All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own." Once more he consoled himself as he drew a conclusion applicable to all mortals: "I am a wanderer only, a pilgrim, through the world. But what more are you?"

But what more am I? Werther's question is a challenge that makes his novel come alive for his readers. As I review the eighty years of my life, I too have experienced the futility of becoming attached to "the one and only woman" who would bring me "eternal happiness." Like Werner, I have weathered those times when I was hopelessly in love. Somehow, I always picked a woman who would never marry me, and I imagine this was done at a subconscious level. Indeed, "it is difficult to discover the true and innermost motives of men" whether they're of the common or uncommon run. It makes little difference. We pull these painful tricks on ourselves. We fail consciously to understand what we do to ourselves, but in my case, I believe the thought of marriage terrorized me. Small wonder Werther said, "How rare in this world is understanding!" The tragedy of it is amplified by severe depression that often occurs during those youthful years when men and women should be enjoying the benefits of health, strength and vigor.

Still, there were moments when Werther was blissfully happy. "A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet spring mornings which I enjoy with all my heart," he said. Between this zenith of joy and the nadir of depression existed a wide chasm. At last, he said, "My mind is made up, Charlotte: I am resolved to die!" Werther's suspected bipolar disorder finally drove him to suicide. Goethe's tragic novel was immensely successful; sympathetic readers were committing suicide! The novelist was concerned enough to revise his book with hope that every reader would survive.

Werther was unfair to Charlotte, her husband Albert, and himself. Charlotte's secret love of Werther exacerbated their relationship. Albert's toleration was uncommon; most men would have ordered Werther off the premises right from the beginning. It would be easy to conclude Werner was simply a spoiled brat caught up in the frenzy of romantic love during the romantic period of Europe's cultural history. Conclusions of that sort are simplistic.

Werther was hooked on Homer, but a reading of Homer will assure us that Werther's romantic fixation was known at least three thousand years before Goethe's birth. It continues to this day. It still accounts for an occasional suicide.

Goethe met Charlotte Buff at a ball in Wetzlar, where he arrived looking for a Position/Career after finishing his studies. A friendship developed between Charlotte, Goethe and Christian Kestner (her fiancé), in the summer of 1772. Charlotte was eventually obliged to tell Goethe plainly that he must not expect her to return his love. At seven o'clock on the morning of September 11th Goethe quit the town without warning. Away with friends in Koblencz, Goethe heard of the suicide of his former acquaintance at Wetzlar, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem. In September 1771 Jerusalem had taken a job in Wetzlar as secretary to von Hoefler, an ambassador. He was of an artistic disposition, and had been cold-shouldered by Wetzlar's high society. Goethe returned to the town to find out the details of Jerusalem's death. He asked Kestner for a written account, on which he was to base the final pages of his novel.

The novel is therefore partly autobiographical, partly biographical. Kestner noted that in the first part of the novel Werther was Goethe and in the second Jerusalem. Goethe later described the writing of the work as the business of four weeks, during which time he proceeded with the unconscious certainty of a sleepwalker, and specifically spoke of it as a "confesion". As it often happens, many readers started to confound reality with fiction: in spring 1776 a torchlit procession made its way to Jerusalem's grave. Nevertheless, there seems to be little evidence that Goethe's novel prompted a suicide epidemic. Yet a heated debate did rage over the question of the novel's probable corrupting influence. Meanwhile, teh novel was being translated into every major European language.

The English translation was produced by Daniel Malthus (father of the economist) in 1779. Influenced by Richardson's epistolary novels and Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, Young and Gray, Hamlet and Ossian, it offered a familiar atmosphere, with scenes of patriarchal country life and wild, tempestuous landscape as were suitable to the prevailing English taste. Yet after the French Revolution Goethe and other German writers were identified with Jacobinism and condemned. Wertherism was supplanted in due course by Byronism.

The part of the novel which caused Goethe to be thought a Jacobin by English conservatives in the 1790s was the passage that dealt with Werther's exclusion from aristocratic society. It is true that beyond the struggles of one individual to assert his own larger sense of his place in creation lies a very real and discontented sense of the gap between aristocratic high society and the common folk.

The novel is also a sensitive exploration of the psychopathology of a gifted but ill-adjusted young man. The letter form is an apt expression of one-sided and lonely communication. The author interposes an ironic distance between the reader and Werther, which makes the novel a work of exhilarating style and insight. Werther can be considered the first great tragic novel. The weaknesses in Werther's character, his inconsistencies, are the very material on which his character is built, this is, the novel itself as a "litany of antitheses".

Goethe's non-epic 1st novel, that made him famous was less thought provoking than Faust. It is seen as a milestone in litterature due to it being written when romanticism was about to hit Europe (it, among others, opened the door for it).
An impossible love triangle, the desperation of a young inactive bourgeois and how life's events, the world and his views of it lead to his inevitable suicide. A book that is difficult to fully understand in our cynical time without some input about the era's context.

Litterature history says this book led to the loss of many young ones. How scary is that fact. A long discussion of responsibility of the artist could be started from here.
It made you wonder : if reading methods could be taught in school so that the reader could choose to fully embrace the character's point of view, would that be a good thing ? Watching it from a distance, with detached interest seems the better option in this case ? What about the others ? Young desperate in-love people would probably find echo in their suffering were they to read this in the middle of a storm (but again, is it worth it ? isn't detachment a good thing ?). I didn't. Fortunately.

It may be difficult for contemporary readers to understand why, after reading "The Sufferings of Young Werther", so many young German men of Goethe's time killed themselves. Not only did they kill themselves but also they dressed in the same clothing that Werther wears when he takes his own life. Clearly they identified with Werther and it is incumbent upon us to understand why.
For those of you who are not familiar with the story, Werther is a youthful German gentleman at the dawn of his civil service career. Unlike his contemporaries, Werther is awkward, socially clumsy, and extremely sensitive. He is also desperately in love with a woman named Charlotte (Lotte) whose feelings toward Werther are not mutual. After Lotte rejects him, Werther goes to a party where he is publicly humiliated. This being more than Werther can bear, he returns home and kills himself with a pistol.
Werther's suicide is more than a response to Lotte's rejection. In a sense it is a disavowal of the society he lives in. Werther's emotions and sensitivity make him something of an oddball among his peers who ultimately scorn and reject him. At the end of the story, Werther is not only heart-broken but also isolated.
Some reviewers have drawn interesting comparisons between Werther and other romantic heroes such as Heathcliffe. The comparison that interests me the most is the one between Werther and Pechorin, the notorious protagonist of Lermantov's "A Hero of Our Times". Unlike Werther, Pechorin is a man of action who isn't rejected by women or society but who ultimately rejects them. Pechorin does not kill himself directly, but he leads a life-style, replete with adventures and duels that ultimately results in his destruction. Both characters essentially feel that they have no place in the world they live in and each orchestrates his own destruction.
In a sense, Werther and company are predecessors of existentialist anti-heroes such as Merseault, the taciturn narrator in "The Stranger". They may also be the precursors of more contemporary figures such as Jim Morrison, Janice Joplyn and Kurt Kobein. If literature reveals a trend of alienation and self-annihilation in the western world during the past two hundred years, then we ought to ask ourselves why it occurs. Perhaps as the world grows more organized, technical, and full of protocol it requires an increasingly larger degree of conformity. Cooperation and team-work demand the removal of individual impulses. If one can't love or can't act outside of public requirements then one has few alternatives left. When critics complained to Goethe about the copycat Werther suicides, he responded that if the commercial system killed so many young men, then couldn't Werther have a few. Suicide, like so many other extreme acts of destruction, isn't the solution to rejection, loss, and alienation, but it is certainly a symptom that is difficult to ignore.

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.

Johnann Wolfgang von Goethe's _The Sorrows of Young Werther_ (1774) is an epistolary novel recounting a young man's obsession with a woman who is affianced and later becomes married. In letters to an older family friend, Wilhelm, Werther describes his life while living in a small German provincial town, his growing obsession for Lotte, and his fledgeling efforts to separate himself from her and move on. Over the course of a year and half, from May 1771 to December 1772, Werther's letters outline the downward spiral of his own desperate romantic passion.

Ironically, the reason why Werther is in the rural village near Walheim, where he mets Lotte, is because Leonara, a woman whom Werther has flirted with, has fallen desperately, and perhaps dangerously, in love with him. Having left home as an escape and for respite, Werther is unsure whether he is "blameless" in Leonara's situation or if he did not "relish her perfectly genuine naïve expressions which so often made us laugh." Werther's uncertainty about his motives, his misperceptions of others, and his lack of concern about the effects of his behavior are a constant. At one point, he writes to Wilhelm, "No, I do not deceive myself!" claiming that Lotte loves him, only to doubt a few sentences later, "Is this presumption, or a sense of true proportion?"

The relationship between Albert, Lotte's husband, and Werther is especially interesting, as it moves from friendship to antagonism, entirely due to Werther's erratic behavior. In the end, Albert inadvertently helps Werther carry out his final plans by fulfilling a request from Werther. Albert's participation reveals a subtle, yet interesting psychological dynamic--hinting perhaps at Albert's own secret jealousies and frustrations, while also ironically realizing Werther's wish to drive a final wedge between Albert and Lotte.

Werther embodies the romantic extreme, and he is similar to other characters and personae found in writers from the Romantic Period, or of works written in the Romantic style. There is an irony to his plight, as the reader sees Werther's self-deception fester in the letters and as a result, the reader understands Werther more fully than Werther understands himself. The book appeals to the loves and obsessions of youth--again taken their utmost lengths. The book is a classic example of the values of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century romanticism.

My thoughts about the book are different from when I first read it as a nineteen-year old. Werther seemed more intriguing then. This time, I found myself imagining the thoughts and feelings of the characters Werther describes, particularly Lotte and Albert, versus Werther's own delusional depictions.

What is it about this particular novella which inspired a series of youthful suicides throughout Europe soon after its publication? Why did Napoleon insist on keeping the French translation with him during his campaign in Egypt? How did Goethe succeed in capturing the poignancy of the human heart, while fascinating a jaded but "enlightened" 18th century public? The young German author touched a universal chord with this slender volume, in which he offers tender insight on such diverse Romantic subjects as Love, Religion, Nature and Man's relationships with God and his fellow men. Why do critics consider it a classic of both German and World Literature?
Presented in a quaint literary style, this story consists of confidential diary entries and letters to a trusted friend, Wilhelm, by a senstitive protagonist, with the addition of editorial notes. (The latter results from the inveitable drawbacks of first-person narratives.) The plot unfolds as Werther, a young nobleman who interests himself in the daily activities of the peasantry, is enjoying an extended holiday in a scenic area of Germany. Free to savor the magnificent natural beauty around him, Werther is soon dazzled by the numerous charms of the delightful Charlotte--daughter of a local town dignitary. This paragon of feminie virtue and attraction appears more sensual and maternal than truly sexual.
Alas, the incomparable Lotte is already engaged to absent Albert, due home soon. Is she too naive to understand that in Werther she has acquired an ardent admirer? Is she aware of his easily-inflamed fascination, or the violent depths of his stifled emotions? Is she oblivious or heartless to his passionate despair once her fiance has returned? Just how long can she juggle two lovers, or even control her own dainty heart--which Goethe chastely and tantalizingly hides from us?
Readers will be be swept away on the floodtide of Gothe's untamed emotions, as poor Werther faces the inevitable. Ah, but which act requires or proves the greater bravery: to terminate the heart's torment by the simple act of Suicide, or to accept Life's harshness by continuing a lonely, meaningless existence? Which Hell is it better or nobler to endure: that of rejecting God's gift or that of eternal separation from the Beloved? The strain of a prolonged "menage a trois" can not be permitted to endure--neither from a literary or a moral point of view.
The last entries painfully point the way as Werther's despair cascades into definitive--albeit negative--action. Weep, hope forlornly with this ardent young man, even rage at his fate; then be swept away into the maelstrom of thwarted dreams. Analyze and pity Germany's most famous pre-Romantic hero, as he struggles though this psychological novel, for Goethe plays upon the reader's memory's heartstrings with the skill of Ossian's agonized harper.

This book is about a desperate and misinformed young man who contemplates and ultimately does, suicide. Shocking in the 1700s it is an interesting character study. Love can Bette worst thing sometimes when it is not returned. The book is short and this printing very cheap and the type is kinda small.

First masterpiece unleashed upon world by then 24-year old Goethe, written in just 3 weeks to cope with unanswered love from some forgotten she-devil. The booklet 'caused quite a commotion and propelled Goethe to fame and a more relaxed financial position, Napoleon claimed to have read it 5 times (it's a short book...). All Goethe's work is written to give people hope, insight and earnest love when needed, and this is no exception. The book dismantles Werther who spirals further and further to measly end, not by condoning his actions but by viewing him in a 3rd person satirital ironical light. Werther met his end because he failed to see the good around him, fixating on Charlotte and throwing away his sense of self. Goethe himself contemplated suicide a couple times, 'putting a dagger against chest and prodding" but quickly decided he wasn't of the constituence to do such silly folly. Werther lays dying in book for hours, another notion of why to NOT do it. So if your heart is broken, read this, and uncover you're not really Werther either and life loves you.

OK, young fool falls in love with married girl. Becomes friend of the couple. Husband starts to get annoyed. Hero declares his love and then commits suicide. You can read that in the paper once in a while. So, why is this a great novel and a landmark of Romantic literature? Because it has a lot to make us think. A famous fact related to this book is that, short after it was published, a series of suicides took place in Europe, mostly by young guys in the same situation as Werther. That should set clear the influence and strenght of the novel. It is extremely well written; the scenery is gorgeous -rural, upper class Germany in the Eighteenth century. The book is written as a secret diary addressed to a trusted friend, and to any readers, young or old, it will strike a chord in their hearts. Tell me, who is there that never experienced dreams of punishing that insensible beloved from school by committing suicide and then have her cry and repent at the funeral? But most of us are still here, with her or, most likely, with someone else or alone. We survived love's infatuation; Werther did not, and he is now a prototype of unlimited love (or lack of maturity, depending on your point of view). I prefer to see it as a great story written, at an early stage, by one of the greatest geniuses of all time. "Werther"

Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe gave himself a rite of passage by writing this book. He was suffering from a great deal of emotional confusion at the time, and the story served as a catharsis to expunge what he felt were unhealthy aspects of emotionality in his personality. The story is popularly classified as Romanticism because of it's rich organic imagery and overwhelming emotional tone. Goethe never thought or referred to himself as a Romantic. In his later years, he viewed Werther as a stage of life in which he had undergone a sort of transformation that aided him in leaving his adolescence behind. The story of Werther that unfolds through his letters is a lucid description of the strong subjective nature of restless emotionality characteristic of a youthful stage in life. The significance of what Goethe captures in this novel is how clearly it demonstrates, in an archetypal manner, the transgressive and oppressive nature of the emotions when fixated at immature levels of masculinity. The story is absorbing and beautiful, and made all the more remarkable by the fact that Goethe wrote it at age 24! I will never forget this book. If you want to read Goethe this is the place to start!

I have just finished reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther and I don't think I've read anything so powerfully moving in years. It is at once both tragic and beautiful. The story consists of letters that Werther has written to a friend describing his passion for "Lotte", his charming, but very married, love interest. We watch as the overly-romantic Werther gradually becomes unhinged and finally kills himself when he realizes he can't have his beloved. Besides this lovely, sad story you also get Goethe's beautiful translation of Ossian's poems near the end. Reading this novella brought back memories of how I once had such passionte yearnings for the loves of my own life --- before I thankfully (and regretfully) got more worldly-wise. This one will be high on my favorites list and will be re-read often.

Mann, apparently(read above),said that Napolean carried a copy of this with him and read it seven times. I want proof of that, perhaps a notebook entry with his review. Romanticism is a difficult movement to revisit, especially German romanticism which was the most extreme. Were it not for the romantic movement we would still be writing clever Swiftian tales of the tub. Maybe that would not be such a bad thing. Romantics, true ones, only have one thing to do, die. That is perhaps why the movement did not last. Werther is complex, very smart, but he just allows his feelings to be his dominant function to use a Jungian phrase. Feelings when sharpened by thought become very interesting things but Werther never allows his thinking self to converse with his feeling self. Byron was a much more interesting romantic because his heroes possessed both faculties in equal portions and so his is not such a dreamy aesthetic, Byron feels but his feelings have teeth and Byron was romantic but one that did not wholly give up on Pope and the tradition he represented. Werther just feels too passive. This work is revolutionary because it throws over all the past betting all on a new kind of vision(admirable) but I wish it were greater. I want to see Werther mature beyond this moment in his life, that is the only logical thing for him to do(ah, logic). But Goethe was writing about a true romantic and the only real consummation for a romantic is death. Luckily Goethe himself did follow his logic as an artist and became much more than a romantic, he became a spokesmen for mans deepest and most enduring longings. I believe Goethe lived to be 83.

I loved this book. It is about young Werther, who falls in love with a married woman. Yet he cannot stop obsessing about her. His obsession drives him and becomes fatal. Once he realizes there is no hope between them, he commits suidice.

The prose is excellent - almost poetic. The scenery is meticulously described and is just breath-taking.

The quotes on love are profound and thought-provoking. My favourite was, "Must it so be that whatever makes man happy must later become the source of his misery?"

Oh, Werther !

This is a great classic for everyone to read - but I recommend it to mature readers. The language is okay enough, but if you're not used to reading books written in a different era, you might have some trouble getting through it. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a tragic romantic read.

Scientist, philosopher and poet....Goethe was all these things and more. In this his most poignant work, he reveals the nervous breakdown and suicide of the title character. He does this by using letters to present a more intimate picture of unrequited love and its consequences. While the book is far from a happy one, it reveals how deep suffering makes for some of the best art. Hidden behind this depth is a certain 'laughter of the gods' that makes the reader realize the genius insight Goethe possessed into human nature. What is even more amazing is that he conveys this incredible tale in only 130 pages. Be prepared for one of literature's biggest emotional roller coaster rides.

I really wanted to love this book. I enjoyed reading Goethe's Italian Journey and I've read so many flattering things about Young Werther that I've looked forward for some time to the experience of finally reading it. Unfortunately, it just didn't grab me.
The positives include Goethe's poetic descriptions of nature and the powerful imagery they evoke and the frequently beautiful language with which Werther depicted his obsession with Lotte.
The primary problems I had with the work were the repetitiveness of Werther's self-pitying missives and a certain incredulity I could not shake relative to the foundations of his compulsion. In the final analysis, a persistent feeling that Werther was silly and unjustified in his fixation and self-indulgent in wallowing in his misery dulled the impact of his fate on my senses substantially.
I am hoping for better things from Faust...

When reading The Sorrows of Young Werther for the first time I was very impressed. At the beginning of the novel I could detect the depression with Werther. This depression was not only the love of Lotte but depression of life as a whole. He appeared to be a lonely man who craved for someone to love him. In some ways I disliked Werther. I felt like saying to him to pull himself together and get on with his own life and stop running after something which has already been caught by someone else.

Is the writer responsible for the harmful results of his work , when he did not intend those results at all? Is there some moral fault in Goethe for writing a work which led to the suicides of many young people?

I do not know the answer.

'The Sorrows of Werther' a story of obsessive and doomed love is told in the form of letters sent from Werther to his friend William. The infatuation with which he begins in time turns to a maddening obsession from which he cannot free himself. 'Love or Death' is the choice, and the choice becomes Death.

I confess that my own attitude upon reading this work even as a young person was somewhat distant and ironic. Perhaps unfairly Goethe represented to me and represents the height of that enlightened cultured Germany , the Germany of Bach,Mozart, Beethoven, Kant which in the twentieth century descended into absolute barbarism and was responsible for one of great crimes in human history, the Holocaust. Reading this story with that immense Horror in the background the story seems like a kind of toy, a kind of poor joke not to be taken very seriously. Who can possibly care about one lovesick little yokel when the pictures of concentration camps are in the mind?

Iknow the work swept Europe and was highly innovative in its day. I know it is considered a classic of German and Western Literature. But for me this story has no emotional resonance whatever. Perhaps this is unfair, but perhaps it too indicates that reviews are written by people who have their own histories and memories. And that these help create their own readings, whether for bad or for good

hymns! fire-dance! i adore werther's volcanic zest for life! i revel in his gush of emocean! i cannot help but be stunned with his flames, his zeal and his lightning! with anna karenina we met a woman of water, snows, whiteness, silk, flax and for-est, a member of the passive gender, one who is oppressed by love's evasive manuevering, with werther we encounter a hot man, one of fire, of basalt, of iron, of cannon and sword. here is man who cannot manage his combustions and his passions that charlotte arouses and thus eventually succumbs to the cen-taur of death! no work exemplifies the tragic inability to master the passion than does this torrent of fire and sulfur! what potential lied in werther's chasms! what socratica whirled through his cortex! who knows what discoveries would have befallen him had he ruled his soul's mercenaries and marched forth into horiza's hazard!? who knows what platmoloquence he would have penned to paper and by exentension the minds that would have illuminated at the reading of his flow-gush!?

love is bellicose, wild, savage, cougaresque, hard, a falcon armed with talons of blade, a tsunami capable of blighting en-tire fishing villages in seconds, and in this work that truth shines in limpid radia! for two and a half years werther wres-tles with the demons charlotte unleashes upon him. he nearly masters his interior gorgons, leaves his calypso, immerses him-self in society's fold for a time, but he fails to find sanctuary from love's ruthlèssum and then once again he is drawn back to his inevitable demise and disintegration. this is work of karka-toam, of avanlanche, it is a study into the demons of passion and a warning to all those who sense too many hurriflames within them. read with care, dear reader, therefore and know that love employs the reaper from time to time armed with his unforgivable scythe and that as you revel in your lover's arms or pine for their crystal while alone in the night-forest that death's chains surround them.

author of Lorelei Pursued, Wrestles with God

This book was a groundbreaking work of romanticism. Feelings, moods, and nature pretty much set the tone for all the action of the book. The story is sad and the hero pathetic, but we care for him. This book is an important assertion of irrationalism in both life and art, and the role of poetry in human reasoning. This is probably a good introduction to Goethe and one of the major phases in the evolution of the novel's form.