Coming from one whom this difficult subject matter is all too real, I found this interpretation unconvincing and hollow. It’s a product of its time, I suppose, but it hasn’t aged well. A little bit too formal for the topic, and a little bit too much romanticism. Despite Goethe’s own experience, I don’t feel this novel does his views much justice. Werther is too thin a character and too weak a lover to really be a distinguished representative of the perceived courage it takes to handle such a burden (quite unlike Dante’s heroic anguish over Beatrice). But not only this, but what a nasty person Werther becomes. For one who claims to love unconditionally, he is awfully spiteful and egotistical. Does he really think he is justifying himself? If he truly loved her, he would have done everything to restrain himself from hurting her, but because of his ego, he just has to pull everyone else down with him, doesn't he? Is it harsh to say I think he deserves what he gets? ( )

The greatest book I've read in ever so long. ( )

Finally got around to this, when I was safely beyond the age I might have been tempted to copy-cat. In this Signet edition, first published in 1962, the added selections are: Reflections on Werther, Goethe in Sesenheim, The New Melusina, and The Fairy Tale. The last one in particular resonated with me. I had taken this book along on my first and only trip to the DDR. In preparation, I read everything about the country I could, pro and con. None of it prepared me for the reality of the country and its people. The fable, about an elephant who means well but can't help crushing others, seemed closer to the mark of what I sensed there. ( )

1774. Most people know what this book is about before they read it I think, but if you don't here come spoilers: it's about Werther, who falls in love with a woman engaged to another and eventually offs himself. Might sound kinda pathetic, but the character and the writing make this little book a gem. If I had to compare it to anything I'd compare it to Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse. It is epistolary for the most part and a philosophical consideration of love and unrequited love, as well as nature, art and God. When Werther killed himself I felt like it was the right thing for him to do under the circumstances, or at least that I could understand why he did it. ( )

The Sorrows of Young Werther (published in 1774 when Goethe was 25) epitomized, for Schopenhauer (who was an admirer of Goethe) the essence of art, i.e. "that its one case applies to thousands". And such is true of this story of pain and anguish of unrequited passion and love that resonates as emotionally true, 230 years after it was published; not that this should this surprise anyone as the gamut of human relations and emotions change very little. (Napoleon is said to have read this novel nine times). Werther is finally driven to suicide which is, of course, pretty extreme, but short of that, Goethe does capture the anguish, the heartbreak, the obsession, the completely disconcerting, disorienting, overwhelming and uncontrolled flow of emotions that bedevil Werther and make his life hell. A tendency to obsessive behaviour, and an inability to control emotions and emotional entanglements is noted early in the novel, in other circumstances, and so it comes as no surprise when these surface in Werther's relationship with Lotte. In this, Werther's actions fly directly against the philosophy of the Stoics, such as Seneca, who argued:

"Reason allows us to determine when our wishes are in irrevocable conflict with reality, and then bids us to submit ourselves willingly, rather than angrily or bitterly, to necessities. We may be powerless to alter certain events, but we remain free to choose our attitude towards them, and it is in our spontaneous acceptance of necessity that we find our distinctive freedom."

Wise words, but unfortunately, for Werther, there was no such saving grace.