In 1778, General Napoleon Bonaparte carried The Sorrows of Young Werther with him during the Egyptian campaign. And years later, when Bonaparte met Goethe, he told him that he read it multiple times and studied it, “like a criminal judge reading his documents.” Bonaparte considered this book one of the great works of European literature.
The Sorrows of Young Werther was Goethe’s first novel. It was published in 1774 under the original title of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. It was later published in English in 1779. This short epistolary novel of 144 pages is a landmark of the German Romantic movement.
Werther recently moved to a small German rural town when he encounters a young woman named Lotte. He immediately falls in love with her. In Werther’s eyes, Lotte is perfection. He’s drawn to her caring, maternal, and highly feminine personality. Unfortunately, Werther quickly learns that Lotte is engaged to Albert, and she eventually marries him. As Werther and Albert’s friendship grows, his love for Lotte doesn’t dissipate but, on the contrary, turns into infatuation. Unfortunately, he never tells her how he feels, and his emotions progressively lead him to the break of madness. He shares all his experiences and torments in the letters that he writes to his friend Wilhelm who resides in the city. The letters cover twenty months, in which our hero’s life unravels professionally and emotionally, thrusting him into an emotional whirlwind of no return.
When we meet Werther at the beginning of the book, he’s a happy young man. He’s intelligent, well-read, reflective, and harnesses a love for drawing. Werther has a deep interest in the human condition. He shares his concerns about the social conditions of peasants in his letters to Wilhelm. As we get to know Werther, we also observe that part of him feels that he’s better than most people despite his compassionate nature. This subtle sense of arrogance adds complexity to the character and how he deals with his emotions. As our hero falls in love with a woman who’s not available, he delves deep into a downward spiral. He becomes unbalanced and unstable. All his emotions are brewing in his mind. He quickly becomes quite unlikable and never seems to question himself, his actions, and his feelings.
Everything about the book is one-sided, and we only get Werther’s perspective on the other characters. Lotte is portrayed as flawless and pure. She’s honest and loyal to Albert, who is stable and not as emotional as Werther. The dynamics between the three characters are intoxicating and intense. However, from the beginning of the book, it was hard to believe that any characters would transgress and follow their emotions. And as events unravel, the three characters end up in despair.
The Sorrows of Young Werther has an abundance of themes. One-sided romance and depression in the context of the late 1700s are at the forefront. However, the theme that particularly moves me is Werther’s connection with nature. Goethe was a trailblazer in tightly connecting people’s emotions with the glory and beauty of nature. Werther loves trees and sees them as timeless, just like his feelings for Lotte. The change of seasons also represents the emotional changes and transformation in Werther’s life. Lastly, Goethe beautifully builds a connection between the weather and Werther’s mood. The storm, for example, is as unpredictable as Werther’s mood.
The language in The Sorrows of Young Werther is more accessible than a lot of contemporary novels. The emotion that we get from the book is powerfully conveyed. While the characters’ emotions are intense, the harmony and rhythm are smooth.
As one of the founders of Romanticism, Goethe crafted through Werther what many Romantic writers considered the ultimate Romantic hero. In his novel Eugene Onegin, the great 19th-century Russian poet Aleksander Pushkin refers to Werther as a “rebellious martyr.” In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley makes direct references to The Sorrows of the Young Werther. And Gustave Flaubert’s main character in the novel Sentimental Education compares himself to young Werther. These allusions clearly illustrate the importance of Goethe’s first novel in 19th-century literature.
If you haven’t read this book, please don’t be intimidated by it. If you ask yourself how you could ever relate to characters that an 18th-century German novelist created, keep in mind that Goethe was a universalist. The love triangle in The Sorrows of Young Werther has the same dynamics as a love triangle in the 21st century. The true power of literature lies in the author’s capacity to make readers relate to his characters, and Goethe did that to perfection.
4/5
