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Summary
(From the publisher):
One of the world's first best-sellers, this tragic masterpiece attained an instant and lasting success upon its 1774 publication. A sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist, the tale addresses age-old questions—the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemption—in the form of Werther's alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. Goethe's portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers and continues to speak to modern readers.
Original title: Die Leiden des jungen Werther
Alternative titles: The Sufferings of Young Werther
Original languages:
German
Quotes:
Genre: Fiction→ General Fiction→ Youth (rebellion, Angst, Coming Of Age)
Fiction→ General Fiction→ Literary Fiction/classics→ Epistolary Novel
This work is a subwork of the following works :
Great German Short Novels and Stories (1933) [Anthology]
Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, Gerhart Hauptmann
, Thomas Mann
, Heinrich Heine
, E. T. A. Hoffmann
, Gottfried Keller
, Friedrich von Schiller
, Theodor Storm
, Wilhelm Carl Grimm
, Jacob Grimm
, Stefan Zweig
, Arthur Schnitzler
, Hermann Sudermann
, Jakob Wassermann
, Arnold Zweig
Great German Short Novels and Stories (1952) [Anthology]
Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, Franz Kafka
, Gerhart Hauptmann
, Thomas Mann
, Rainer Maria Rilke
, Heinrich Heine
, E. T. A. Hoffmann
, Gottfried Keller
, Friedrich von Schiller
, Heinrich Mann
, Theodor Storm
, Clemens Brentano
, Heinrich von Kleist
, Arthur Schnitzler
, Frank Wedekind
, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Notes:
- After its publication the book became quite popular, and many young men went out, dressed in blue and yellow like the hero of the novel, and killed themselves. (This in spite of the fact that, as the careful reader will notice, Goethe actually condemns Werther for his selfish decision.) The term "Werther Effect" was coined to describe this kind of imitative suicide.
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