German Classics: The Sorrows of Young Werther

I just finished reading my first German classic, The Sorrows of Young Werther, an epistolary novel that I first heard of when I was a child. I felt a sense of fulfillment that, nearly 60 years later, I finally read an English translation of this book, a masterpiece by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. There are many English translations of this book; the one I read was translated by R. D. Boylan.

First published in 1774 with a revised version following in 1787, The Sorrows of Young Werther was finished in five and a half weeks of intensive writing by Goethe, then only 24 years old. The book instantly placed Goethe among the foremost international literary celebrities, and he would continue to build his reputation as a polymath and the most influential writer in the German language.

The novel is based on biographical and autobiographical facts involvingtwo triangular relationships and one individual: Goethe, Christian Kestner, and Charlotte Buff (who married Kestner); Goethe, Peter Anton Brentano, Maximiliane von La Roche (who married Brentano), and Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who died of suicide in 1772 by shooting himself in the head with a pistol borrowed from Kestner. 

The story of the novel is mostly presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of a sensitive and passionate temperament, to his friend Wilhelm, a practical, rational, and sensible man who cares deeply about Werther. Interestingly, both characters in the novel are reflections of Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, with Werther following his footsteps (he shoots himself at the end of the novel) and Wilhelm sharing his middle name.

As suggested by its title, the story of the novel is centered on Werther, the protagonist. Well-educated and intelligent, he is of the upper-middle class though not noble. However, his emotions cloud his capacity for rational thought. His moods range from suicidal depression and grumpiness to feelings of euphoria in the midst of romantic love, the outdoors, literature, symbolism, art, and intellectual discourse. Werther lacks the emotional maturity to care for himself emotionally, and his many good qualities inevitably succumb to the long-term effects of hopeless love, anguish, anger, and suicidal depression.  

Charlotte is a devoted daughter, a loyal fiancée, and a loving, conscientious foster mother to her eight younger siblings. She represents ideal young womanhood and appreciates arts and literature, like Werther. However, she lacks the judgment necessary to recognize how unhealthy her friendship is for Werther. The seemingly amiable, triangular relationship continues until Albert, her fiancé, tells her not to talk about Werther anymore. It then develops dramatically, culminating in Werther's suicide, using a pistol borrowed from Albert.

Albert is an excellent businessman and a sensible, loving fiancé and husband. In contrast to Werther, Albert is confident and mature, so he doesn't even suspect Werther’s feelings for Charlotte.  His interactions with Charlotte are a good illustration of a healthy romantic relationship, though he ultimately advises Charlotte to spend less time with Werther because of Werther's increasingly erratic behavior.

The major theme of the novel is reason versus emotion, best represented by the following characters: Wilhelm and Albert belong to the intellect and reason camp, while Werther and the young peasant man, a minor character who falls in love with his mistress, are both ruled by their feelings. Charlotte indulges in occasional flights of fancy, but her responsibilities to her siblings and commitment to her fiancé bind her and allow her to rein in her more extreme emotions. Another theme is the power of the natural world. Werther loves the outdoors, and when he is indoors, he spends his time writing to Wilhelm. In the letters he loves to describe natural beauty and reflect on his personal feelings. The natural world is the one place where Werther can find peace, and he often seeks it out in order to calm himself and rein in his more disquieting feelings.

The story ends with Werther’s tragic suicide. While it is love that drives him to desperation, Werther is conscious that suicide is both a sin and a crime in his time (the 18th century), and that religious people, after their death, may not want to be buried near him. Finally, laborers inter Werther’s body in a grave that he had requested, unattended by mourners or any religious ceremony. Clearly, Goethe already had quite a progressive attitude towards this taboo topic of suicide. 

While this is the first German classic I have read, through extended study I have learned some terms that used to puzzle me. The first term is Sturm und Drang (usually translated as "storm and stress"), a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named after Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play of the same name, which was first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777. In literature, the period is best represented by Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.

By the mid-1780s, Sturm und Drang gave way to Weimar Classicism, a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar, Germany, because the leading authors of Weimar Classicism lived there. The movement was eventually concentrated upon Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, previously also the major leaders of the Sturm und Drang movement, during the period 1786–1805.

The third term I learned is German Romanticism, the dominant intellectual movement of German-speaking countries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, influencing philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and criticism. Compared to English Romanticism, the German variety developed relatively early, beginning in the 1790s, and initially coincided with the later phase of Weimar Classicism. I believe these new insights will be helpful for my self-study of not just German literature, but also Western literature at large.