- Joined
- Sep 22, 2024
- Messages
- 248
- Reaction score
- 373
- Awards
- 2
PENGUIN CLASSICS JOHANN WOLFGANG von Goethe The Sorrows of Young Werther TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL HULSE The story of a young man driven to suicide by an unhappy love affair, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) is the first great tragic novel of European literature. Based partly on Goethe’s unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and partly on the tragedy of Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who killed himself out of love for a married woman, the book gained a reputation as the first great achievement of what a later age was to label ‘confessional’ literature, and Goethe himself spoke of a sense of freedom and deliverance on completing his novel. its The success of Werther was rapid and immense, and a cult quickly grew up around it. Parodies, operas, poems and plays based on the story appeared; in some areas it was seen as scandalous and banned because it seemed to ‘recommend’ suicide. Today, however, we can isolate the novel from the original events and see Goethe’s artistry on own terms. It is, as Michael Hulse says in his Introduction, a work of exhilarating style and insight. Its sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist at odds with society and ill-equipped to cope with life lends it the status of a tragic masterpiece. The cover shows a detail from Evening by Caspar David Friedrich in the Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover
Buy:
