The sorrows of young Werther

It's an angsty shitfest that took Europe by storm. It was the YA fiction of its day. Later in his life Goethe deeply regretted writing it.

>>9610035
I feel like your missing something by focusing only on the tragedy.
>>9610053
It's misleading to say he regretted writing he. He disliked the fame it brought him. He also disliked how the book revealed his own feelings toward Charlotte Buff, his friends wife.

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>>9610035

>>9610053

true its like catcher in the rye. but the best part of re-reading is going back to books like this
>>9610092
you sir deserve more credit in life than this shitty board

I thought it was complete garbage whose flowery writing made me feel sick. That may be because I read a very literal translation, I'll definitely have to find a better one or improve my terrible German before I try to reread it. Still, its importance is an objective fact, and people like >>9610053 are idiots.

I liked it quite a lot. It has a lot of dramatic irony/foreshadowing, not sure what to call it. The possibility that Werther did to the girl mentioned in the first letter what Charlotte did to him, and the idea that he would end up like either of the other love-sick men in the book if he couldn't find another alternative(which he did), made it really interesting. Also, the possibility that his view of the world is so entirely controlled by his emotions that it isn't all that reliable. I'm excited to reread it actually, there's probably a lot more that I missed.

>>9610332
>flowery writing made me feel sick
OP here. I am German and believe me the original version has the same problem

>>9610092
>It's misleading to say he regretted writing he. He disliked the fame it brought him.
Didn't know that, thanks

>>9610436
>Also, the possibility that his view of the world is so entirely controlled by his emotions that it isn't all that reliable
that's an interesting interpretation. I personally didn't like the revelation that the mad guy picking the flowers was in love with Lotte, since it felt tacked on to me. I get what it wanted to say, but that part wasn't that well executed in my opinion.

>>9610465
>I personally didn't like the revelation that the mad guy picking the flowers was in love with Lotte
I agree, it was a bit too much in your face.
Would you say the language is difficult? I'd love to read it in german but I'm still at a pretty low level.

>>9610035
it's my diary, desu

>>9610190
this

i'll take a stab at "the point" that you missed, OP, at least re: the substance of the tragedy

Werther stokes his passion (and allows his passion to be stoked) for an unavailable woman far beyond what he should have ever allowed. It goes on long enough that she takes on a monstrously, sacrilegiously large presence in his consciousness - there are a number of moments where he describes her and his feelings about her in religious language. the tragedy, other than his unfulfilled love obviously being great and in a certain respect superior to that of Lotte's husband, is that Werther was doomed by his acute phenomenal receptivity, his tendency towards experiencing stimuli with excessive intensity. For Werther, Lotte turns into an idol or an archetype, an idealized icon that takes over all other meaning in his life - he doesn't exist for any reason except to intoxicate himself with her presence. It's unhealthy and extreme.

But this kind of intense romantic attachment is something that just happens to people - even though Wether should not have followed her around for so long like a sick puppy, on some level it wasn't his fault. its all part of nature's game.

when you read Faust part II (which is better than I, btw) you'll get a better idea of what Goethe was doing with Werther

>>9610092
he was also miffed that people didn't get it. You aren't supposed to identify with Werther and start acting like him, but that's what a lot of people did, to the point of emulating his suicide

I mean shit, what if you wrote a book that became famous, and a bunch of 20 year old kids committed suicide because of their mistaken interpretations of your book? that's about as heavy as it gets for 'literary celebrity gone wrong'

It was just satire bro

>>9610053
>>9610035
>>9610332
>>9610465
It's not that hard, bros. Werther threw away his life because of "love." Have none of you ever felt like you wanted a girl so bad, maybe in your younger years or when you were a virgin? "Oh, I'm in love! Oooooh here have some flowers babe every day and some kisses too because I love you so much babe I wanna hug you honey and never let go because you're all I need in this world and that's a fact baby because you're the one for me and I don't need anything else and I KNOW it."

Yeah. Werther is that guy and it is obvious.

>>9610531
This.

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I've read this book when I was in highschool for a philosophy class, and back then I had this interpretation of the suicide:

It didn't happen, not in a literal way. The death was actually a metaphor for Werther "killing" his lyrical and sensitive side and, from there on, he started being normal, not seeing beauty in nature, not being so passionate for the girl, working in a mind numbing daily job, etc.

My professor said this interpretation was shit. With nicer words, of course, being a high school teacher, but basically shit.

Was my reading of this book actually shit, even for a 16yo? Or was the my high school me on to something?

>>9610713
It sounds like shit, mainly because there's no good proof for it in the text. I remember him reading Ossian (one of the books that founded romanticism) to Lotte and witnessing the catastrophic storm destroying the nature, reflecting his internal emotional state. How could he then just abruptly switch to a "normal" life? I see no logic here whatsoever.
You tried, at least.

>>9610531
underrated post

better than anything that the bitch kantbot ever wrote

>>9610713

you were right that Goethe didn't kill himself but it didn't stop the senance of people who put some much value in a book that they would kill themselves. But people kill themselves over dumb shit all the time so he really was just making an observation that maybe didn't get the attention it should until the romantics came along.

>>9610035
It is very funny in an embarrassing and somewhat cute way, it is also very small in soul and provincial.