Presented as a collection of confessional letters written by the eponymous
protagonist, The Sorrows of Young Werther charts the emotional journey of a
young man who, during a stay in a picturesque German village, falls in love
with Lotte, a local woman engaged to another man. As he realizes that his
passion is doomed to failure and constant pain, Werther contemplates taking
the most drastic measures. Partly autobiographical, and the prototype for many
later Romantic works in its depiction of the sensitive, tortured hero,
Goethe’s seminal classic is a timeless masterpiece of world literature.
Presented as a collection of confessional letters written by the eponymous
protagonist, The Sorrows of Young Werther charts the emotional journey of a
young man who, during a stay in a picturesque German village, falls in love
with Lotte, a local woman engaged to another man. As he realizes that his
passion is doomed to failure and constant pain, Werther contemplates taking
the most drastic measures. Partly autobiographical, and the prototype for many
later Romantic works in its depiction of the sensitive, tortured hero,
Goethe’s seminal classic is a timeless masterpiece of world literature.
