When so much noble power, used only for restless laxity, lies idle, mouldering, when he who could have perceived and accomplished so many important tasks follows endless raging passion, until nature succumbs underneath the strain, who would not feel pity! Werther leapt up: “O bliss . I read The Sorrows of Young Werther because it has to be read. Often melodramatic, filled with reflections from the Romantic view of life, it hardly reads like a modern novel. And I read your letter about it to Lotte, too. I have carefully collected whatever I have been able to learn of the story of poor Werther, and here present it to you, knowing that you will thank me for it. Was Albert not the most upright, blameless, beneficent man, who loved Lotte with his entire soul? “Ha,” Werther cried when he saw him, “it is all naught, all women are false, inconstant!” –And he bit his nails. Shirking this duty was ingratitude and vice; fulfilling it would have been virtue and reassurance. But if we could avoid this genius!”, He went to the rich neighbour, took him by the hand and led him down, and said calmly: “See here, neighbour, what havoc your waterfall has wreaked in my garden. . It is nought. It is presumable that the main character of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther is a man from whose thoughts we can glean wise and important statements about life. I did not like it when you cast yourself at her feet within the enclosed space behind the high bookcases; as ingenuous as you seemed in doing so, it was the kind of romantic, solemn thing that keeps going round a bridegroom’s head. Lotte was displeased with his bad humour and wanted his heart to be filled with joy as it once had been when he gazed into her beautiful eyes, not considering that beneath those fair eyes, her pretty nose was turned up as it had not been before. And did he, one of the noblest of men, not owe the world his achievements? –Silence, you unfortunate man! M: If the body were the soul’s prison and not a necessary tool, that might be so, but . Lotte tore her hair and the children wept, but experience had made Werther calm. Yes, you fellows would watch and shout about it, and no more! Die Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz, 12 vol. If Werther owed this to another human being, did he not owe it even more to himself? You were wrong, Lotte. I already made my decision to make you happy while I was travelling, seeing that I could not be happy myself. To his spirit and character you Goldsmith was one of Goethe's (as well as Werther's and Lotte's) favorite authors. Nicolai was a prominent member of the so-called “Berlin Enlightenment” and a friend of Lessing’s, with whom he published a series of letters on German literature. von Goethe Translated by R.D. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link in our emails. You could not? discussed in biography. My love is pure as the sun–Lotte is an angel–before her, all desires fall silent.”, Albert said: “Yes, I believe you! In line with Charlie Chaplin’s dictum so many years later: “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot”. The bystanders stepped away, leaving the two alone. The portion he had inherited from his father was but small, and he had never earned a living. And then we had yesterday’s scene. The first pages bothered me by the condescending tone of the author towards people of “lower condition” than him. What on earth has Albert done that you would not want to be him? In the meantime, Werther received the pistols, set one to his head, pulled the trigger and fell to the ground. M: Pity him? His wife’s illness led to poverty. The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary, loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. . Had you said calmly that you were indifferent to the lad, I would have held my tongue, I would not have told you that I do not want to stand in the way of mutual love, that I [renounce] all claims . Albert had been in Vienna for eight months on his prince’s business and returned shortly after Werther and Lotte had separated. I will do so now. And did his black blood not even suggest that he murder Albert and Lotte along with him? M: Look, Hanns, if I see it aright, this is not what the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther wrote his book for; he did not write it for you and your ilk. –Thus, dearest Lotte, you yourself set up matters in such a way that you were forced to lock yourself in the cabinet. What do you think–if Werther had found the man in the cheap green coat who was looking for flowers in between the rocks with a pistol in his hand instead of flowers, pressing the barrel to his forehead above his right eye, should he have waited until the shot had occurred, shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘That man was unable to bear the measure of his woes’? The powers that lay idle within him, if he had developed and used them, then soon he would have liked the world at least as much as he liked the small boy he kissed regardless of his runny nose, and the world would have offered him its hand, just as the ingenuous child did. M: Am I that cold? He acquired dogs and dressed them up as wolves, tabby cats as tigers, lambs dyed yellow and brown as leopards, and shrews as ermine. Her breast rose slowly to sight, like ocean’s heaving wave.”. .”, “Great God!” Lotte cried, sobbing loudly and covering her face with her handkerchief, “How can you mock me so cruelly! Have you never spoken harshly to someone when your head was hot? Emblematic of this Werther obsession in the literary world was The Joys of Young Werther, published only a year after Goethe’s novel, by the German bookseller Friedrich Nicolai. All fine and well! “My friend, you were a weakling, now you have become a man! The Sorrows of Young Werther is certainly an artifact of its era. Lotte is mine and does not love me; it was better when she loved me and was not mine!”. Now it has come to an end on your part, while the good little woman is still reeling with it, and you are surprised that you cannot agree? As she was leaving, she turned around and voiced her fearful concern about the pistols. It was one of the most important novels in the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement. You are too cold-blooded to even remotely consider such a decision! The Sorrows Of Young Werther is the precursor for all of today's teenage rants on internet blogs about love and its hardships, and it is an utterly enthralling read. He died so quickly. H: That’s all well and good; but Werther had already gone too far, things could have been no other way, they necessarily had to happen that way. You wanted to reassure me, because you knew that I needed to travel, because you, my dearest Lotte, noticed the jealousy that I fain would have hidden from myself. –Have you theorised about how to torture me to my very end?”. .”, Albert took her by the hand and said, very solemnly: “Calm yourself, dearest child. Good, noble, strong. The animals ran through Werther’s orchard and rubbed themselves against the trees to rid themselves of the wild-looking wooden masks tied to them. Then you came along and started singing at a much more elevated pitch: everything had to be fervent sentiment, great tension, no limits, no reflection; you treated your little heart like a sick child, giving in to its every whim, always living in the future, where a great, darkling whole rested before your soul, to which you wanted to give your whole being, letting yourself fall into the bliss of a single, great, glorious emotion. He found Werther lying face down on the same sofa on which he had read Ossian with Lotte. . Reflecting upon the paths of providence, which are not blind fate but goodness and justice, had restored cheer to his parched senses, relaxed his strained nerves, and returned to him the fullness of heart he had formerly enjoyed. A novel by the Irish author, Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774). He knows you better, you young fellows–Hanns, you are one of them, too–who have just left the nest and begun to look out into the wide world from the ivory tower. He bought the mountain above Werther’s little cabin and had great constructions erected upon it, strange and wonderful, winding hedged paths, chasms, temples, pagodas, and wildernesses. They'd dress in his garb of yellow trousers and blue jacket, wander through forests in melancholic fashion, and even sadly go so far as to, like Werther, end their own lives. While his critical and literary works were well known during his lifetime, they are now studied less in their own right and more as valuable sources on the intellectual and literary scene in late 18th- and early 19th-century Germany. A revised edition appeared in 1787. Werther was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and it also influenced the later Romantic literary movement. ... the conversation turned on the joys and sorrows of the world, I could not resist the temptation to inveigh bitterly against ill-humour. And yet, it … After ten months had passed, a son was born, the occasion of unspeakable joy. –Here, let me wipe off that blood. The Public Domain Review is registered in the UK as a Community Interest Company (#11386184), a category of company which exists primarily to benefit a community or with a view to pursuing a social purpose, with all profits having to be used for this purpose. . He hopped around the womenfolk, whispering and babbling here, stroking there, offering his paw, fetching fans, offering gifts of little boxes, and this was the manner in which he approached Lotte. W: The devil take you and your insignificant, generalised pronouncements! Goethe’s “Die Leiden des jungen Werther” (The sorrows of young Werther) is a classic of world literature. Werther beat his fist against his forehead. However, Albert managed to conceal it from Lotte, read all of the letters and went straight to Werther’s rooms. delight . . If you buy this little estate from me, I will move away, and you can have water falling and running wherever you please.”. There was a young, airy fellow, who had read all kinds of books, prattled on about them and made much idle chatter, most indignantly about first drafts, folk songs, and historic plays, twenty years long, each packed into three minutes like tiny devils in pandemonium. He did not want to mar tender, mutual love, nor did he want to render both them and himself unhappy. Accordingly, I saw that I could not be happy with Lotte. Am I not your betrothed? .”. For this, I thank you.” He kissed her hand. It may be pleasant to speak as a genius, but acting as one often causes others nothing but harm. Show the best of boys that he may break a promise and go unpunished, and he will seek to break several. Now he no longer needed to worry whether there was one conjunction too many or one inversion too few. He murmured to himself: “The stubborn fellow!”, went into his room, took the pistols, loaded them himself, and gave them to the boy. The latest wonders from the site to your inbox. Do you imagine it shows strength and resolve? !”, “Be calm, good child,” Albert said, “and consider whether you are not at fault, too. Like this!”, Werther cried: “What do you mean? It would serve you dolls right if fist law reigned, you would have to flee the country! The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a loosely autobiographical epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.First published in 1774, it reappeared as a revised edition in 1787. A: Dear Werther, like the freedom to break this glass, that is a freedom one need not make use of, for it is not useful, but harmful. Eh? Unless otherwise stated, our essays are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. You believed yourself alone when you pulled the trigger, not thinking that by doing so you were breaking your mother’s heart.”. Though Werther makes heartfelt arguments for a life driven by passion instead of reason, he and other characters experience the downfalls of extre… Young people identified with the pain and suffering of the young artist. PREFACE. Friedrich Nicolai was born in Berlin in 1733. You could, you will! In the poem, Nicolai stands next to Werther’s grave and defecates on it: “He sat down, as it wouldn’t keep | On the grave, and left his little heap | Benignly his muck he contemplated | Went his ways much alleviated | And musing to himself did say: | “Poor fellow! The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a 1774 novel (revised in 1787) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about an emotional young man named Werther who falls madly in love with an young woman named Lotte, who is engaged to someone else. Despite adversity (including their wealthy neighbour building a theme park next to their house), they integrate back into society, prosper, and live happily ever after. This wounded his heart and he was in good spirits less often. After all, the whole world lay before him. Do you think my heart’s blood was not moved as I read how he walked side by side with Albert, ‘. Werther was now able to give up his onerous work, and so he purchased a little smallholding that lay on the side of a hill, dotted with high elms and ancient oaks. But he wanted to remain their friend. Goethe’s responses perhaps proves that he was the master not just of tragedy, nor of comedy, but the amalgamation of the two. von Goethe This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. Cold-Blooded, and your flatterer is a noble, grand decision be allowed to do anything Albert... The ground Romantic literary movement he asked Albert for all the riches in the,! 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