The Sorrows of Young Werther

To be honest I cried when I read parts of this as well.This was an enlightening book about language, psychology, writing, history, depression and love and suicide. The reason it happened was because Werther couldn't let go of Lotte; he couldn't let go of his mindset; but it's most challenging because you cannot put your finger on it, the characters are complex. It's a wonderfully written book, all the way through. The characters, especially Lotte of course, were very beautiful. It is a paradigm-shift to see things in such bright colours and also dull. I think it is a life-benefit, or whatever you say, to anyone who reads it and it is as must read as Dostoyevsky.

When Werther talks about experiencing one moment as fully as he does, this is like the Buddhist emphasis on the here-and-now. Alan Watts also describes it well, and until reading those two, I knew a lot less about it. It helps to understanding of ourselves and nature around us and our place in it. To see the beauty and to immerse oneself in a single moment and make it super-large is to dip oneself in reality because in reality we are insignificant to nature. We are surrounded by the future ahead of us, and the past behind, and our place is with infinite possibility before, and infinite behind. This can be scary because it makes us utterly insignificant. It is mind boggling, because we are nothing compared to the infinite. It also gives us a power, though, to change our situation, because we have total control over it.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is enlightening about suicide, though, which is a dark topic. It can be upsetting, a friend of mine didn't want to read past page 33 or so.

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

I have finally managed to read "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is simply devastating! Anyone with an artistic temperament and with the ability to feel deeply will surely will agree with this.

Was suicide of Werther a noble act - and act that says - My life has no meaning without love or is it an act of a unbalanced human being? Was his death a vain glorious act, an act of a selfish individual? or his act was an act of courage?

What say you?

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Oh, I forgot, I wanted to say something about this. I guess it is only very rarely that death is better than life. I mean you should think about your problems and analyze things, but you must be careful not to...to take your life. In this case and almost every we can say that it was better to live. It is a very sensitive subject. There is hardly one more. But I wouldn't call it selfish, it just isn't selfish to me. Courage- most would say it takes more courage, for instance to live with whatever. Anyway, I think the problem of suicide is more the problem of life, that it does this to some people. And intricately tied to the problem of suicide is the beautifulness of life.

It is devastating but I also thought it was very beautiful. I've probably said too much about it anyways, lol. I actually don't want to read it again for a long time, there's just so much else I'd like to be doing/reading.

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

To be honest I cried when I read parts of this as well.This was an enlightening book about language, psychology, writing, history, depression and love and suicide. The reason it happened was because Werther couldn't let go of Lotte; he couldn't let go of his mindset; but it's most challenging because you cannot put your finger on it, the characters are complex. It's a wonderfully written book, all the way through. The characters, especially Lotte of course, were very beautiful. It is a paradigm-shift to see things in such bright colours and also dull. I think it is a life-benefit, or whatever you say, to anyone who reads it and it is as must read as Dostoyevsky.

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The writings are indeed excelllent. And the story is simple and yet devastating.

The truth is Werther was happy before he met Lotte - he finds joy in nature and his simple existence. So what went wrong? Can a human being hurt someone so much by just living?

Similiar point is made by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami in his book "south of the border, west of the sun" where the protagnist very existence is the cause of the suffering of another.

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When Werther talks about experiencing one moment as fully as he does, this is like the Buddhist emphasis on the here-and-now. Alan Watts also describes it well, and until reading those two, I knew a lot less about it. It helps to understanding of ourselves and nature around us and our place in it.

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Because we have these kinds of intense experiences. And those that have an artistic bent - they experience it more.

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The Sorrows of Young Werther is enlightening about suicide, though, which is a dark topic.

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Yes. But does Werther death has any meaning?

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

It is devastating but I also thought it was very beautiful. I've probably said too much about it anyways, lol.

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Yes. It is beautiful. But terribly sad too.

Did you get the feeling that his death was perhaps kind of heroic?

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Originally Posted by Lote-Tree

The writings are indeed excelllent. And the story is simple and yet devastating.

The truth is Werther was happy before he met Lotte - he finds joy in nature and his simple existence. So what went wrong? Can a human being hurt someone so much by just living?

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Yes, my own opinion is that he should have tried harder to stay happy with the way things were. He should have had enough character to live a happy life as friends with Lotte; I admire Werther's intelligence and strength, but he apparently was not able to see the world a world he could live in- could not close his mind to what he thought had to be, or opened it to a way that it could be. I mean he did so much, it is sad he was not able to do this.

I think for Werther's amount of suffering it is dependent on his own actions in the relationship. However, I think the situation he was placed in, with a woman as lovely as Lotte, would make a significant change to anyone who was in it, as evinced by the person who lost his mind over Lotte. Werther also sort of lost his mind, and his life.

Edit: I think Werther did himself all the harm, for being jealous at Albert, and too obsessive of Lotte. I mean I think possession of possessions is a wrong attitude, so of course possession of a person is. I think it is our own thoughts and actions that give us cause for guilt and things like that. So, as the Buddha says, if we transform our minds...etc.

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Yes. It is beautiful. But terribly sad too.

Did you get the feeling that his death was perhaps kind of heroic?

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I think it was at least a little heroic although misguided. We are impressed by his appreciation for beauty and deep feeling- it is tragic what happened to Werther- but his ability to feel is a good thing, and we all need to be able to feel. Some us should feel more, some of us perhaps show fake feelings, and it is much better to be genuine.

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Because we have these kinds of intense experiences. And those that have an artistic bent - they experience it more.

Yes. But does Werther death has any meaning?

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I don't know. It seems inadequate to say what the meaning is; for me it raises philosophical considerations, and is interesting for the path leading up to it, and Werther's thoughts, all of that seems original; but if you could explain what you mean by meaning, it would help.

Does it have any benefit? I think yes, and I realize might be a minority opinion. At least, I think it is possible that good would come of it. I don't know if that is the most likely outcome. It could either be good or bad for Lotte's and Albert and the children and everyone's psyches, and it is certainly easier to explain how it is bad. It can only be good if the grief does not overcome them, if it makes them better able to cope with life, and helps them in that kind of a way. They say that there is healthiness in depression, but it is too unpopular to go further than that. More than anything I think it's better to live, since Werther is such a good person, and I think you can always do infinitely more alive than dead, for instance for Lotte and her siblings.

As a good friend of mine told me once as advice, it's very important to have balance. He actually told me that just before I read Werther, so the two combined improved our friendship considerably...

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

Yes, my own opinion is that he should have tried harder to stay happy with the way things were.

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But once experienced the happiness of this one amazing thing that is Lotte - how does one live bereft of meaning? How does one endure the pain of it all? If one was suffering from a painfull illness - doctors prescribe pain killers. what is the pain killer of love, what is the pain killer of living a life bereft of meaning? You could say that many people live a meaningless life and they can endure this meaninglessness quite well. But perhaps they live in view to finding some meaning whereas Werther found his meaning but can't live without it.

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He should have had enough character to live a happy life as friends with Lotte;

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Yes, perhaps, and that would have been a challenge in itself. But it would still be a meaningless challenge?

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I admire Werther's intelligence and strength, but he apparently was not able to see the world a world he could live in

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Yes. The world without Lotte is barreness, emptiness and pain and Werther was not able to endure this. But who would want to endure this?

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I think for Werther's amount of suffering it is dependent on his own actions in the relationship.

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Perhaps. But how do you stop yourself from feeling?

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However, I think the situation he was placed in, with a woman as lovely as Lotte, would make a significant change to anyone who was in it, as evinced by the person who lost his mind over Lotte. Werther also sort of lost his mind, and his life.

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Lotte is indeed amazing women. Her compassion alone is worthy of admiration. She is a provider of joy to people just by being herself. Losing your mind over something like this? Irrational indeed!

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Edit: I think Werther did himself all the harm, for being jealous at Albert, and too obsessive of Lotte. I mean I think possession of possessions is a wrong attitude, so of course possession of a person is.

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Jealousy and obsessions are normal human trait. But his jealousy and obsessions did not go out to harm anyone on purpose.

Good tortured by itself can become evil?

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I think it is our own thoughts and actions that give us cause for guilt and things like that. So, as the Buddha says, if we transform our minds...etc.

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Buddha also taught Love and Compassion is the key to enlightenment. But Buddha taught about unconditional love.

Was Werther's love unconditional?

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I think it was at least a little heroic although misguided. We are impressed by his appreciation for beauty and deep feeling- it is tragic what happened to Werther- but his ability to feel is a good thing, and we all need to be able to feel. Some us should feel more, some of us perhaps show fake feelings, and it is much better to be genuine.

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Yes. This quality to feel perhaps makes Werther worthy of admiration. But perhaps this very feeling leads him inevitably to his death. And we can do no more than to accept his death as it was.

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I don't know. It seems inadequate to say what the meaning is; for me it raises philosophical considerations, and is interesting for the path leading up to it, and Werther's thoughts, all of that seems original; but if you could explain what you mean by meaning, it would help.

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Yes. Perhaps the word "meaning" has too much a philosophical considerations. But simply put what did Werther achieve by his death?

End to his pain for sure. Is that in anyway something meaningful?

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Does it have any benefit? I think yes, and I realize might be a minority opinion. At least, I think it is possible that good would come of it.

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Only "good" perhaps is end to his pain.

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I don't know if that is the most likely outcome. It could either be good or bad for Lotte's and Albert and the children and everyone's psyches, and it is certainly easier to explain how it is bad.

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Yes. They would be affected by it for sure. So in this context Werther's actions is very selfish.

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As a good friend of mine told me once as advice, it's very important to have balance.

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Balance is important. The middle way. Neither too extreme at either end. But how would we know the extremes if we only walked the middle path? ;-)

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He actually told me that just before I read Werther, so the two combined improved our friendship considerably...

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Bueno! :-)

The approaching adopted on this milestone piece of literature is somehow transcendental and metaphysical if observed by the 'what-is-this-life-for' point of view. It is an idiosyncratic view by Goethe's on interrelation of life, love and the self-destructive inbred human behaviour. Even though I might agree in some aspects of the suicidal mindset - yes, I'm misanthropic - it is definitely not the way out of our never resting and neverending human emotional abyss.
I lament the outcome and the transubstantiation of the book into the film form. Even though it's starred by Bruno Ganz, films tend to somewhat entirely adulterate their original successful and sacred essence of the plot they're based on, so it totally debunks any vis-à-vis arguments that any fans or readers might establish afterwards.
I might add that this is my all time favourite book, it is one of the greatest books of my youth along with 'Siddartha' from Hermann Hesse and 'The Little Prince' from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
The curious fact concerning this work is that it was appreciated by Napoleon Bonaparte being him a Goethe's close friend. Bonaparte always praised 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' even taking such book along with him in his military campaigns.

I feel like people read The Sorrows of Young Werther as too much of a love story. Yes, it is about love but at the same time there are so many other ideas explored in the novel. I personally see the book as referring to social expectations and the few dreamers who reject social norms. Werther dislikes the idea of getting an average job and refuses to accept what is expected of him by society. This is why I loved the book. It seems like Werther's love for Lotte and his failure to have her symbolically represents the way that he would like to live and his inability to do so because of established social constructs.

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Originally Posted by aw87

I feel like people read The Sorrows of Young Werther as too much of a love story. Yes, it is about love but at the same time there are so many other ideas explored in the novel. I personally see the book as referring to social expectations and the few dreamers who reject social norms. Werther dislikes the idea of getting an average job and refuses to accept what is expected of him by society. This is why I loved the book. It seems like Werther's love for Lotte and his failure to have her symbolically represents the way that he would like to live and his inability to do so because of established social constructs.

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Partially agreed.
I strongly agree that Werther placed high expectations upon himself, and felt others had high expectations of him; it ended up as overwhelming to him from what we call, in the medical field, 'role strain.'
Love seems one of the easiest things to obsess about, especially for such a passionate individual as Werther; he desired the fruitful essences of life, and would settle for nothing besides the best. We cannot mistake this for greed, as he seemed very giving, sometimes overly so, to Lotte, but that made his situation worse, having sacrificed time and effort into something unattainable, so much that he sacrificed himself, his self-preservation seeming contained within love, obsession, and success.

I just finished the Gutenberg HTML version of Werther, and even though I am willing to make allowances for the fact that the late 18th century was still pre-industrial and labor intensive, Goethe makes a valiant case for anti-depressants with this epistolary form. It is too over wrought and operatic to be contained in the prose form it was written, whether or not it ushered in the Romantic Movement, and remains somewhat baffling even without modern psychology to assist us. Albert and Charlotte knew Werther talked about suicide, and still gave him the pistols. This doesn’t make any sense.

It might have been better if Goethe had had the insight to use the unrequited love as a metaphor within a comedy of manners, which the novel hints at turning into, but for me this is a piss poor excuse for a literary classic.

Ah JoZ... you didn't get it at all, did you? But then again... its not for you. Goethe admitted as much himself, acknowledging that "it must be bad" after all at some point almost every educated young (that being the key word) man (or woman) of the time thought the book was written expressly for them. Goethe spoke or wrote on more than one occasion... especially later in his career... of his absolute befuddlement at the response wrought by the Sorrows of Young Werther... including an endless array of young men taking to wearing of Werther's dress and making the obligatory pilgrimage to Weimar. There were even reports of copy-cat suicides. But as I noted, Goethe would repudiate much of this... declaring that while the work was undoubtedly autobiographical in nature... there was a great degree of distance between the writer and the creation. He even went on to suggest, as have other critics, that the work on one level was something of a satire... a pastiche of the over-the-top, "operatic" Sturm-und-Drang romances... or the very notion, common to the young... that the rejection by a chosen "beloved" is akin to the end of the world. In this sense, it is not unlike (although certainly not in the same realm as) Don Quixote in which the fantastic adventures of literary romances with heroic knights and spotless damsels are at once parodied... and yet embraced... even echoed... albeit it in an even more over-the-top manner. The writer looks with some bemusement upon a genre that he deeply loves.

Though Jerry was diffident about what Gardner was trying to say in his small critical work, On Moral Fiction, I understand why Gardner was driven to protest in it, and why Booth followed up years later with a much weightier work about the ethics of fiction.

I think I *get it* my friend, but it is a gratuitous indulgence and I rebel against its very defiance, because Goethe didn't really have the guts to push the envelope. One senses he wanted to, and even had the power to do so.

Art and Ethics!!??:eek: Egad!! Wilde would be spinning in his tomb.

Who makes the litmus test and decides what characters or novels are ethical or not? No rush... I'll be out of town 'til Monday. I'm off to Washington and New York... :wave:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Art and Ethics!!??:eek: Egad!! Wilde would be spinning in his tomb.

Who makes the litmus test and decides what characters or novels are ethical or not? No rush... I'll be out of town 'til Monday. I'm off to Washington and New York... :wave:

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I am not that far from where you'll be. Tis a shame. I could have run over your big toe and apologized profusely!:lol: (I would drag this sarcasm out further but I have to remember the young ones...) Enjoy yourself and stay safe.;)

I'll be sure to wear my steel toe boots if I'm ever in Philly with my copy of Goethe and the Collected Works of Oscar Wilde.:lol: I'm on my way in a few hours. Adieu!

I read "The Sorrows of Youn Werther" in uni and even made an essay on death comparing it to other two books (Emilia Galotti and Die Soldaten) I have to say this was an overwhelming book and it really touched me (like so many other women) but then again it is so gracefully written and this is how we see a good writer: it actually touches you even though you are not like Lotte or like Werther.The reader can barely identify himself with them, yet the sorrow they feel for Werther with his cruel fate (being Lotte the primary reason he killed himself, after she, personally, gave the gun to him).

I am looking forward to read "Faust" the only reason they didn't ask us to read was due to German, we didn't know enough German to read "Faust" ^^"

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Originally Posted by Jozanny

I just finished the Gutenberg HTML version of Werther, and even though I am willing to make allowances for the fact that the late 18th century was still pre-industrial and labor intensive, Goethe makes a valiant case for anti-depressants with this epistolary form. It is too over wrought and operatic to be contained in the prose form it was written, whether or not it ushered in the Romantic Movement, and remains somewhat baffling even without modern psychology to assist us. Albert and Charlotte knew Werther talked about suicide, and still gave him the pistols. This doesn’t make any sense.

It might have been better if Goethe had had the insight to use the unrequited love as a metaphor within a comedy of manners, which the novel hints at turning into, but for me this is a piss poor excuse for a literary classic.

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Ouch! Well, to each their own, as the saying goes.
Goethe based The Sorrows of Young Werther partially autobiographically and otherwise based upon a close friend of his obsessively longing for a married woman, not surprisingly named Charlotte, who later committed suicide by the precise same means (borrowed pistols). True, Werther could have made a stellar compaign for early antidepressants, as you said, perhaps an SSRI, and "pistol" does sound mysteriously close to "Paxil" (unfortunately he absorbed the wrong one), but, from the Romantic era, Goethe takes this tale much farther than one's common Romeo and Juliet theme, enveloping all passion, obsession, and, I agree, likely a psychological pathology that fueled Werther's codependency upon Lotte; he goes deep enough into the partially-fictional character's mind to compose something as intimate as his journal, which features a passionate fixation that anyone once in an unrequited love relationship could fathom, only stronger to the point of self-sacrifice or murder (luckily for Lotte and Albert, Werther chooses the former).