O carte tulburătoare, conţinând reflecţiile unui tânăr de o sensibilitate extremă, nefericit, singur lângă ceilalţi, îndrăgostit fără speranţă, analizând lumea în care trăieşte şi în care se simte stingher.

On its publication in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther gained an instant cult following. European readers were captivated by the rapturous ruminations of Werther, Goethe's typically Romantic protagonist whose extreme passion leads to self-destruction. Public fascination gave rise to a fanatical copycat culture, in which men dressed in Werther's signature outfit, women wore "Eau de Werther", and at least one person committed suicide with a copy of Young Werther in her pocket. The sensational novella united people in self-obsession and a desire for a sublime sense of individuality.

For Goethe, however, his first novel was an attempt to escape a younger, turbulent part of himself: the thinly veiled semi-autobiography is a kind of self-purification. Seeking to extricate himself from an inappropriate romantic entanglement, the artist Werther heads for rural solitude. In this pastoral paradise he falls for Lotte, daughter of a land steward. Happily promised to another, she cannot return his affections, and the epistolary novella charts Werther's torment in the face of rejection. Unable to temper his extreme passion, Werther convinces himself that self-annihilation is the only solution to his affliction.

While Werther's vehement, Hamletesque contemplation of nature, religion and the self anticipates the linguistic mastery of Goethe's later play Faust, the author's struggle to shed a troubled past often renders the novella far from sublime. Werther's letters become cloyingly introverted and selfish as his torment intensifies: tragic tales of rural labourers that he meets are used to enhance the all-consuming power of his despair. Framed by the voice of an "Editor", his impassioned letters lose their romance as we are told that his suicide goes gruesomely wrong.

Although a certain inelegance arises from Goethe's own bitter memories of unrequited love – Werther's letters are peppered with unflattering characterisations of Goethe's "real" beloved, Charlotte Buff, and her husband – Goethe's portrayal of what he came to see as his own alter ego contains a curious combination of admiration and disdain. In a new translation which skilfully draws attention to elements of self-imprisonment within the novella, we come to understand Goethe's desire to exorcise a part of himself, and the irony that Young Werther would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Cult novels

On the surface you would think that the reclusive American novelist J D Salinger would have very little in common with the eighteenth-century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Salinger is best known for his coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye [1] . Goethe’s magnum opus was, of course, the drama Faust. In both cases their other achievements have tended to be overshadowed by these triumphs. Goethe’s first real success came actually as a novelist and his The Sorrows of Young Werther was every bit The Catcher in the Rye of its day. Both books are still in print, are available in dozens of languages and their influence is undeniable; both created controversies when they were first published and both have been banned; the protagonists in both books are preoccupied with the innocence of children, are mentally unstable and have difficulties fitting in with the establishment; both books challenge traditional Christian values; both books involve suicides; both books have been referenced by other authors (Frankenstein’s monster read Young Werther even); both books have been called “the greatest book of all time”[2] and both have caused people to die – including Frankenstein’s monster.[3]

 

Unrequited love

Werther’s story is a simple enough one. It’s been told many times before and in many guises. It’s a tale of unrequited love that ends, tragically, in suicide. The experience of this kind love – not just a minor crush, but an intense, passionate yearning – is virtually universal at some point in life. In a 1993 study[4] of 155 men and women it was found that only about 2 percent had never loved someone who spurned them, or found themselves the object of romantic passion they did not reciprocate. That being the case there will be few people out there who won’t be able to relate to Werther; I certainly did, big time.

Historically, love sickness has been viewed as a short-lived mental illness brought on by the intense changes associated with love. Author Dr Frank Tallis has said that “before the 18th Century lovesickness had been

accepted as a natural state of mind for thousands of years.”[5] In his book, Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness he suggests that lovesickness should be taken more seriously by professionals. He says that “in modern day terms the symptoms can include mania, such as an elevated mood and inflated self-esteem, or depression, revealing itself as tearfulness and insomnia. Aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder can also be found in those experiencing lovesickness…”[6]

In an article in New Statesman Tallis talks about the archetypal love story:

Layla and Majnun contains almost all of the characteristics that became the hallmarks of romantic or courtly literature: love at first sight; a love triangle; forbidden love; idealisation; lovesickness; restless wandering; lack of consummation; and a tragic end. Scenes from Layla and Majnun have surfaced in almost all of the great love stories of the western canon, from Tristan and Isolde to Romeo and Juliet.[7]

This basically is the plot too of The Sorrows of Young Werther. Although lovesickness is no longer recognised as an illness Tallis argues that it has symptoms that can be readily diagnosed as a mental illness. Lovesickness can kill – from Sappho jumping off a cliff for unrequited love to lovers committing suicide together. Love makes us irrational. It unsettles us. Turns our world's upside down.

 

The style of the novel

The Sorrows of Young Werther which was first published in 1774 is an epistolary novel (briefroman); most of the story is told through a series of letters written by a young man called Werther to his friend Wilhelm; only in the third part of the book does an unnamed ‘Editor’ come in and interject comments. We are not privy to any of the replies however so it’s to Goethe’s credit that we don’t feel as if we’re only hearing one side of a conversation. This was a popular form in the mid-eighteenth century. In fact this novel might be regarded as its late flowering because towards the end of the century the style fell out of fashion although it has never died completely; both Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897) use the epistolary form to good effect for example.

It is also a sentimental novel, an 18th century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism asserted that over-shown feeling was not a weakness but rather showed one to be a moral person. It presented a new view of human nature which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason, and personal instincts of "pity, tenderness, and benevolence" over social duties.

[The Sorrows of Young Werther along with Rousseau's Julie, or the New Heloise] introduced a new kind of sentimental love that "etherealise sex and made it into an affair of religious devotion rather than the body, a secular equivalent to the love a religious devotee feels towards the godhead. It burgeoned in rural simplicity rather than panelled drawing rooms, seeking – and failing – to transcend all social restrictions and conventions. It gloried in the pain as well as the exaltation of love and thought in terms of the commitment of a lifetime…[8]

Finally, it is arguably the finest example of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement of writing taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s. Depending on who you read it was either a product of or a reaction the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment which focused on the intellect. Those who wrote in this style were more interested in “feeling,” “soul” and “instinct”.

 

The story

Young Werther’s age is never revealed so we never know exactly how young he is, but since he is, in part, modelled on Goethe himself it seems reasonable to assume he is in his early twenties; he certainly has the same birthday as the author. He has been sent on a journey by his mother to talk to his aunt, presumably her sister, about an outstanding legacy. His role as mediator looks as if it’s likely to be a successful one because he writes to Wilhelm on May 4th 1771:

Please be so good as to tell my mother that I shall attend to her affair as best I can and send her a report of it as soon as possible. I have seen my aunt and find her far from being the vixen that people at home make of her. She is a lively woman with the best of hearts. I explained to her my mother’s complaints regarding that portion of the inheritance which has been withheld; she gave me her reasons and the facts, and named the condition under which she would be ready to hand over everything, and even more than we demanded – in short, I don’t care to write about it now, but tell my mother that everything will be all right.

We hear nothing more about whether things work out as he expects. Presumably they have because the matter is never raised again. He finds he likes the rural area to which he has been sent:

Solitude in this paradise is a precious balm to my heart, and this youthful time of year warms with all its fullness my oft-shivering heart. Every tree, every hedge is a bouquet of flowers, and one would like to turn into a cockchafer [a may bug] to be able to float about in this sea of scents and find one’s nourishment in it.

so he decides to stay on awhile. But there might just be another reason why he doesn’t want to rush home that I missed when I first read his opening letter. Earlier on in that first letter he writes:

Poor Leonore! And yet it was not my fault. Could I help it that while the compelling charms of her sister gave me agreeable entertainment, that poor heart developed its own passion? And yet – and I quite without fault? Did I nourish her feelings? – Bayard Quincy Morgan translation (Oneworld Classics), 1957

I didn’t get what he was on about here until I read a different translation:

Poor Leonore! And yet I was not to blame. Was it my fault, that, while the capricious charms of her sister afforded me agreeable entertainment, a passion for me developed in her poor heart? And yet – am I wholly blameless? Did I encourage her emotions? – Victor Lange translation (Princeton University Press), 1988

It appears that Leonore’s sister has developed feelings for Werther that were not reciprocated. Is it no wonder the book opens with:

How happy I am to be gone.

No doubt he jumped at the opportunity to put a little distance between him and the besotted young woman which adds a certain degree of serves-him-rightness to what happens subsequently. Reading between the lines, it looks as if he and his mother don’t get on so well; there are no letters addressed directly to her. The next time we hear of her is in a letter dated July 20th:

You said that my mother would like to see me engaged in some activity; that made me laugh. Am I not active as it is? And isn’t it basically the same whether I count peas or lentils?

Another translation uses the word ‘employed’ as in, “You say my mother wishes me to be employed,” but it really cuts to the chase in modern parlance: “So my mum wants me to get a job.” Are we saying that Werther is a layabout? Not so much but I’m reminded of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (that would be the character played by Dustin Hoffman) lounging in the pool at the start of the film and being prodded by his father to start looking for a position somewhere.

Werther is not ignorant – Wilhelm writes and asks if he wants him to send on his books so he’s a reader – and he clearly has some artistic ability but he is at that stage when he’s not quite sure in which direction his life is going to go and he’s in no rush to make a rash decision. He’s content to idle his days away in the sun, hobnobbing with the locals and flicking through his Homer under the linden trees where his body is ultimately laid to rest. (Trees play an important role as leitmotifs in the book.) Werther clearly trusts in the elementary power of the language of more primitive peoples (Homer was regarded at the time as a “primitive” poet) to capture fully the substance, meanings and passions of experience.

Werther likes where he is just now. He’s not especially fond of the town – he calls it “unpleasant” – but the countryside and its people have enchanted him. From all accounts he was not that crazy about the town his mother moved to after his father’s death either, describing it as a “melancholy town”. Perhaps this is another

reason why he prefers to stay put. He’s a bit naïve though. He idealises the peasants he chooses to spend time with and, uncharacteristically for the time, goes out of his way to earn their respect and win their affection. Although he says in one letter, “I am quite aware that we are not equal and cannot be equal” only a few paragraphs later he basically contradicts himself:

Uniformity marks the human race. Most of them spend the greater part of their time in working for a living, and the scanty freedom that is left to them burdens them so that they seek every means of getting rid of it.

He has been brought up in a society of rules, where people know their place, and although he agrees that “[o]ne can say much in favour of rules … any ‘rule’, say what you like, will destroy the true feeling for nature and the true expression of her!” Holden Caulfield is also conflicted when it comes to rules – he would impose a rule that no one act phoney and yet when Mr Spencer says to him: “Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules,” he gets indignant because he doesn’t care for society’s regulations. We see this commonality between the two characters far clearer when, on October 20th, Werther takes that job his mother was on about, an administrative position, so he’s clearly a bright young man, but his boss is old-fashioned in his ways and is always returning his work for not meeting his exacting standards. After a couple of months he writes:

DECEMBER 24

The Ambassador causes me much vexation, as I foresaw. He is the most punctilious fool that can exist: one step at a time and as fussy as an old woman; a person who is never content with himself, and whom consequently no one else can satisfy. I like to work straight ahead, and let it stand as it stands, but he is capable of handing a report back to me and saying, “It is good, but look it over: one can always find a better word, a neater particle.” That makes me wild.

He tolerates it for a while but eventually packs the job in – much like Holden getting himself expelled from Pencey Prep. It’s not his boss’s pettiness that is the breaking point however. What happens is that he is snubbed socially by some of the local aristocrats. Rather than return home to his mother and his friend he foolishly allows himself to be drawn back to Wahlheim, a town about an hour’s walk from where he was first sent by his mother. His reason? Love.

Back on June 16th Werther had written to his friend:

Our young people had arranged a dance out in the country, which I willingly agreed to attend. I offered to escort a nice, pretty, but otherwise commonplace local girl, and it was settled that I should hire a carriage, drive my partner and her cousin out to the place of the festivities, and on the way stop to take Charlotte S. along.

Lotte, as he comes to know her, is a young woman, the eldest of a large family of motherless children, to whom she herself has become a mother. It’s love at first sight. Certainly as far as Werther is concerned. In the carriage he almost forgets there is anyone else there with them. Lotte finds Werther charming company and is especially thrilled to discover that he can waltz, something that, apart from one other couple, the locals do not excel at. She asks Werther to seek her partner’s permission to dance with her:

We were astute and let them romp their fill, and when the clumsiest couples had quit the field, we swung in and held out valiantly with one other couple, Audran and his partner. Never have I been so light on my feet. I was no longer human. To hold in my arms the most loveable creature, and flying about her like lightning, so that everything about me faded away, and – to be honest, Wilhelm, I did swear to myself all the same that a girl I loved and had a claim upon should never waltz with anyone but me, and even if I lost my life over it. You know what I mean!

That there is a connection between the two does not go unnoticed because during the next dance, a quadrille, a woman wags her finger at Lotte and twice repeats the name, “Albert.” Werther had been told before he ever met Lotte that she was engaged – clearly this had slipped his mind – but when he inquires as to who Albert is he is brought back down to earth with the news that, "Albert is a fine person to whom I am as good as engaged."

We learn something significant about Werther by comparing these two dances. During the strict quadrille, he puts his foot wrong, dances between the wrong couple and if it hadn’t been for “Lotte’s presence of mind …

tugging and twisting” him the whole thing would have descended into chaos whereas during the waltz he felt superhuman, free from rules and able to whirl and improvise as he wished; here he was very much in control. This is an underlying theme in the novel, how he copes with society’s rules.[9]

When the carriage drops her off at night Werther asks if he might visit her later that day. She agrees and he becomes a regular visitor. He learns her routine and it is not unusual for them to bump into each other while out walking. Her children take to him and he to them. As the days pass he becomes more and more besotted and cares little for propriety. In a brief note to his friend on July 10th he writes:

You should see what a silly figure I cut when she is mentioned in society! And then if I am even asked how I like her – like! I hate that word to death. What sort of person must that be who likes Lotte, in whom all senses, all emotions are not completely filled up by her! Like! Recently someone asked me how I like Ossian!

I’ll come back to Ossian.

It’s only a matter of time before Albert turns up. The queer thing is he and Werther hit it off. The situation becomes untenable nevertheless and, towards the end of October, Werther uses a job offer to try to do the right thing and make a break. As I’ve already said, the job brings its own problems and in July 1772 he returns to Wahlheim almost a year after Albert first arrives upon the scene.

There are three main digressions in Werther that bear mentioning: the story of the woman whose husband is in Switzerland who returns from his travels empty-handed and sick with fever; the story of the peasant lad who falls in love with his mistress, murders his rival and is apprehended by the authorities and the story of the madman looking for flowers in November, the man having been driven mad because of his love of, it turns out, Lotte. They all offer possible outcomes for Werther’s situation.

On his return Werther finds that things have changed. Lotte and Albert have now settled into a comfortable marriage. Albert had already written to inform him but now he gets to see them as a happily married couple. Werther is welcomed with open arms as a family friend and he tries to re-establish his old routine. Lotte, to her credit, accommodates him as best she can – Albert too is also surprisingly tolerant – but it’s only a matter of time before Werther begins to outstay his welcome. Day by day he gets more and more fixated and reads into everything. On September 12th he goes to see her and finds she has acquired a pet bird:

A canary left the mirror and flew to her shoulder. “A new friend,” she said, enticing it to perch on her hand, “it was bought for my little ones. It is just too sweet! Look at it! If I give it bread, it flutters its wings and pecks so daintily. It kisses me too, look!”

As she held out her mouth to the little creature, it pressed into the sweet lips as charmingly as if it could have felt the bliss it was enjoying.

“It shall kiss you too,” she said, handing the bird to me. The tiny beak made its way from her lips to mine, and the pecking contact was like a breath, a faint suggestion of a lovely pleasure.

“Its kiss,” I said, “is not quite without greed: it seeks nourishment and returns unsatisfied after an empty caress.”

“It will also eat out of my mouth,” she said. She fed it come crumbs with her lips, whose smiles expressed the joys of an innocent shared love.

I turned my face away. She should not do it! Should not goad my imagination with these pictures of heavenly innocence and blissfulness, not awaken my heart out of the slumber into which it is rocked at times by the indifference of life! And why not? She has such confidence in me! She knows how much I love her!

To say that Werther worships the ground Lotte walks on is no exaggeration. Anything that she has touched, anyone she has spoken to becomes special to Werther. The day he met her she was wearing a dress with pink ribbons on it attached to the arms and – more importantly – the breast of the white dress. He is sent a present from her tied up in a pink bow and this becomes literally a fetish. Kissing the ribbon “a thousand times” Werther cherishes this than any other gift he might have received on his birthday. The sexual connotation is clear but one

can’t forget the role Lotte plays as a mother in the book too. How important this bow becomes to him is noteworthy in that he wants to be buried with it.[10]

This awkward love triangle struggles on towards Christmas but eventually Lotte has to put her foot down.

[D]uring this period she was under increased pressure to be firm; her husband maintained a complete silence concerning the relationship, and so she felt she needed to prove by her actions her feelings were worthy of her husband’s respect.

She tells Werther to stay away until Christmas Eve at which time she has a present for him, a wax candle and something else. He can’t keep his distance though and goes to see her knowing he will find her alone whereupon he reveals his true feelings as if she was in any real doubt by this time. What we the readers have never been too clear about up to this point are what Lotte’s feelings are and even though she rejects his advances I was still left unsure as to how she truly felt which I am quite sure was deliberate on Goethe’s part.

The next day she and Albert learn of Werther’s suicide. This may seem like a huge spoiler but even if you haven’t read the book’s introduction by this point there has already been so much foreshadowing that it comes as no great surprise. Had The Catcher in the Rye been written two hundred years earlier rather than Holden ending up in therapy the novel might have had a more tragic ending too – there are certainly enough suggestions that he too has suicidal leanings. (At one point he imagines jumping out of a window to commit suicide. He also witnesses the suicide of fellow classmate James Castle.)

 

Background to the novel

It took Goethe four weeks to write the book. An expanded version was published later (1787) but even in its revised form it’s still only 140 pages long. He had been thinking about it for over a year, in fact it’s unlikely he would ever have conceived of the book were it not for three things: The first was his friendship with the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. Because of it and inspired by Herder's literary criticism he was encouraged to develop his own style. In his autobiography Goethe described their meeting and subsequent relationship as "the most important event, one that was to have the weightiest consequences for me."[11]

Herder was the champion of those new ideas which were spreading to Germany from France and England. With Rousseau and Blackwell he rejected the overlordship of the intellect and hailed feeling as the primary guide and judge. ... A folk-song, a Scotch [sic] ballad were greater in the artless truth than all the tragedies of Voltaire; and Homer was supreme because he sang the life he saw around him...[12]

The second was meeting the nineteen-year old Charlotte Buff at a village dance at Whitsuntide soon after his arrival in Wetzlar. He was soon “attracted and enslaved” to use his own words. The problem was she was engaged to Johann Christian Kestner. The writing of this novel was therapeutic because he admitted years later that he "shot his hero to save himself" a reference to his own near-suicidal obsession. Once only did Goethe forget his place and kiss her. “She told Kestner and punished the contrite poet with a few days’ coldness and a moral lecture.”[13] Within a few weeks of that Goethe moved away. Kestner died unexpectedly in May 1800 after he and Charlotte had been married for twenty-seven years and produced a large family but it wasn’t until 1816 that Charlotte and Goethe finally met again in Weimar, an event later fictionalised by Thomas Mann in Lotte in Weimar, an encounter that can best described as being politely cool. All her life she had been associated with Lotte and her husband with Albert (something that bothered him more than her) however she took clever advantage of her reputation, chiefly to secure protection and support for her sons’ careers.

The third was an actual suicide, that of Goethe’s friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem at Wetzlar in October 1772. Jerusalem had fallen in love with a married woman and fell into a deep depression because of this. Goethe wrote in his memoirs, My Life: Poetry and Truth:

Suddenly I heard of Jerusalem’s death and hot upon the general rumours, an exact and involved description of the entire incident. In that moment the plan of Werther was found, the whole thing was crystallised, like water in a glass that is on the point of freezing and can be turned to ice immediately with the slightest motion.[14]

Goethe said that he breathed into the words all the passion that results when there is no difference between fact and fiction. As I said Goethe himself seriously contemplated suicide but the writing of The Sorrows of Young Werther proved to be a creative act which he said left him “as after a general confession, again happy and free and justified for a new life.”[15]

 

Its reception

The book was an overnight success:

There were sequels, parodies, imitations, operas, plays, songs and poems based on the story. Ladies wore Eau de Werther cologne, jewellery, and fans. Men sported Werther’s blue dress jacket and yellow vest.[16] Figures of Werther and Lotte were modelled in export porcelain in China. Within 12 years, 20 authorised editions were issued in Germany. In England by the end of the century, there were 26 separate editions of a translation from the French.[17]

The Sorrows of Young Werther, along with Rousseau's New Heloise, were the first books to reach such cult status that they spawned major industries in the production of mementoes and commemorative editions.[18]

So anyone who thought merchandising began with Star Wars think again.

The book acquired infamy though for a different reason. I mentioned at the start that both The Catcher in the Rye and The Sorrows of Young Werther were responsible for people dying. Let me now explain. Numerous murders have been speculated to be connected to the The Catcher in the Rye, arguably the most well known being Mark David Chapman's shooting of John Lennon but there were others. With Goethe’s novella it was as you might have guessed suicides in fact the term ‘Werther effect’ derives from the book. It was coined in 1974 by the sociologist David Phillips to describe imitative suicidal behaviour transmitted via the mass media. This was the reason The Sorrows of Young Werther was originally banned, but even before that there was talk. Suicide was considered sinful by Christian doctrine (Roman Catholics still consider it a mortal sin) and suicides were denied a Christian burial. Goethe’s book proved deeply controversial upon its publication for, on the face of it, it appeared to both condone and glorify suicide. Perhaps this was why it was published anonymously at first. Goethe was born into a Lutheran family – Lutheran’s were far more tolerant of suicide[19] yet they still condemned the novel as immoral. Although still nominally a Christian when he wrote Werther by 1782, he was describing himself as "not anti-Christian, nor un-Christian, but most decidedly non-Christian."[20]

Although there is little concrete evidence to back it up, romantic legend has it that The Sorrows of Young Werther inspired a rash of suicides across Europe. Young men and women were taking their own lives with copies of Goethe’s novel in their pockets. In a similar fashion a copy of Emilia Galotti was found by Werther’s deathbed.[21] Although love is a central theme Lessing's work comprises an attack against the nobility and its powers which suggests that there might be more to his death than meets the eye.

In Emilia Galotti, Prince Hettore Gonzaga, once in love with Countess Orsina, unhappily falls in love with Emilia Galotti after seeing a portrait of her. While speaking about Emilia to Marinelli, the Prince finds out that Emilia is engaged to Count Appiani. The prince is captivated with Emilia and dreams of having her as his own and so motivated by lechery he plans to abduct her and to kill Count Appiani. The prince successfully carried out the abduction – on the pretext that he is rescuing her from bandits – but her father, Odoardo, gets to her and in order to safeguard her innocence, stabs her and kills her. So not a literal suicide but perhaps a moral one; she gives up her life rather than it being taken from her.

Suicides numbering as high as 2000 have been quoted following the rise of the cult of Werther although this may be something of an exaggeration. Certainly for a while Jerusalem's grave became a place of pilgrimage for the more devout readers of Werther. The book was unquestionably seen as dangerous by the censors of Leipzig who banned the novel. It received the same treatment in Denmark and Italy. Although Goethe did not consider himself personally responsible for the rumoured suicide outbreak, he did later write:

My ... friends thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public.[22]

He also added a poem to the first page of editions after 1778 in which the ghost of Werther warns the reader not to follow his example:

Dearest reader, cry for him, love him, Save his reputation before he is destroyed; Look! The eyes of his escaped soul are speaking to you: "Be a dignified man and do not follow my footsteps."

A good modern day example of the Werther effect took place in August 1962 following the suicide of Marilyn Monroe. In the month that followed it, 197 individual suicides – mostly of young blonde women – appear to have used the actress’s suicide as a model for their own. The overall suicide rate in the States increased by 12% for the month after the news of Monroe’s death. Fears of a suicide wave following the death of Kurt Cobain never materialised however leading some to be sceptical about the Werther effect.

When I first started reading this book as I said I was fully prepared to dislike it. Even before Werther falls for Lotte I wanted to give him a slap. As my reading progressed, as I watched him get swallowed up by his obsessive love I actually began to empathise with him. Obsessive love follows four distinct phases:

Phase one: Attraction Phase two: Anxiousness Phase three: Obsession Phase four: Destructiveness

and, like I said, once you realise what’s happening you know that things will have to run their course. I was completely caught up in the events. Just because you know Romeo and Juliet are going to die at the end has never stopped anyone going to see the play and knowing that Werther is going to die is no reason not to read this book. Napoleon said he read it seven times.

The Sorrows of Young Werther Summary

The S orrows of Young Werther, a novel that consists almost entirely of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm, begins with the title character in a jubilant mood after having just escaped from a sticky romantic situation with a woman named Leonora. Werther has settled in a rural town, determined to spend some time painting, sketching, and taking excursions around the countryside. Werther does not accomplish much work, preferring to admire the easy lifestyle of the peasant class, which reminds him of the ancient "patriarchal life" found in the Bible. Werther makes the acquaintance of many of the local peasants, including two peasant brothers, Hans and Philip, and a country lad who is in love with the widow who employs him.

Werther finds Wahlheim, a village a short distance away from his town, to be the most charming place in the countryside. This estimation increases a hundredfold when he meets the village bailiff's daughter, Lotte, at a dance. Their interaction is immediately striking - they are both enthusiasts of the new sentimental style of literature, represented by Goldsmith and Klopstock, as well as ancient writers like Homer and Ossian. Lotte, however, is engaged to an upstanding man, Albert. Werther must satisfy himself with friendship alone.

In the coming weeks, Werther grows more and more impressed with Lotte, cherishing her unique charm and insight as she uncomplainingly carries the burden of motherhood. She is the eldest of eight children, and assumed the responsibility of caring for her siblings after her mother's death. However, Albert returns, and Werther must meet the man who has Lotte's heart. After determining that he will leave, Werther instead stays, forming a friendship with Albert, who he finds to be both intelligent and open-minded, though much more sensible than the romantic Werther.

Upon Albert's arrival, however, Werther grows increasingly infatuated with Lotte. He can't resist feeling that Lotte would be happier with him; they are both initiates in the intense, subjective emotionalism of Sturm und Drang, and Albert is not. However, the faithful Lotte has no intention of leaving her fiancé, and Werther determines, at Wilhelm's recommendation, to take an official court position rather than remain in an impossible triangle. He leaves Wahlheim without informing Albert or Lotte of his plan.

Werther's official position, however, is a great disappointment to him. He clashes with his employer, the envoy, who is as meticulous and cerebral as Werther is spontaneous and emotional. Werther also loathes the social scene of his new job, in which the aristocratic class rules over all, though he cultivates rewarding friendships with two aristocrats, Count C and Fräulein von B. The positive aspect of his job crumbles, however, when the aristocratic class, including Fräulein von B, snubs Werther at one of Count C's parties. Humiliated, Werther resigns from his position, moving with another friend, Prince ---, to the Prince's country estates. This situation, too, is short-lived, as Werther finds himself irrevocably drawn back to Wahlheim and Lotte.

When Werther returns to Wahlheim, he discovers that his infatuation with Lotte has only grown stronger during the separation. As Lotte later suggests, it seems that the impossibility of his possessing her is what feeds his obsession. Albert and Werther become increasingly estranged, and Lotte is caught in the middle. Also, the countryside has taken a turn away from the idyllic: Hans is dead, and the country lad's tale of love has ended in murder. Meanwhile, Werther meets Heinrich, a former employee of Lotte's father's, who was driven mad by an unrequited passion for her. Werther feels increasingly hopeless.

Three days before Christmas of 1772, in an attempt to salvage what is left of their relationship, Lotte orders Werther not to visit her until Christmas Eve, when he will be just another friend. Werther decides that he cannot live on such terms with Lotte, electing instead to kill himself. He pays Lotte a final visit, during which he forces a kiss and is ordered never to see her again.

At home, alone, Werther writes Lotte a letter. He asks her for Albert's hunting pistols, and she sends them to him. Then, with a calmness hitherto unknown to his restless soul, Werther shoots himself in the head. He lingers until the morning; Lotte, Albert and Lotte's brothers and sisters watch him die. At the novel's end, Werther is buried without a church service. Lotte's own life is in jeopardy as well; she is driven to desperate grief by Werther's action

Major Themes

Class

Why is Werther so unhappy in his official position? One could easily cite several reasons. First of all, his temperament is not suited to sitting around in an office all day; second, he is incapable of the meticulous attention to boring details that marks the life of a Court official. But underneath these personality-driven conflicts lies the question of class: Werther cannot stand being snubbed.

In fact, Werther's snubbing in Book Two - which drives him back to Wahlheim and suicide - is only the most obvious manifestation of class assumptions in the novel. During Book One, Werther speaks of his relationship to the peasant class around Wahlheim quite fondly. In fact, Werther sees the simple drama of the peasants in their naive "patriarchal" society as beautifully poetic; his entire theory of art privileges a simplicity of expression that only the lower classes seem capable of. Werther could not hold this opinion if he were not of a higher class than they. He speaks from a position of privilege, and though his attitude toward the peasants is kind, it is also patronizing. There is no doubt that he feels himself superior; their naive charm is only virtuous because he - the idle youth with nothing at hand but time and his mother's money - says it is.

The beginning of Book Two provides a startling contrast to Werther's seeming life of privilege: Werther, it appears, may have been able to stay away from Lotte after all had been accepted by high society. Instead, he finds himself amidst the injustices of the class system, humiliated by people whom he believes he is smarter and more talented than. Werther's position is tricky; as he writes, he realizes the advantages he himself has reaped from the class system, but when he is on the bottom of the social ladder these advantages don't amount to much. His behavior at Count C's party confirms Werther's discomfort with either conforming to class conventions or outwardly rejecting them: he remains at the party even though he is unwelcome, and when he is unsurprisingly snubbed, he throws a tantrum and leaves. Perhaps if he had been able to rail against the follies of the upper class

as a member of privilege himself (just as he criticizes the bourgeois class from within elsewhere in the novel) he would not have fled to Wahlheim, where there were no nobles to irk him. In this light, being born bourgeois instead of noble may be Werther's greatest sorrow of all.

Family

Werther has mother trouble - there can be no doubt about it. He never directly insults his mother, but his dislike for her is sprinkled throughout the narrative. For example, he never contacts her directly, instead relying on Wilhelm. Further evidence is found in the bitter tone of the letter of May 5, 1772, when Werther mentions his mother's decision to leave the place of his birth. One of the major focal points in Werther is Werther's need to compensate for a strained home relationship. He needs a family - if not his own, than another's. In search of this idealized family, he stumbles across Lotte's. Her family is relatively serene, even given the early death of her mother and the abundance of mouths to feed. It has the two things that seem to matter to Werther most in a family: lots of children, and an intensely loving mother figure.

Werther's view of childhood appears to be ambiguous. On the one hand, in his letter of May 22, 1771, Werther sees children as the height of vanity, living happily because they are ignorant, fearing no principle but the rod and delighting in no principle but candy and toys. This cynicism is absent, however, after Werther meets Lotte and her eight brothers and sisters. His letter of June 29, 1771 is virtually an encomium to children. He alludes to Jesus Christ's order to his followers to emulate children, and writes, "Any yet, dearest friend, we treat them, who are our equals, whom we should look upon as our models, as our subjects." Werther finds complexity in the simplicity of childhood; there is no doubt that he is happier on the whole in the company of children then he is moving amongst adults.

Just as complex is Werther's attitude toward motherhood. Goethe's works often praise the feminine in ways that may make modern feminists uncomfortable. Goethe's last words in Faust, Part II, which translate, "The Eternal Feminine draws us upward," express this position. Goethe seemed to feel that modest, cheerful wifehood and motherhood were paragon states to which every man ought to strive, but which no man can really attain. Werther expresses this opinion even before meeting Lotte (who is, obviously, the perfect woman: motherly and virginal) when he writes of Hans and Philip's mother, "The tumult of my emotions is soothed by the sight of such a woman, who is rounding the narrow circle of her existence with serene cheerfulness, managing to make both ends meet from one day to the next, seeing the leaves fall without any thought save that winter is near." Like his attitude toward the lower classes, this is at once beautiful and condescending.

Goethe, however, does not simply endorse Werther's opinion. After all, Werther does not attain this idealized family life - he merely writes about it. Lotte herself alludes to Werther's tendency to idealize people when she says, near the novel's end, that Werther pursues her only because she is impossible to attain. Lotte is more than a good mother/sister - she is a smart, thoughtful woman who holds true to her principles. In the end, Werther's obsession with Lotte's motherliness reveals more about his own impoverished upbringing than it does about Lotte herself.

Happiness

Werther has a lot to say about happiness, and, in typical fashion, his feelings on the matter are often inconsistent. The one consistency: whenever he says he has attained happiness, despair is just around the corner. He writes in his letter of August 18, 1771, "Must it so be that whatever makes man happy must later become the source of his misery?"

For Werther, it seems, the answer is "yes". He is happy with Lotte, but suicidal because he cannot have her; he is happy with Fraeulein von B, but it is his attachment to her that positions him to be insulted at Count C's party. Every instance of happiness becomes an opportunity for Werther to be made unhappy. Furthermore, Werther seems painfully aware that it seems to be his destiny to spread his unhappiness and discord among his friends. Even poor Wilhelm, with whom Werther is on such good terms, is made to suffer simply because Werther must tell his someone of his misery.

It is more than a little ironic, then, that Werther is so contemptuous of "bad moods." He writes of Albert, "He seems seldom to be in bad moods, a sin which, as you know, I hate more in human beings than any other," and one of his major reasons for loving Lotte so much is her constant cheerfulness. Werther feels that the worst thing

one can do is to ruin someone else's happiness with gloom and doom, as Herr Schmidt does in the letter of July 1, 1771. But Herr Schmidt is just mildly crabby; Werther, with his full-blown suicidal depression, manages to ruin others' happiness on a scale that Herr Schmidt would never be able to manage. Werther's attacks on bad moods - like his occasional blanket dismissals of the possibility of sustained happiness - appear to be inwardly directed: he attacks in others the things he hates in himself.

The Limits of Language

For someone who spends so much time writing letters, Werther does not have much faith in language. When trying to explain the country lad's love for the widow in his letter of May 30, 1771, he pauses, writing, "No, words fail to convey the tenderness of his whole being; everything I could attempt to say would only be clumsy." This distrust is not just theoretical: he puts it into practice, too, especially late in the book, when he writes, "It makes me angry that Albert does not seem delighted as he - hoped - as I - thought to be, if - I am not fond of dashes, but it is the only way of expressing myself here - and I think I make myself sufficiently clear."

In the two above examples, Werther's turbulent spirit is expressed in two ways - first, he refuses to relate a peasant's story in conventional phrases, and second, he attests to the lack of clarity in his own feelings when he declares the dash-riddled sentence above "sufficiently clear." In the first case, he emphasizes the cheapening effect of language. Werther fears employing the trite, conventional, quotidian phrases that everybody else uses; he wants language that is true to his unique, extremely sensitive way of seeing the world. Such language, as we see in the second case, is hardly coherent, because he is hardly coherent.

This complicated issue - the use of language to destroy the boundaries of language - is also the essence of Romanticism. Werther (and Goethe) reveal to readers the limits of the polished, precise diction of the Enlightenment. Alexander Pope's neat heroic couplets are not suited to Werther's turmoil, because Werther's turmoil is not neat. By appealing to the new, extremely subjective, anti-language of feeling, Goethe loses the precision of rational grammar and punctuation, but gains the power to express the irrational.

Stormy Weather

Werther and the weather - the two words are quite similar and so, in fact, are their dispositions. Constantly in flux, elemental, unpredictable...and when the weather is stormy, Werther's temper is often stormy, as well. Sometimes his mood is stormy in a "good" way - such as when he experiences nervous joy during the dance with Lotte - but it is more often stormy in a "bad" way. As the weather worsens, Werther's suicidal tendencies become even more apparent.

In Werther, the outside world frequently mirrors or compliments the inside world. Indeed, the very word "nature" is a kind of pun, referring both to the natural world around us and to the truths at the depths of our being. In Werther, the distinction between these two realms of nature is blurred: each, it seems, influences the other.

As in later works of Romanticism, such as Turner's landscapes or Shelly's nature poetry ("Mount Blanc", for example), Goethe finds great power in the contemplation of untamed natural forces - so different from the neatly trimmed gardens of the Enlightenment. The genre he started with this book wasn't called Sturm und Drang for nothing. And the storms - always - are as much an expression of the power of human feeling as the power of the natural elements.

Subjectivity

It is difficult to select a catch-all term for the kind of literature Werther helped to initiate. There are plenty of options: one could call it Romantic, Sturm und Drang, or the Literature of Sensibility, just to name a few. But one concept that seems to be at the heart of Goethe's youthful novel, and the later genres that were so inspired by it, is subjectivity. Werther fascinates himself; he studies himself; he knows himself. He tirelessly thinks about - and writes about - his language use, his perceptive faculties, and his thoughts. In fact, he writes about almost nothing else. Any letter in Werther is focused on the search for the self.

Today, with abundant confessional poetry, post-modern art and tabloid magazines, self-reflection is everywhere. In 1774, however, this wasn't the case, and the freedom to study oneself, one's feelings, was a new and liberating thrill. To be misunderstood by the population in general, and to find true comfort only with other initiates of the secrets of subjectivity (readers of Klopstock, Ossian and Goethe) was to be a rebel. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were incredibly exciting, turbulent years, during which our modern emotional vocabulary was more or less forged from scratch in response to the complacent philosophies of the Enlightenment. Certainty was becoming less and less certain; objective appraisals of the world and its inhabitants were growing more and more complicated. The human being was beginning to be defined not by order, but by contradictions.

Werther is the quintessential early romantic. He is extravagantly self-absorbed, hopelessly restless, always out-of-breath about some less-than-rational opinion, and proud of his contradictions, proud of his suffering. He spends much of his time contemplating the way in which his self-knowledge is complicated - the way in which he still does what he knows will make himself and others unhappy. This is because it does not matter what he knows about himself: he will always give way to what he feels.

Suicide

Suicide is Werther's constant companion far before the actual moment of his death. As early as the letter of May 22, 1771 Werther mentions it, often ending his gloomier letters with a hint at his suicidal tendencies. In fact, Werther never really thinks of death without thinking of his own death.

Suicide is, in Werther, the threshold of the self, and the self is everything. It is the clearest expression of man's own self-sufficiency. He writes that a man, "however confined he may be...still holds forever in his heart the sweet feeling of freedom, and knows that he can leave this prison whenever he likes." Is there any doubt that Werther will commit suicide, sooner or later, in one way or another? He seems destined to do so, and comfortable with that destiny. After all, Werther argues with Albert about how "natural" suicide is: someone who sees life as a sickness can cure his misery with a simple tug on a trigger.

Despite the protagonist's uncomplicated willingness to embrace the act of suicide, Werther's own suicide is one of the most ambiguous events in the novel. This is not because of Werther, but because of Albert and Lotte. In a novel where almost everything is answered and explored at length, one of the great mysteries of Werther is whether or not Lotte and Albert approve of Werther's act. He asks them for the pistols, and they give them to him, fully aware of his fixation on suicide. Werther himself takes this as a sign of Lotte's approval, and is somewhat cheered. After the deed is done, however, the editor writes, "I cannot describe Albert's consternation, Lotte's distress."

In Albert and Lotte's turbulent, tortured attitude toward Werther just before and after he pulls the trigger lies the suggestion that suicide is not as simple and natural an act as Werther makes it out to be. His shuddering, still alive near-corpse, his death rattle - these horrible images deflate the romanticism of suicide in the final moments of the novel. However, the eighteenth century Werther enthusiasts who followed in their hero's footsteps did not heed these warnings. Indeed, in modern psychological parlance, copy-cat suicides are said to be caused by "The Werther Effect." This is a book that makes the case both for and against suicide. Werther makes the case for it; Goethe - in his careful cultivation of Werther's shortcomings and final emphasis on the brutality of the act - makes the case against it

Character List

AdelinWerther's good-hearted co-worker when he is in his official capacity under the Count.

AlbertSober, thoughtful, responsible - in a word, the antithesis of Werther - Albert is Lotte's betrothed, and later her husband. At first, he and Werther get along well enough. They are both interesting personalities and incisive conversationalists; indeed, if Lotte had not come between them, they might have been good friends, like Werther and Wilhelm. Instead, Werther's persistent clinging to Lotte drives a rift between Albert and him.

Count CAn aristocratic friend of Werther's while he is working in his official capacity under the envoy. The Count and Werther are kindred spirits of sorts, who are barred from fully realizing their friendship by the social conventions that keep a bourgeois man like Werther from fraternizing too openly with an aristocrat.

Country LadA young peasant with whom Werther identifies: he is in love with the widow for whom he works. When his love is foiled, he murders his replacement.

EditorThis mysterious figure steps in to narrate the final part of Werther. He is specifically not Wilhelm, nor is he any other known character; he claims to be merely a faithful reporter of facts, but occasionally shows flashes of insight into characters and narrates events from their perspective. His anonymous omniscience seems Biblical.

EnvoyWerther's immediate superior in his position as a court official. The envoy is a meticulous, unhappy man, and impossible to please. Werther despises him, and the envoy dislikes Werther in return.

Fräulein von BA charming aristocrat whom Werther befriends while working in his court appointment. Fräulein von B. is discouraged from pursuing her friendship with Werther by her snobbish mother.

Frau MAn old woman who lives in a village in the mountains; she requests that Lotte be with her while she dies.

FriederikeHerr Schmidt's sweetheart, of whom he is inordinately jealous.

HansPhilip's younger brother, a peasant lad of Wahlheim.

HeinrichA man "in a green frock coat" whom Werther encounters trying to gather flowers in winter. This madman yearns for his happy days in the asylum. It is later revealed that Heinrich was a former employee of Lotte's family, driven insane by his unrequited passion for her.

Herr AudranLotte's partner on the night of the dance during which she and Werther meet.

Herr SchmidtA gloomy fellow whom Werther and Lotte meet during their visit to a village in the mountains.

Lady S, Lady T, Colonel B, Baron FAristocratic attendees of a dance thrown by Count C. who are offended by the presence of Werther, a bourgeois, at the party.

LeonoraA young woman with whose sister Werther entertained himself before the novel begins. Werther writes that she was passionately in love with him.

LotteCharlotte S., familiarly called Lotte, is forced by her mother's untimely death to act as a mother to her eight younger brothers and sisters - a burden that she accepts cheerfully and selflessly. Writing of the woman on whom the character of Lotte was chiefly based, Goethe said, "Lotte was undemanding in two ways: first, according to her nature, which was intent on creating general good will rather than on attracting any specific attention, and second, she had already chosen someone who was worthy of her, who had declared himself willing of joining his fate to hers for life." In Werther, Lotte has pledged herself to Albert, though she feels a special (one might say sisterly) bond with Werther. Werther, for his part, is infatuated with her almost to the point of madness.

LouisOne of Lotte's younger brothers.

MarianneOne of Lotte's sisters.

MinisterThe director of the Court for which Werther briefly works. He sympathizes with Werther, though feels that the young man needs to compromise his intensity from time to time.

Old MFrau M.'s husband, a pleasant enough lower-class man who nevertheless manages his household very stingily.

PhilipOne of two peasant boys whom Werther meets in Wahlheim. Werther draws a picture of Philip allowing his younger brother, Hans, to sit in his arms.

Prince ---A member of royalty whom Werther accompanies and lives with for a short while after resigning from his court position.

SThe bailiff of Wahlheim and the father of Lotte and her siblings.

SelstadtOne of Werther's friends.

SophyLotte's sister and the second-eldest sibling in the family.

V"An open-hearted youth with pleasant features." Werther converses with this erudite young man, just out of university, in a somewhat condescending way. V. is very enthusiastic about the aesthetic and religious theories he has picked up in school; Werther, however, does not care for such things (though he is careful to show that he knows all about them).

WA friend of Werther's.

WertherA young bourgeois dilettante - intelligent but arrogant, artistic but unmotivated - who finds his world topsy-turvy after becoming infatuated with Lotte, a beautiful and good-natured woman who is engaged to the sensible and hard-working Albert. Werther goes through life in his blue frock coat and yellow waistcoat, conversing brilliantly (though rather contentiously) with all who will listen, ruminating on his memories as well as subjective philosophy, and increasingly despairing of life and fate. He has a pensive, outsider's position throughout the work: he loves to observe family life, but is somewhat estranged from his own mother; he wishes to be married to Lotte, but finds himself "just a friend." This estranged sensitivity, exacerbated by his unrequited passion, leads him to commit suicide.

Werther's motherWerther's mother, who goes unnamed throughout the novel, never directly corresponds with her son. Instead, the two communicate obliquely through Wilhelm. Werther's mother provides financial support for her son, and their estrangement is never fully explained. Werther alludes late in the novel to his hatred for his mother's current place of residence. The unspoken tension between Werther and his mother subtly informs the novel.

WidowA woman who lives in Wahlheim. Her peasant worker is in love with her.

WilhelmWerther's chief correspondent, and the addressee of nearly all of the letters that make up The Sorrows of Young Werther. From Werther's interactions with him, we can take Wilhelm to be a sober, sensible fellow - much like Albert - who is nevertheless sensitive to Werther's own more tumultuous character and a true friend. In order to get over his feelings for Lotte, Wilhelm encourages Werther to take a position in a legal capacity for a Count, advice that Werther follows only to resign in a huff and return to his impossible infatuation.

Woman of WahlheimThe daughter of the schoolmaster, and the mother of Hans and Philip. Werther rests under her linden tree. Her husband is in Switzerland, trying to collect his inheritance from a cousin. Near the end of Werther, Werther learns that this family has met a tragic fate.

Pastor of St. ---The pastor of a small village that Werther visits with Lotte. Werther looks back on his time with the pastor nostalgically.

Wife of the New Pastor of St. ---"A foolish woman who pretends to erudition." She cuts down the walnut trees on her property and argues theology all day, cultivating the ire of the commoners of her village as well as that of Werther