Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) The Sorrows of Young Werther

Werther is written in Epistolary form: adj. Of or associated with letters or the writing of letters. Being in the form of a letter: epistolary exchanges. Carried on by or composed of letters: an epistolary friendship. [From Latin epistolāris, from epistola, epistle]

Werther reflects the Proto-Romantic cult of the genius: the individual genius has a quality of greatness, is a product of passion and possessed of mad creativity.

Originally the term defined a 'guiding spirit' of a person or place. By the late 1700's the word had almost entirely transformed to being a characteristic of an individual and Wolfgang Von Goethe is perhaps history’s finest example of evangelizing the word in its new context. To Goethe genius was very specifically a quality, and a quality of greatness, a product of passion and mad creativity. He articulates this a number of times in The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).

Empfindsamkeit used to denote the strain of sentiment in German literature of the middle and second half of the 18th c. Traces of the cult of emotion, friendship, and love are also perceptible even in earlier years. It runs parallel with the rationalism which is the most obvious feature of the Aufklärung and seems at first sight to be in opposition to it.Aufklärung

Sturm und Drang n. Turmoil; ferment: "A book's historical roots represent another barrier; so does the personal Sturm und Drang of the author" (Robert Kanigel). A late-18th-century German romantic literary movement whose works typically depicted the struggles of a highly emotional individual against conventional society. [German, storm and stress, after Sturm und Drang, a drama by Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger ( ).]

Themes in Werther: We see the troubled artistic genius. By right of his gift of genius, it is implied that he is exempt from the normal boundaries of society. Alongside the cult of genius, we see a fascination with the gifted outsider.

Primacy of the Individual Werther reflects the growing Romantic notion of the primacy of the individual over the group. Individual, personal experience is seen as more worthwhile than mere objective experience. (The subjective is more important than the objective).

Feelings, nothing more than feelings! Hand in hand with subjectivity, feeling is considered superior to rationality; emotion more than sense.

Pathetic Fallacy Werther is so tuned in to nature that he believes the weather sympathetically reflects his own mood: Storm and stress are the perfect metaphors of emotion.

So, what is the pathetic fallacy? pathetic fallacy n. The attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature; for example, angry clouds; a cruel wind.

Idealization of Childhood Werther shows the virtues of the simple life, with simple people, and the prevalence of children in the novel suggests that childhood is an ideal. As the child enters society, we see the corrupting effect society has on the essentially good nature of the child. Werther rails against the corruption of “official” society.

Werther himself reflects the cult of sensibility, and is the classic “man of feeling.”

In his Encyclopedie, for example, Denis Diderot defines sensibility thus: [Sensibilite is that] tender and delicate disposition of the soul which renders it easy to be moved and touched.... It gives one a kind of wisdom concerning matters of virtue and is far more penetrating than the intellect alone.

Lively, delicate, unappreciated, unsophisticated, well-meaning, humane, and generous, people of sensibility here are directly distinguished from the "man of probity" and "men of the world" (that is, from reason and prudence) and instead ally themselves with the specifically feminine.