The Sorrow of Young Werther by Shen Wang

The Sorrows of Young Werther A Sentimental Story of Love And Suicide

The Suicide of Young Werther Why (not)?

JOHANN WOFGANG VON GOETHE German writer and statesman

The Suicide of Young Werther Why (not)?

JOHANN WOFGANG VON GOETHE German writer and statesman

Content

Introduction

Writing Background & Author

The Story Summary Love/Charlotte Jealousy/Albert Discussing Suicide Wertherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Last Words

Content

Introduction

Introduction How the most wonderful part of humanity results in the most horrible ending?

As one of the most famous fictions in the world, The Sorrows of Young Werther once had an enormous influence on people's perspective towards suicide. The hero of the fiction, Werther, commits suicide in a really young age, and the reason is so obvious that it is almost unbilievable: his love to the girl, Charlotte, is too deep, but he could never possess her because she is already engaged with another man named Albert. In other words, it is love that finally kill this lively, enthusiastic and emotional young boy, who hasn't even start the most colourful part of his life. So why does he end his life so early? In what way does love gradually lead his spirit, and then his body to death? Why this sweet love story can't have a satisfied ending? And how should we look at this kind of tragedy. These are the main questions that will be discussed in this publication.

Content

Introduction

Writing Background & Author

The Story Summary Love/Charlotte Jealousy/Albert Discussing Suicide Wertherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Last Words

Content

Introduction

Introduction How the most wonderful part of humanity results in the most horrible ending?

Introduction

Love

Dispair

Jealousy

Writing Background & Author

Charlotte The girl who takes Wether's heart. She represents Werther‘s desperate love and most wonderful experience.

Werther To Werther, the result of the two kinds of emotion mixed together is a great sense of dispair: the whole world seems to be traped in the thick darkness and he can't see his future without being together with Charlotte.

Albert Charlotte‘s fiance who suddenly appeared in the middle of the story. Because of him, it is impossible for Werther to be together with Charlotte. His existance brings Werther great catastrophe and makes him suffer from jealousy.

It all began with… The writing background and the author

Introduction

Love

Dispair

Jealousy

Writing Background & Author

Charlotte The girl who takes Wether's heart. She represents Werther‘s desperate love and most wonderful experience.

It all began with… The writing background and the author

Writing Background & Author

Behind

The story was conceived largely due to the meeting with the nineteen-year old Charlotte Buff at a village dance at Whitsuntide soon after his arrival in Wetzlar. He was soon ‘attracted and enslaved’ to use his own words. The problem was she was engaged to Johann Christian Kestner. The writing of this novel was therapeutic because he admitted years later that he ‘shot his hero to save himself’ a reference to his own near-suicidal obsession. Once only did Goethe forget his place and kiss her. “She told Kestner and punished the contrite poet with a few days’ coldness and a moral lecture.” Within a few weeks of that Goethe moved away. Kestner died unexpectedly in May 1800 after he and Charlotte had been married for twenty-seven years and produced a large family but it wasn’t until 1816 that Charlotte and Goethe finally met again in Weimar, an event later fictionalised by Thomas Mann in Lotte in Weimar, an encounter that can best described as being politely cool. All her life she had been associated with Lotte and her husband with Albert however she took clever advantage of her reputation, chiefly to secure protection and support for her sons’ careers.

the

story

Writing Background & Author

Goethe’s friend, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, committed suicide at Wetzlar in October 1772. Jerusalem had fallen in love with a married woman and fell into a deep depression because of this. Goethe wrote in his memoirs, My Life: Poetry and Truth:

there

Suddenly I heard of Jerusalem’s death and hot upon the general rumours, an exact and involved description of the entire incident. In that moment the plan of Werther was found, the whole thing was crystallised, like water in a glass that is on the point of freezing and can be turned to ice immediately with the slightest motion.

was an

Goethe said that he breathed into the words all the passion that results when there is no difference between fact and fiction. As I said Goethe himself seriously contemplated suicide but the writing of The Sorrows of Young Werther proved to be a creative act which he said left him “as after a general confession, again happy and free and justified for a new life.”

actual

suicide

Writing Background & Author

Behind

the

story

Writing Background & Author

there

was an

actual

suicide

Early Life Goethe has left a memorable picture of his childhood, spent in a large patrician house on the Grosse Hirschgraben in Frankfurt, in his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit. He and Cornelia were educated at home by private tutors. Books, pictures, and a marionette theater kindled the young1756 – smallpox Goethe's quick intellect and imagination. During the Seven Years War the French occupied Frankfurt. A French theatrical troupe established itself, and Goethe, through his grandfather's influence, was allowed free access to its performances. He much improved his knowledge of French by attending the performances and by his contact with the actors. Meantime, his literary proclivities had begun to manifest themselves in religious poems, a novel, and a1768 – tuberculosis prose epic. In October 1765 Goethe – then 16 years old – left Frankfurt for the University of Leipzig. He remained in Leipzig until 1768, pursuing his legal studies with zeal. During this period he also took lessons in drawing from A. F. Oeser, the director of the Leipzig Academy of Painting. Art always remained an abiding interest throughout Goethe's life. During his Leipzig years Goethe began writing light Anacreontic verses. Much of his poetry of these years was inspired by his passionate love for Anna Katharina Schönkopf, the daughter of a wine merchant in whose tavern he dined. She was the "Annette" for whom the collection of lyrics discovered in 1895 was named. The rupture of a blood vessel in one of his lungs put an end to Goethe's Leipzig years. From 1768 to the spring of 1770 Goethe lay ill, first in Leipzig and later at home. It was a period of serious introspection. The Anacreontic playfulness of verse and the rococo manner of his Leipzig period were soon swept away as Goethe grew in stature as a human being and as a poet. Study in Strasbourg Goethe's father was determined his son should continue his legal studies. Upon his recovery, therefore, Goethe was sent to Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace and a city that lay outside the German Empire. There his true Promethean self and his poetic genius were fully awakened. One of the most important events of Goethe's Strasbourg period was his meeting with Johann Gottfried von Herder. Herder taught Goethe the significance of Gothic architecture, as exemplified by the Strasbourg Minster, and he kindled Goethe's love of Homer, Pindar, Ossian, Shakespeare, and the Volkslied. Without neglecting his legal studies, Goethe also studied medicine. Perhaps the most important occurrence of this period was Goethe's love for Friederike Brion, the daughter of the pastor of the nearby village of Sesenheim. Later Goethe immortalized Friederike as Gretchen in Faust. She also inspired the Friederike Songs and many beautiful lyrics. Kleine Blumen, kleine Blätter and Wie herrlich leuchtet mir die Natur! heralded a new era in German lyric poetry. During this Strasbourg period Goethe also reshaped his Alsatian Heidenröslein. His

lyrical response to the Gothic architecture of Strasbourg Minster appeared in his essay Von deutscher Baukunst (1772). Goethe also probably planned his first important drama, Götz von Berlichingen, while in Strasbourg. In August 1771 Goethe obtained a licentiate in law, though not a doctor's degree. He returned to Frankfurt in September and remained there until early 1772. “Sturm und Drang” Period From spring to September 1772 Goethe spent 4 months in Wetzlar in order to gain experience in the legal profession at the supreme courts of the empire. However, Goethe found a more genial society in a local inn among the "Knights of the Round Table," calling himself "Götz von Berlichingen." Goethe's passionate love for Charlotte Buff – who was the daughter of the Wetzlar Amtmann (bailiff) and was engaged to Johann Christian Kestner, the secretary of legation and a member of the Round Table – created a crisis. Out of its agony – Goethe’s obsession with Charlotte led him almost to suicide – the poet created the world–famous novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774). A Rhine journey in the autumn of 1772 and intense preoccupation with his literary projects on his return to Frankfurt brought partial recovery to Goethe. Goethe remained in Frankfurt until the autumn of 1775, and these were years of fantastic productivity. Götz von Berlichingen was finished in 1773. This play established the Shakespearean type of drama on the German stage and inaugurated the Sturm und Drang movement. Another play – Clavigo – soon followed. A tragedy, Clavigo marked considerable advancement in Goethe's art. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers appeared in 1774. This novel, written in the epistolary style, brought Goethe international fame and spread "Werther fever" throughout Europe and even into Asia. A sentimental story of love and suicide, Werther utilized the private and social experiences of its author's months in Wetzlar, molding them into one of the most powerful introspective novels of all time. Its psychological impact upon Goethe's contemporaries and its influence on German literature can scarcely be exaggerated. Many unfinished fragments – some of them magnificent – also date from these years. Goethe worked on the dramas Caesar and Mahomet and the epic Der ewige Jude. A fragment of Prometheus, a tragedy, ranks among the poet's masterpieces. Perhaps the greatest work from these years was Goethe's first dramatization of the Faust legend. During these years Goethe's poetic genius found its own unique self. The masterpieces of this great Sturm und Drang period include Wanderers Sturmlied (1771); Mahomets Gesang (1772–1773); An Schwager Kronos (1774); Prometheus (1774), a symbol of the self–confident genius; and Ganymed (1774), the embodiment of man's abandonment to the mysteries of the universe. In 1775 Goethe fell in love with Lili Schönemann, the daughter of a Frankfurt banker. Goethe became formally betrothed to her, and Lili inspired many beautiful lyrics. However, the worldly society Lili thrived in was not congenial to the poet. A visit to

Switzerland in the summer of 1775 helped Goethe realize that this marriage might be unwise, and the engagement lapsed that autumn. Neue Liebe, Neues Leben and An Belinden (both 1775) are poetic expressions of Goethe's happiest hours with Lili, while Auf dem See, written on June 15, 1775, reflects his mood after he broke the spell that his love for Lili had cast upon him. Goethe also conceived another drama during these Frankfurt years and actually wrote a great part of it. However, he did not publish Egmont until 1788. Graf Egmont, its protagonist, is endowed with a demonic power over the sympathies of both men and women, and he represents the lighter side of Goethe's vision – a foil to Faust – and his more optimistic outlook. Career in Weimar On Oct. 12, 1775, the young prince of Weimar, Duke Karl August, arrived in Frankfurt and extended an invitation to Goethe to accompany him to Weimar. On November 7 Goethe arrived in the capital of the little 1777 – angina Saxon duchy that was to remain his home for the rest of his life. The young duke soon infection enlisted Goethe's services in the government of his duchy, and before long Goethe had been rheumatism entrusted with responsible state duties.

way of Munich, the Brenner Pass, and Lago di Garda to Verona and Venice. He arrived in Rome on Oct. 29, 1786, and soon established friendships in the circle of German artists. In the spring of 1787 Goethe traveled to Naples and Sicily, returning to Rome in June 1787. He departed for Weimar on April 2, 1788. It would be almost impossible to overstate the importance of Goethe's Italian journey. Goethe regarded it as the high point of his life, feeling it had helped him attain a deep understanding of his poetic genius and his mission as a poet. No longer in sympathy with Sturm und Drang even before his departure from Weimar, Goethe was initiated into neoclassicism by his vision of the antique in Italy. Goethe returned to Weimar not only with a new artistic vision but also with a freer attitude toward life. He recorded this journey in his Italienische Reise at the time of his trip, but he did not publish this volume until 1816–1817. Return to Weimar

As minister of state, Goethe interested himself in agriculture, horticulture, and mining, all fields of economic importance to the duchy's welfare. Eventually his many state offices in Weimar and his social and political commitments became a burden and a hindrance to his creative writing. Perhaps Goethe's most irksome responsibility was the office of president of the Treasury after 1782.

Goethe returned from Italy unsettled and restless. Shortly afterward, his ties with Frau von Stein having been weakened by his extended stay in Italy and by lighter pleasures he had known there, Goethe took the daughter of a town official into his house as his mistress. Christiane Vulpius, although she could offer no intellectual companionship, provided the comforts of a home. Gradually, she became indispensable as a helpmate, although she was ignored by Goethe's friends and unwelcome at court. Their son August was born in 1789, and Goethe married her in 1806, when the French invasion of Weimar endangered her position.

Goethe made his first long stay at Weimar from November 1775 until the summer of 1786. In 1782 Emperor Joseph II conferred a knighthood on him. During these 12 years Goethe's attachment for Charlotte von Stein, the wife of a Weimar official and the mother of seven children, dominated his emotional life. A woman of refined taste and culture, Frau von Stein was 7 years Goethe's senior and was perhaps the most intellectual of the poet's many loves.

Goethe had finished Egmont in Italy. Additional literary fruits of his trip were the Römische Elegien, which reflected Italy's pagan influences, written in 1788–1789; the iambic version of Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787); and a Renaissance drama, Torquato Tasso (1790). Goethe also planned an epic Nausikaa and a drama Iphigenie auf Delphos. Faust was brought an additional step forward, part of it being published in 1790 as Faust, Ein Fragment.

The literary output of the first Weimar period included a number of lyrics (Wanderers Nachtlied, An den Mond, and Gesang der Geister über den Wassern), ballads (Der Erlkönig), a short drama (Die Geschwister), a dramatic satire (Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit), and several Singspiele (Lila; Die Fischerin; Scherz; List und Rache; and Jery und Bätely). Goethe also planned a religious epic (Die Geheimnisse) and a tragedy (Elpenor). In 1777 Goethe began to write a theatrical novel, Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung. In 1779 the prose version of his drama Iphigenie auf Tauris was performed.

Meanwhile, two new interests engrossed Goethe and renewed his Weimar ties. In 1791 he was appointed director of the ducal theater, a position he held for 22 years; and he became increasingly absorbed in scientific pursuits. From his scientific studies in anatomy, botany, optics, meteorology, and mineralogy, he gradually reached a vision of the unity of the outward and inward worlds. Not only nature and art but also science were, in his view, governed by one organic force that rules all metamorphoses of appearances.

Under Frau von Stein's influence Goethe matured as an artist as well as a personality. His course toward artistic and human harmony and renunciation was mirrored in several poems written during this period: Harzreise im Winter (1777); Ein Gleiches (1780), Ilmenau (1783), and Zueignung (1784). Italian Journey In September 1786 Goethe set out from Karlsbad on his memorable and intensely longed–for journey to Italy. He traveled by

It is absolutely misleading, however, to suggest as some critics have that after his Italian journeys Goethe became a scientist and ceased to be a poet. In 1793 Goethe composed Reineke Fuchs, a profane "World Bible" in hexameters. He also took up his abandoned novel of the theater. His projected study of a young man's theatrical apprenticeship was transformed into an apprenticeship to life. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, varying between realism and poetic romanticism, became the archetypal Bildungsroman. Its influence on German literature was profound and enduring after its publication in 1795–1796.

Goethe's unique literary friendship with Friedrich von Schiller began in 1794. To it Goethe owed in great degree his renewed dedication to poetry. Goethe contributed to Schiller's new periodical Die Horen, composed Xenien with him in 1795–1796, received Schiller's encouragement to finish Wilhelm 1801 – facial erysipelas Meisters Lehrjahre, and undertook at his urging the studies that resulted in the epic Hermann und Dorothea and the fragment Achilleis. Schiller's urging also induced Goethe to return once more to Faust and to conclude the first part of it. Xenien, a collection of distichs, contains several masterpieces, and 1805 – renal colic Hermann und Dorothea (1797) ranks as one of the poet's most perfect creations. From Goethe's friendly rivalry with Schiller issued a number of ballad masterpieces: Der Zauberlehrling, Der Gott und die Bajadere, Die Braut von Korinth, Alexis und Dora, Der neue Pausias, and the cycle of four Müller–Lieder. Goethe's classicism brought him into eventual conflict with the developing romantic movement. To present his theories, he published, in conjunction with Heinrich Meyer, from 1798 to 1800 an art review entitled Die Propyläen. Goethe also defended his ideals of classical beauty in 1805 in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert. But the triumphant publication of the first part of Faust in 1808 defeated Goethe's own classical ideals. It was received as a landmark of romantic art. Last Years The last period of Goethe's life began with Schiller's death in 1805. In 1806 he published his magnificent tribute to Schiller Epilog zu Schillers Glocke. In 1807 Bettina von Arnim became the latest (but not the last)of Goethe's love, for the poet soon developed a more intense interest in Minna Herzlieb, the foster daughter of a Jena publisher. The publication of the first partof Faust in 1808 was followed by the issuance the next year of a novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, an intimate psychological study of four minds. The most classical and allegorical of Goethe's works, Pandora, was published in 1808. The scientific treatise Zur Farbenlehre appeared in 1810. In 1811 Goethe published the first volume of his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit. Volumes 2 and 3 followed in 1812 and 1814. The fourth, ending with Goethe’s departure from Frankfurt in 1775 for Weimar, appeared in 1833, after his death. Additional materials for a continuation of Dichtung und Wahrheit into the Weimar years were collected in Tag und Jahreshefte (1830). Increasingly aloof from national, political, 1823 – myocardial infarction and literary partisanship in his last period, Goethe became more and more an Olympian divinity to whose shrine at Weimar all Europe made pilgrimage. In 1819 Goethe published another masterpiece, this one a collection of lyrics inspired by his young friend Marianne von Willemer, who figures as Sulieka in the cycle. Suggested by his reading of the Persian poet Hafiz, the poems that constitute Westöstlicher Diwan struck another new note in German poetry with their introduction of Eastern elements. 1830 – hemoptysis Meanwhile, death was thinning the ranks of

Goethe's acquaintances: Wieland, the last of Goethe's great literary contemporaries, died in 1813; Christiane in 1816; Charlotte von Stein in 1827; Duke Karl August in 1828; and Goethe's son August died of scarlet fever in Rome in 1830. In 1822 still another passion for a beautiful young girl, Ulrike von Levetzow, inspired Goethe's Trilogie der Leidenschaft: An Werther, Marienbader Elegie, and Aussöhnung. The trilogy is a passionate and unique work of art written in 1823–1824, when Goethe was approaching the age of 75. Between 1821 and 1829 Goethe published the long–promised continuation of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre – Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, a loose series of episodes in novel form. His Novelle appeared in 1828. However, the crowning achievement of Goethe's literary career was the completion of the second part of Faust. This work had accompanied Goethe since his early 20s and constitutes a full "confession" of his life. The second part, not published until after Goethe's death, exhibited the poet's ripe 1832 – pulmonary wisdom and his philosophy of life. Inedema his Faust Goethe recast the old legend and made it into one of Western literature's greatest and noblest poetic creations. The salvation of Faust was Goethe's main departure from the original legend, and he handled it nobly in the impressively mystical closing scene of the second part. 1832 – DEATH Goethe died in Weimar on March 22, 1832. He was buried in the ducal crypt at Weimar beside Schiller.

From Birth To Death Love

Literature

Disease

A Lifelong Story about Geothe

From Birth To Death Love

Literature

Disease

A Lifelong Story about Geothe

Writing Background & Author

“If one examines it closely, the much talked of age of Werther, it is true, does not belong to the course of world culture, but rather to the life–process of every individual who, with a free and innate sense of nature, seeks to find himself and adapt to the restrictive forms of a world grown old.” “Thwarted happiness, hampered activity, ungratified desires — these are not the infirmities of a particular period, but those of every single human being, and it must be sad if each should not once have had a phase in his life when Werther affected him as if it were written only for him.”

— Johann Wofgang von Goethe

The Story is About… How to be killed by love step by step

The Story

Writing Background & Author

— Johann Wofgang von Goethe

The Story is About… How to be killed by love step by step

The Story

The Story/Summary

Werther, a young artist of a sensitive and passionate temperament, meets a beautiful young girl named Charlotte. Werther falls in love with her despite knowing that she is engaged to a man named Alber. Werther spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with them both. His pain eventually becomes so great that he is forced to leave. But then he suffers great embarrassment facing the normal weekly gathering of the entire aristocratic set. He returns, but suffers still more because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day becomes a torturing reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love. She, out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther must not visit her so frequently. On their last meeting, they are both overcome with emotion after he recites to her the Ossian. Werther has realized that one member of the love triangle had to die to resolve the situation. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter to be found after his death, he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols. Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not die until twelve hours later.

A murder without a muderer

The Story/Summary

A murder without a muderer

“She is to me a sacred being” “I shall see her today!” All passion is still in her presence: I cannot express my sensations when I am near her In her dark eyes I read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes

“Yes, I feel it” How my heart beats when by accident I touch her finger, or my feet meet hers under the table! I draw back as if from a furnace; but a secret force impels me forward again

You should see Charlotte dance. She dances with her whole heart and soul: her figure is all harmony, elegance, and grace, as if she were conscious of nothing else, and had no other thought or feeling; and, doubtless, for the moment, every other sensation is extinct

I exclaim with delight, when I rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun

“I shall see her today!” And then I have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought

“An angel! Nonsense!”

“And my senses become disordered” Suddenly I saw Charlotte’s bonnet leaning out of the window, and she turned to look back

“Was it at me?” My dear friend, I know not.

I am now completely settled there. In that spot I am only half a league from Charlotte

I have often determined not to see her so frequently. But who could keep such a resolution? I never felt happier, I never understood nature better, even down to the veriest stem or smallest blade of grass; and yet I am unable to express myself

I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect

Every day I am exposed to the temptation, and promise faithfully that to-morrow I will really stay away: but, when tomorrow comes, I find some irresistible reason for seeing her; and, before I can account for it

“I am with her again” When I have spent several hours in her company, till I feel completely absorbed by her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest

“And there I enjoy myself ”

and taste all the pleasure which can fall to the lot of man

“Yes, I feel it” How my heart beats when by accident I touch her finger, or my feet meet hers under the table! I draw back as if from a furnace; but a secret force impels me forward again

I exclaim with delight, when I rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun

“I shall see her today!” And then I have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought

“An angel! Nonsense!”

“And my senses become disordered” Suddenly I saw Charlotte’s bonnet leaning out of the window, and she turned to look back

“Was it at me?” My dear friend, I know not.

I am now completely settled there. In that spot I am only half a league from Charlotte

I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect

“And there I enjoy myself ”

and taste all the pleasure which can fall to the lot of man

The Story/Love

The Dangerous Sweetness What sort of creature must he be who merely liked Charlotte, whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by

The Story/Love

The Dangerous Sweetness What sort of creature must he be who merely liked Charlotte, whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by

The Story/Love

Werther is an egomaniac. Everything in his world–and it is literally “his” world–exists for him only in relation to its effect on him. Werther is incapable of empathizing with others. For all his pretentious discussion of Homer and Ossian and The Vicar of Wakefield with Charlotte, his affection for her has all the depth of the average teenage crush. She is the focal point of his life throughout most of the novel, yet we never even get a clear picture of who she really is, only florid descriptions of her as a sort of mystical, divine being. None of the deep, abiding human connection which characterizes true love is to be found here. Like everyone else, Charlotte exists for Werther only in relation to himself and for his pleasure. Werther’s “love” for Charlotte is much more intense but just as shallow as his affection for the village children. If he is in love with anything, it is with the idea of romantic love itself. Poetry and moonlit walks are wonderful, but a deep relationship requires much more and Werther is completely unable to make that leap.

Juvenile Idealistic The Impulsive Love One–side Radical

The Story/Love

Meets Charlotte

Albert arrives

The Story/Love

Juvenile Idealistic The Impulsive Love One–side Radical

The Story/Love

Meets Charlotte

Albert arrives

The Story/Jealousy

When she speaks of her betrothed with so much warmth and affection, I feel like the soldier who has been stripped of his honours and titles, and deprived of his sword

The Story/Jealousy

A Friend And Enemy The presence of Albert is totally unpredicatable to Werther. With countless good manners, this extremely charming young man, the fiancé of his beloved, truly desirve what he has possessed. There is no chance for Werther to take it away. The more he loves Charlotte, the more he suffers from this relationship, not mentioning that Albert treats him as one of his best friends. In this case, Werther’s feeling about Albert is quite complex: he can’t hate him, but he also can’t ignore him.

The Story/Jealousy

When she speaks of her betrothed with so much warmth and affection, I feel like the soldier who has been stripped of his honours and titles, and deprived of his sword

The Story/Jealousy

The Story/jealousy

“Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the best and noblest of men, and I in every respect his inferior, I could not endure to see him in “I often envy Albert when possession I see him buried in a heap of such a of papers and parchments, perfect and I fancy I should be being.” happy were I in “I cannot help esteeming his place.” Albert. The coolness of his temper contrasts strongly with the impetuosity of mine, which I cannot conceal. He has a great deal of feeling, and is fully sensible of the treasure he possesses in Charlotte. He is free from ill-humour, which you “When I return to Charlotte, know is the fault and find Albert sitting by I detest her side in the summerhouse in the garden, I am most.” unable to bear it, behave like a fool, and commit a thousand extravagances.”

“Is Albert with you? and what is he to you?”

The Story/jealousy

Enough! There are moments, Wilhelm, when I could rise up and shake it all off, and when, if I only knew where to go, I could fly from this place Nothing in the world can be more absurd than our connection, and yet the thought of it often moves me to tears The source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our

misery?

The Story/jealousy

“Is Albert with you? and what is he to you?”

The Story/jealousy

misery?

The Story/Discussing Suicide

I cannot comprehend how a man can be so mad as to shoot himself, and the bare idea of it shocks me. Why should any one, in speaking of an action, venture to pronounce it mad or wise, or good or bad? some actions are criminal, let them spring from whatever motives they may.â&#x20AC;? All extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane.

Between

It is impossible to regard suicide as anything but a weakness. It is much easier to die than to bear a life of misery with fortitude.

Werther And

The question, therefore, is not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings.

A Discussion about Suicide

Albert

Human nature has its limits. It is able to endure a certain degree of joy, sorrow, and pain, but becomes annihilated as soon as this measure is exceeded.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man is but man; They are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature.

On the occasion of borrowing Albert's hunting pistols, they argue about suicide, with Werther contending that suicide can be an act of absolute freedom and Albert arguing that no one capable of a larger view of life can be excused for committing suicide.

The Story/Discussing Suicide

Between

It is impossible to regard suicide as anything but a weakness. It is much easier to die than to bear a life of misery with fortitude.

Werther And

The question, therefore, is not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings.

A Discussion about Suicide

Albert

Human nature has its limits. It is able to endure a certain degree of joy, sorrow, and pain, but becomes annihilated as soon as this measure is exceeded.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man is but man; They are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature.

The Story/Discussing Suicide

Is suicide (a) right Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not about right and wrong, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about wether we can make the choice Werther's inability to acknowledge his inherent contradictions lie at the root of his discontent. Werther describes suicide as an example of an act in which reason has failed to satisfy the self, and passion must therefore take over. In his debate with Albert, Werther is speaking on a very personal level. He is quite comfortable with his suicidal tendencies. In speaking in defense of suicide he is not upholding an abstract cause, but is rather defending himself. Werther's right to suicide is, in many ways, the basis of his own being. He reserves the right to end his own life if he should ever need to. In this opinion, Werther states that the ability to free oneself from the miseries of existence is what separates man from animal.

The Last Words He reaches his limit, and simply leaves. That maybe the most unselfish solution

The Story/Last Words

The Story/Discussing Suicide

The Last Words He reaches his limit, and simply leaves. That maybe the most unselfish solution

The Story/Last Words

“See, Charlotte, I do not shudder to take the cold and fatal cup, from which I shall drink the draught of death. Your hand presents it to me, and I do not tremble. All, all is now concluded: the wishes and the hopes of my existence are fulfilled. With cold, unflinching hand I knock at the brazen portals of Death. Oh, that I had enjoyed the bliss of dying for “Past eleven o'clock! All is silent you! how gladly would I have sacrificed around me, and my soul is calm…I myself for you; Charlotte! And could I but have looked for the last time upon restore peace and joy to your bosom, the constellation of the Greater with what resolution, with what joy, would I not Bear: it is my favourite star; meet my fate! But it is the lot of only a chosen for when I bade you farewell at night, few to shed their blood for their friends, and by Charlotte, and turned my steps from their death to augment, a thousand times, your door, it always shone upon me… the happiness of those by But what object is there, whom they are beloved.” Charlotte, which fails to summon “I wish, Charlotte, to be buried in up your image before me? Do you the dress I wear at present: not surround me on all sides?… it has been rendered sacred by your touch. Your profile, which was so dear to I have begged this favour of your father. me, I return to you; and I pray you My spirit soars above my sepulchre. I do to preserve it. Thousands of kisses have I not wish my pockets to be searched. imprinted upon it, and The knot of pink ribbon which you wore a thousand times has on your bosom the first time I saw you, it gladdened my heart surrounded by the children -- Oh, kiss them a on departing from and thousand times for me, and tell them the fate returning to my home.” of their unhappy friend! I think I see them playing around me. The dear children! “…At the corner of the churchyard, How warmly have I been attached to you, looking toward the fields, Charlotte! Since the first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This there are two limetrees–there I ribbon must be buried with me: it was a wish to lie…But perhaps pious present from you on my birthday. Christians will not choose that their bodies chould be buried near How confused it all appears! the corpse aofpoor, unhappy wretch like me. Little did I then think that I should journey this road. Then let me be laid in some remote But peace! I pray you, peace! valley, or near the highway, where the priest and Levite may bless themselves as they pass by my tomb, whilst the Samaritan will “They are loaded -- the clock strikes twelve. shed a tear for my fate.” I say amen. Charlotte, Charlotte! farewell, farewell!”

The Story/Last Words

This tragedy results from the worship of rebelion and revolutionary,

The ethical problems of Werther are all enacted under the sign of this rebellion,a rebellion in which the internal contradictions of revolutionary bourgeois humanism manifest themselves for the first time in world literature in a great poetic creation. “With marvellous art Goethe presented by means of a few strokes in one or two short scenes, the tragic fate of the infatuated young servant whose murder of his beloved and his rival forms the tragic counterpart to Werther’s suicide. In his later description of the Werther days, the old Goethe still recognized as rebellious and revolutionary the claim of the moral right to suicide. Werther himself has a justification for the defence of this right which sounds even more revolutionary.

and the inner contradiction of bourgeois marriage,

It is through this apparent diversion that the book ends in catastrophe. As regards this catastrophe itself, we must bear in mind that Charllote also loved Werther and that she became conscious of this love through the explosion of his passion. But this is exactly what brings about the catastrophe. Lotte is a bourgeois woman who instinctively holds on to her marriage with a capable and respected man and draws back in alarm from her own feelings. Thus the tragedy of Werther is not only the tragedy of unhappy love, but the perfect expression of the inner contradiction of bourgeois marriage: based on individual love, with which it emerged historically, bourgeois marriage, by virtue of its socioeconomic character, stands in insoluble contradiction to individual love. Werther’s conflict, Werther’s tragedy is the tragedy of bourgeois humanism and shows the insoluble conflict between the free and full development of personality. Naturally this tragedy appears in its German, pre-revolutionary, semi-feudal, politically fragmented, absolutistic form. But even in this conflict the outlines are very clearly visible of those conflicts which subsequently emerged more distinctly. And ultimately these are the ones that actually destroy Werther. To be sure, Goethe only formulated the dimly visible outlines of the great tragedy which manifested itself later. This enabled him to concentrate his theme into so strict a framework and limit himself thematically to the representation of a small world, almost idyllic and closed, à la Goldsmith and Fielding. But the formation of this externally narrow and closed world is already impregnated with that dramatic quality which, after Balzac’s achievements, constituted the essentially new element of the nineteenth century novel.

which are both related to the ethical discussion of humanity

What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?

The Story/Last Words

This tragedy results from the worship of rebelion and revolutionary,

and the inner contradiction of bourgeois marriage,

which are both related to the ethical discussion of humanity

What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?

Reference

Reference Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | German author. [online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/biography/JohannWolfgang-von-Goethe [Accessed 8 Mar. 2016]. Goethe, J. (1989). The sorrows of young Werther. London, England: Penguin. Lukacs, G. (2016). The Sorrows of Young Werther by Georg Lukacs 1936. [online] Marxists.org. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/ lukacs/works/1936/young-werther.htm [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016]. Maher.filfre.net. (2016). The Sorrows of Young Werther: A Study in Adolescence. [online] Available at: http://maher.filfre.net/writings/werther. htm [Accessed 8 Mar. 2016]. Wikipedia. (2016). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016]. Wikipedia. (2016). The Sorrows of Young Werther. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther [Accessed 6 Mar. 2016]. â&#x20AC;˘ All relative content is from the websites above

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Reference

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JOHANN WOFGANG VON GOETHE German writer and statesman