The Sorrows of Young Werther (AmazonClassics Edition) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (PDF)

Description

Composed almost entirely of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm, The Sorrows of Young Werther is a heartbreaking narrative about a doomed love. Werther, a young artist driven more by the heart than by reason, is already enraptured with the elusive Charlotte when she marries another man better suited to her class. To keep Charlotte near, Werther befriends her husband—a bid that becomes a torturous reminder of all he’s lost. Then, out of sincere pity, Charlotte can think of only one way to help free Werther from his self-destructive passion, but he has a different plan of escape.In one of the first important novels of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature, the self-absorption of youth unites with the extremes of emotion to create a perfect storm, leaving readers shipwrecked on the shores of grief and awe.Revised edition: Previously published as The Sorrows of Young Werther, this edition of The Sorrows of Young Werther (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Rudolfo Anaya ‘s newest book, The Sorrows of Young Alfonso, is a hybrid—identified as fiction on its credits page, it is also an epistolary monologue, addressed to “Dear K,”; a meditation full of philosophical musings on life, land, religion, myths, nature and the cosmos; a history of the Southwestern United States—especially Albuquerque, the New Mexican lands surrounding it , and the beginnings of the Chicano Movement; with a central story embracing an autobiography wrapped in the guise of a biography of a close childhood friend and fellow writer, Alfonso.About one quarter of the way into The Sorrows of Young Alfonso, the writer, only identified as “I,’ writes: “K, I’m slow. I suddenly realized I’ve been writing stories. Or something like stories wrapped in letters. I wrote too, you know. Not as well as Fonso, but I wrote. Never published. I used to show my stuff to Fonso. He encouraged me. But no, he was the writer….So here goes, more stories. Bet they never get published. Ha!” This bit of self-irony ignores the lists of Anaya’s publications given at the back of this book. With twenty-five volumes of adult literature, eleven children’s books, plus the five books for which he served as editor, publication was clearly not an insurmountable problem for Anaya!The book’s title cues its formal inspiration: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s loosely autobiographical epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, (1774, 1787). The anonymous writer of The Sorrows of Young Alfonso introduces us to his long-time close friend, Alfonso. And thereby hands us another clue: Alfonso is also Rudolfo Anaya’s middle name.We learn how the writer and Alfonso grew up together, and how they shared the experience of life-changing accidents as young teenagers, from which they never fully recovered. Each personally caused by a failed dare-devil -feat, the effects of their handicaps continue to influence the paths of their lives: “Trauma kills us or makes us stronger. I think that’s why he became a writer, to tell with each story the making of soul.”Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther as a young man (he was twenty-four years old at the time of the first edition’s publication), consumed by an unattainable lost love, Lotte. Anaya wrote The Sorrows of Young Alfonso as a man in his late seventies, and although he dwells in memories of times Alfonso shared with one youthful true love, Agnes, who accidentally died as a teenager and his deep love of his late wife Patricia (whose story, he tells the reader, he has already written so will not linger on thoughts of her in Alfonso’s story), it seems to me the great loss he ponders in this book is the home of his birth and the life of his Mexican American family and their community, living in harmony with the landscape of the New Mexican llano. On the llano, he writes:“The river is in me, he [Alfonso] said. I didn’t understand what he meant. ‘The llano is in me,’ he said. ‘The people are in me.’ La gente. His soul was made from those things. He made soul from nature and people.” (p. 95)“Sunsets were burned into his memory….Alfonso carried sunset images in his heart, He was forever caught in that time when he stood alone on the llano, shivering from the lingering coolness of the afternoon rain, looking into the fire of the setting sun, becoming one with fire, clouds, light, and color….The setting sun that day was as spectacular and glorious as any sunset on the llano…It made me think. We humans can only absorb so much beauty. People jump off the edge into the Grand Canyon; others jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s more than suicide; I think it’s a way of walking into the sunset and disappearing. Agape. I wonder if that’s the same feeling some get at the end of life. A feeling that you’re intimately involved in the earth’s consciousness, ready to let go of the body’s love for the next day, ready for rapture.” (p. 159-161)On the history of Mexican Americans in the 1940s and 50s:“The majority of people from that area [of West Texas, where his family had traveled to pick cotton] were poor. Hispanics had been in the state over four hundred years, but except for a few rich families who owned land, the majority remained rural poor. Most had little or no education. Alfonso’s mother stressed education to her children. The village school taught only the first few grades. In town, Alfonso and his sisters could graduate from high school. But work was not easy to come by, especially for their parents, who had only a second-grade education.” (p. 93)“Sons usually followed in their fathers’ line of work. A few were breaking the chain and aspiring to something different, college or a move to California for a better-paying job. Change was in the air in the barrios but it came at a cost. Mainstream society had barriers, visible and invisible, and only a trickle could break through. Glass ceilings. Hell, that’s nothing new. Study the history of minorities in this country.“The middle class wasn’t a barrio issue. Maybe one or two families made enough money to qualify as middle class. Those who owned the barrio’s grocery stores, cafes, gas stations, and furniture stores had money. Those who worked in the railroad shops made fair wages, owned a home and car—a working class that barely rose above the poverty line. Some Nuevo Mexicanos were starting trade businesses that didn’t require higher education, and a few were entering professional fields, especially law. In New Mexico, attorneys and politics went hand in hand…..Mostly it was menial work for menial wages. The Hispanic labor force was good for the city, but there was not much of a future for the works.“….Life was nothing like what was portrayed in the black-and-white television shows of the time. There were no I Love Lucy or Leave It to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet families in the barrio. Life was difficult. I still look back in anger. So did Alfonso. ” (pages 166; 173)On how the anonymous writer, “I,” thinks about this book:“…I put my novel aside and began writing about those years when Alfonso and I were close friends. I know I’m writing memories. Do my memories become a memoir? Am I writing his biography? …Damn! Is my novel mixed in with these letters? How much of my novel is becoming Alfonso’s story? How much of Alfonso is becoming the character in my story? ….Will my letters reveal Alfonso or my fictional character, who really isn’t completely fictional because he is me? But I gave the character a new name, so he is not me. ….I guess I’ve opened Pandora’s box, or Alfonso’s box, meaning his life is now pouring into my memoir/novel/biography/whatever you wish to call it. How will you decide? (pages 113-114)On a philosophy of life:“I asked her once [referring to the curandera , Agapita, a folk healer who helped bring him into the world and to recover some muscle function after the teenage accident], ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘Life is like a river,’ she said seriously. My innocent eyes grew wide and I repeated, ‘Wow, life is like a river?’ She started laughing so loud, it set a nearby covey of doves to flight. Her eyes watered from laughing. Once more she had pulled my leg. When she stopped laughing, she said, ‘I don’t know the meaning, No one does. Live one day at a time and enjoy. Experience life. Be thankful. The end will come of its own accord, neither predestined nor thought out. It just comes. What you do is all there is. Be kind Alfonso.’ I hope I have obeyed her command.” (p. 198)On God:“So what’s real? we poor mortals ask. Let God decide. Or scientists, those who break atoms apart and tell us the resulting subatomic particles are the only reality we know….Anyway, the particle began to be called the God particle. As if God is a particle. I think God is bigger than that. God created the universe, so God is the universe, expanding galaxies, a dance and song so wondrous it can kill just to contemplate it. “ (p. 140)These are but a few examples of how Rudolfo Anaya successfully cites an old masterwork, using it to apply to his own region and time, and to navigate the line between fiction and memoir.Carla Blank, reviewerAll quotes are from Rudolfo Anaya, The Sorrows of Young Alfonso (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

⭐”There is no truer, warmer pleasure in this world than to behold a great soul opening up towards oneself.”A short, accessible read on the emotions of a young man whose love decides to be with another man. I was going to give this book 3 stars, but as I’m writing this review, there are so many things to discuss! …I’ll give it another star! …This is my second book by Goethe, and I continue to be amazed at the respect literature scholars give him (the German Shakespeare?!) and the accessibility of his writing…nothing near the difficulty of Shakespeare!I picked it up because Thoreau and Emerson drew heavily from the idea of “Bildungsroman” (self culture/self development/coming of age/discovering who you are) of which Goethe was apparently initially the most prominent author.Thomas Carlyle (who appears to be the summarizer of the literature of his day) said it introduces Goethe’s genius work released 31 years later: “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” He said, ‘Werther’ introduced the problems, but gave no answer, ‘Wilhelm Meister’ gave the perspective and remedy to ‘Werther’s’ problem. I’m excited to read Wilhelm Meister!Goethe wrote this when he was 24 and it launched him into worldwide fame (as his “Italian Journey” reveals–he was known there by his “Werther”). Napoleon actually met Goethe and told him he had read this book 7 times and carried it in his shirt pocket on a few of his campaigns. This part is highly intriguing to me, I wonder what part of this story was so compelling to Napoleon.The book is primarily about Werther’s love for Lotte (or Charlotta, depending on your translation) and how even though it seems perfect to him, it is not meant to be. He often returns to agonizing over this impossibility and his mind tries to figure out ways the relationship could work out. Lotte has, of course, married another man, Albert.I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where Chris Corraba from Dashboard Confessional gets his inspiration. Some reviewers I read said if you had any lingering sentiment of a missed love connection this book would amplify it…as a single guy, it (mostly) did the opposite for me. I thought it might be a good one to recommend to anyone in that state, to see how absurd Werther’s sorrows were over that one woman. I did have some of the missed connection sympathy with him, but I wanted to tell him the whole time, “you’re bigger than that!” also “there was never a chance anyways! She was engaged!”I imagine what attracted most to this book was it’s honesty in dealing with emotions. Perhaps before this time period people ignored their emotions and pushed on with what was practical. Goethe opened up the “Sturm and Drang” movement and gave his characters’ emotions validity.I think this is perhaps the big question of my generation…how much validity do you give to your emotions? Certainly some, but is it all about how we feel? We know when prodded it isn’t “all about” that, but what drives our actions? A cold self-determination? That doesn’t seem right. I hope Thomas Carlyle is right in that Wilhelm Meister gives a good response to Werther’s pain.There is a bit more to the book than Werther’s unavailable love…he shares beautifully on Nature, in one chapter the incredible meaning and beauty inherent in it, and then in another, the cold disregard for itself. I loved the parts where he talks about the nature in children.Thoreau I’m sure loved his notes on life’s true joys. Goethe has the same theme of why work all day at something you don’t enjoy so that you can do it again the next day and the next…what is real joy? What do you actually need and want?I will discuss the ending below, but beware, SPOILER ALERT!SPOILER ALERTS!!!Spoiler alert!!I think this is the first book I have read that imagines suicide. The suicide of Werther is interesting. I wondered if that was how it would end. I wonder if Napoleon was interested in this part of the book or not. Apparently it inspired some acts of suicide in Goethe’s day. I think it would have been controversial to not demonize it and Goethe does not. There’s a lot to be considered between the acceptance of suicide in this novel and Goethe’s Christianity, and between the Christianity many of us know in our day. I wonder why Goethe didn’t let the character die immediately, but let him live almost another 24 hours. . . . the lingering questions work well with the subject. It seems nature doesn’t often allow the bow to be tied on at the end of a life.Again, excited for Wilhelm Meister. Thomas Carlyle, I hope you’re right.

⭐Werther is head over heels in love for Charlotte. He writes endless letters about her to his friend Wilhelm. The big insight I got out of this book was that all this incredible intellectual energy focused on Charlotte, could be focused on something else.If Werther loved biology as much as he loved Charlotte, he would become the best biologist in the world. Most students just memorize the teacher’s notes and the textbook to try to get a good grade; and then forget everything after that. So they don’t learn much.One great secret of raising IQ is to try to fall in love with the topic. Imagine a career in that topic. When you study biology, imagine becoming a biologist. Likewise for chemistry, physiology etc.Personality is much more important for IQ than is widely realized. Helen Keller was so happy when she learned to read braille, that she read until her fingers bled; then she covered them with silk, so she could keep reading. That’s love of learning.Werther is worth reading to feel the intensity of first love. If you are interested in improving academic performance, you might want to read my books 1. Straight A at Stanford and on to Harvard or 2. How to raise IQ and become a Genius.

⭐While this is surprisingly easy to read given when it was first written, probably thanks to the fact that the story is told through letters between friends rather than narration as things happen giving Goethe the chance to write in a far less formal fashion. The events take place over the course of a year or so and follow Werther as he falls desperately in love with Charlotte, who, of course, is engaged to another with no intention of changing her mind. This devastates Werther, who finds himself increasingly unable to cope and ends up taking extreme measures. While I did enjoy the style of this and the way each of the characters was portrayed, I did just want to grab Werther and give him a damn good shake. His complete loss of perspective was charming at first but quickly grew tiresome as he re-arranged his entire life because of his obsessive love. A very interesting read which is surprisingly dark and disturbing.

⭐Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote with this probably one of the world’s most notorious novels, which since first publication has been responsible for a certain way of thinking. Hugely influential on the Romantic Movement, it is easy to see why. This only took about six weeks to write, but has been loved ever since it first appeared, and I must admit that I have read this many times.Set out mainly in the style of letters, but not completely an epistolary novel we hear from Werther here, and how he falls in love with a certain Charlotte. We read of what happens, as Charlotte is betrothed to Albert. This short novel catapulted Goethe to the heights of celebrity, and it is known that as such there was a sort of cult that was created by this book and the tragedy that ensues, and the cult was not just in the tragedy, but in dress and other merchandise, in many ways like we saw in this country with the publication of ‘Pamela’.Written in the style of a Strum und Drang, this is what helped to give rise to Romanticism and is still an interesting read. Because of what ultimately happens here we can still see this way of thought going on today, and although possibly such events did and do happen in real life it has now become a part of a woman’s fantasy to think that what happens is quite natural, although it may not be.This book I have always personally loved, but I do know quite a few people who hate this, so please be aware of this if you haven’t read this before. In all though at times we all need a bit of tragedy and this book should help fulfil your requirements.

⭐Unrequited love, we have all been there and come out the other side with lessons learnt. Werther annoyed me with his obsession with Charlotte. He could not cope with her betrothal to Albert. He makes matters worse by spending so much time with her. I sympathised with Werther but wanted to take him away from her to meet someone at a ball or something. Come on Werther no one is worth your self respect!Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote this novel in 1774. Goethe was from Germany and he wrote many more notable works. I loved the writing style. The whole story is a collection of letters to his friend Willhelm.Awful ending. I don’t recommend this book as it is depressing, sad and not conducive to a healthy mind. It romanticises unhealthy obsession. If you ever feel this bad please reach out to someone for help. Most people have been through relationship problems and come out the other side OK. So they can help and advise you. You are worth helping Werther! The book is also quite dull. No action just whining and wallowing.

⭐Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote with this probably one of the world’s most notorious novels, which since first publication has been responsible for a certain way of thinking. Hugely influential on the Romantic Movement, it is easy to see why. This only took about six weeks to write, but has been loved ever since it first appeared, and I must admit that I have read this many times.Set out mainly in the style of letters, but not completely an epistolary novel we hear from Werther here, and how he falls in love with a certain Charlotte. We read of what happens, as Charlotte is betrothed to Albert. This short novel catapulted Goethe to the heights of celebrity, and it is known that as such there was a sort of cult that was created by this book and the tragedy that ensues, and the cult was not just in the tragedy, but in dress and other merchandise, in many ways like we saw in this country with the publication of ‘Pamela’.Written in the style of a Strum und Drang, this is what helped to give rise to Romanticism and is still an interesting read. Because of what ultimately happens here we can still see this way of thought going on today, and although possibly such events did and do happen in real life it has now become a part of a woman’s fantasy to think that what happens is quite natural, although it may not be.This book I have always personally loved, but I do know quite a few people who hate this, so please be aware of this if you haven’t read this before. In all though at times we all need a bit of tragedy and this book should help fulfil your requirements.

⭐This is a tragic love story told (mainly) by a series of letters that a young artist, Werther, has written to his friend, Wilhelm, whilst he is staying in the fictional village of Wahlheim. During his stay Werther meets Charlotte, a young woman who is caring for her father and younger siblings following the death of her mother. Werther is immediately enchanted with Charlotte and spends a great deal of time with her and her family, playing with her brothers and sisters and developing a mutual fondness with the family. Unfortunately, Charlotte is already engaged to another man, Albert, who Werther also befriends and there is a mutual respect between them.Werther knows his love for Charlotte will be unrequited and that her heart belongs to Albert so takes Wilhelm’s advise and gets himself a job and moves away and catches the eye of another young lady. Things don’t work out for Werther – he commits a social faux-pas in front of his new lady and isn’t really cut out for his desk job so he returns to Wahlheim and Charlotte.Werther continues to torture himself over Charlotte. Charlotte’s role is interesting as she adores Werther and works very hard at not falling in love with him. By now she is married and her loyalties lie solely with her husband and she knows that she must see less of Werther. Werther decides that the only solution to this love triangle is for one of them to die, knowing that he is not a murderer he resolves to end his own life and to wait for Charlotte in the afterlife.This book is a lovely read, beautifully told and achingly heartbreaking. When it was published it caused quite a stir with young men emulating Werther’s fashion sense and some heartbroken young men following Werther to an early grave. Reading this as a cynical 30-something I see this as a tragic waste of a young life. I’m screaming at Werther to keep away from Charlotte, to stop torturing himself knowing that he is a young man and will fall in love with someone else if he lets himself. His friend, Wilhelm, can see this too. He tries to persuade Werther to get a job, to keep himself busy, to move away but Werther always returns to Charlotte. Wilhelm can see that Werther is in a fragile state of mind and wants to go to him but Werther persuades him to stay away. Perhaps if his friend had got to him sooner the ending would have been different…

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