The Sorrows of Young Werther

The story of a young man driven to suicide by an unhappy love affair, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) is the first great tragic novel of European literature.

Based partly on Goethe's unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and partly on the tragedy of Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who killed himself out of love for a married woman, the gained a reputation as the first great achievement of what a later age was to call 'confessional' literature, and Goethe himself spoke of a sense of freedom and deliverance on completing his novel.

The success of Werther was rapid and immense, and a cult quickly grew up around it. Parodies, operas, poems and plays based on the story appeared; in some areas it was seen as scandalous and banned because it seemed to 'recommend' suicide. Today, however, we can isolate the novel from the original events and see Goethe's artistry on its own terms. It is, as Michael Hulse says in his Introduction, a work of exhilarating style and insight. Its sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist at odds with society and ill-equipped to cope with life lends it the status of a tragic masterpiece.

Literatura Estrangeira