Lectures 12-13: Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Slides of Literature

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Humanities 4

Lectures 12-13:

Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young

Werther

18th Century German

Literature

• Transition from Latin to vernacular and

to/from French paradigm

• Gottsched (1700-1766)
• Enlightenment literature
• Lessing’s Nathan the Wise
• Sturm und Drang (1769-1786)
• Goethe and Schiller

Goethe’s Major Works

• The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
• Roman Elegies (1790)
• Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796)
• Faust , Parts I (1808) and II (1832)
• Elective Affinities (1809)
• Theory of Colors (1810)
• Italian Journey (1817)

Outline of The Sorrows of

Young Werther

• Main Characters
• Plot
• Literary Form
• Major Themes
• Influence

Plot

• Plot Points
  • W arrives, meets and falls in love with L
  • A’s arrival, W’s unhappiness and departure
  • W’s return, increased woes, climax
  • Suicide/resolution
• Plot Features
  • Plot plays only minor role
  • Few external incursions

Literary Form

• Epistolary novel
  • Subjective perspective of main character dominates
• Editorial intervention
  • Provides information excluded by epistolary form
  • Provides independent moral framework

Nature

• Nature vs. social life
  • freedom vs. constraint
• Nature as an active force and source
  • vs. something to be mastered
• W’s emotional connection to nature
• Transformation in W’s attitude.
• Anticipation of Romantic Conception

Sentimentalism

• Philosophical Characterization
  • Sentiment/passion vs. intellect/reason
• Literary references
  • Vicar of Wakefield, Klopstock, Ossian, Lessing’s Emilia Galotti
• “Man is not master of himself, least of

all master of his own emotions” (7-1).

• Mourning as a form of love

Suicide

• Multiple instances of foreshadowing
• Only possible resolution?
• Werther’s “justifications”
  • Natural consequence of disease (8-12)
  • Relieve suffering (3-16)
  • Gain eternal freedom (3-16)
  • Atonement for sin (11-24, 12-20)
  • Sacrifice (12-20)
• G’s critical stance

What’s the point?

• Suicide?
• Importance of feeling?
• Central figure is Werther or Lotte?

Influence

• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
• 19th Centure French Opera, Werther

(Jules Massenet)

• The New Sorrows of Young Werther

(Ulrich Plenzdorff)