The suffering of the young Werther is the image of Lotte. Essay “Characteristics of the image of Werther
"Suffering young Werther»
In 1774, while in Wetzlar, Goethe met Charlotte Buf, the bride of his friend Kästner. The poet felt attracted to the girl, but left, not wanting to break up the union of young people. Charlotte married Kästner. There, in Wetzlar, the secretary of the embassy committed suicide from unhappy love. All this gave Goethe the idea of writing a novel. This was the reason for the creation of Werther.
The novel is presented in the form of letters, which is very consistent with its content, revealing the life of the heart, the logic of feelings and experiences. Lyrics in prose, lyrics in the form of a great novel. Werther is young, talented and educated person, the son of apparently wealthy parents, but not one of the nobility. He is a burgher by birth. The author does not say anything about his parents, except for some mentions of his mother. The local nobility does not like the young man, envying his talents, which, as she thinks, were not given to him by right. The local nobility are also enraged by Werther’s independent views, his indifference and sometimes disdain to the titles of aristocrats. Werther in his letters accompanies the names of titled persons with unflattering characteristics. (“This breed of people disgusts me with all my heart”)
Goethe speaks very sparingly about the external situation surrounding Werther. All his attention is directed to spiritual world young hero. At first, Werther's letters reveal his tastes, habits, and views. Werther is sensitive and somewhat sentimental. The young man's first letters reveal the bright harmony that reigns in his heart. He is happy, he loves life. “My soul is illuminated with unearthly joy, like these wonderful mornings, which I admire with all my heart,” he writes to his friend. Werther loves nature to the point of self-forgetfulness: “When steam rises around me from my sweet valley, and the midday sun stands above impenetrable thicket of a dark forest, and only a rare ray slips into its holy of holies, and I lie in the tall grass by a fast stream and, clinging to the ground, I see thousands of all kinds of blades of grass and I feel that a tiny world is close to my heart, scurrying between the stalks... when my gaze mine is clouded in eternal bliss and everything around me and the sky above me are imprinted on my soul, like the image of a beloved - then, dear friend, I am often tormented by the thought! Oh! How to express, how to breathe into a drawing what lives so fully, so reverently in me.”
Werther carries with him a volume of Homer's poems and reads and rereads them in the lap of nature. He admires the naive worldview, artless simplicity and spontaneity of the great poet’s feelings. IN last letters Werther is gloomy, despondency and thoughts of death come to his mind, and from Homer he moves on to Ossian. The tragic pathos of Ossian's songs appeals to his painful mood.
Werther leads a contemplative life. Observations entail sad reflections. “The destiny of the human race is the same everywhere! For the most part, people work almost tirelessly just to get by, and if they have a little freedom left, they are so frightened of it that they look for some way to get rid of it. This is the purpose of man!”
A faithful follower of Rousseau, Werther loves simple people living in the lap of nature, he also loves children who innocently follow the dictates of their hearts. He communicates with peasants, with peasant children, and finds great joy in this for himself. Like the Sturmers, he protests against the philistine understanding of life, against the strictly regulated way of life for which the philistines stood up. “Oh, you wise men! - I said with a smile. - Passion! Intoxication! Madness! And you, noble people, stand calmly and indifferently on the side and blaspheme drunkards, despise madmen and pass by, like a priest, and like a Pharisee, thank God that he did not create you like one of them. I have been drunk more than once, my passions have always been on the verge of madness, and I do not repent of either one or the other, for to the best of my understanding I have understood why everyone outstanding people Those who have accomplished something great, something seemingly incomprehensible, have long been declared drunk and insane. But even in everyday life, it is unbearable to hear how, after anyone who has dared to do anything more or less bold, honest, unforeseen, they certainly shout: “He’s drunk! He's crazy! Be ashamed, you sober people, be ashamed, you wise men!”
Like the Stürmers, Werther is an opponent of rationalism and contrasts feeling and passion with reason: “Man always remains a man, and that grain of reason that he may possess has little or no meaning when passion is rampant and he becomes cramped within the framework of human nature."
There have been attempts in literature to identify Goethe with his hero, Werther. However, the poet in his novel did not portray himself (although, as already mentioned, some autobiographical traits were reflected here), but the mood and feelings typical of the youth of his time. In Werther, he portrayed those young people of Germany who were dissatisfied with the existing situation, who were looking for something new, but had neither clear principles and clear ideas, nor sufficient will to implement them.
The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” can be divided compositionally into three parts: Werther’s acquaintance with Charlotte, service at the embassy and return to Charlotte. Charlotte is a very serious girl with hard moral principles, somewhat rational and virtuous. Werther fell in love with her, although she was already engaged and was soon to marry someone else.
Werther often visited her house, everyone in the household fell in love with him, and the girl herself became attached to him. Soon Charlotte's fiancé, Albert, arrived, a serious young man, quite businesslike, quite practical. Werther's nature was incomprehensible to him.
Werther suffered, but, in essence, he himself did not know what he wanted, what he sought. He leaves and enters the diplomatic service. Lotte is getting married. Werther was not a diplomat for long. One day he stayed in the house of a friend of the aristocrat, Count B. Titled guests gathered, they were shocked that a person from a different circle was in their midst. It ended with the count calling him aside and, apologizing, pointing out this circumstance. Werther was forced to leave. The next day the whole city was talking about the expulsion of the young “proud man” from the aristocratic house. Rumors reached Werther. Outraged, he resigned and left town.
Now he meets Lotte again, often visits her, unable to live a day without seeing her. His behavior was already beginning to attract attention. Albert expressed his displeasure to Charlotte and suggested that Werther should be made to understand that they needed to stop their compromising visits. Charlotte did not answer and this aroused some suspicions. Werther understood the inadmissibility of his behavior, but could not help himself.
His mood becomes more and more depressed. If the first pages of the novel are full of sun and joy, then in the last pages the shadows thicken, despondency and melancholy take possession of the hero, unfold tragic events. Once Werther met a young peasant woman and her two children. He often brought gifts to the younger one. Now he learns that the boy has died.
Once Werther met a crazy young man who kept talking about days of happiness. Werther asked the madman’s mother what those days of happiness were that he so regretted. “These are the days when the violent madman was in the insane asylum,” answered the mother. “This is happiness, it is in madness,” Werther thinks gloomily. This is how Goethe prepares the reader for the sad denouement of the novel.
One day Werther found Lotte alone. He read to her the songs of Ossian, filled with mournful and mystical moods. For the first time there was a declaration of love. Lotta persuades the young man to leave, find another woman, forget her, become a man, pull himself together. (Deep down in her heart, she would like him to stay near her.) The next day, Werther sends a servant with a note to Albert, asking him to lend him pistols. Charlotte handed them to the servant, brushing off the dust. Werther, having learned that the pistols were given by Lotte herself, sees this as destiny, he kisses the pistols. At night he shot himself. “The bottle of wine had barely been started; Emilia Galotti lay open on the table.
Lessing condemned Werther's character and the conditions that gave rise to such a character. “It was left only to our new European upbringing to produce such petty-great, despicably sweet originals,” he wrote. Heinrich Heine spoke of the hero Goethe with even greater intolerance. In the cycle " Modern poems" there are these lines:
Don't whine like this Werther in life
Who loved only Charlotte,
Ring like an alarm bell,
Sing about the dagger, about the damask sword
And don’t let your fatherland sleep.
Don't be a flute, soft, tender
And an idyllic soul,
But be a trumpet and a drum...
Heinrich Heine lived and wrote in different times. For the time when Goethe’s novel appeared, the image of a gentle youth who did not get along with his age was a reproach to all of Germany and just as did not allow the “fatherland to slumber,” like the poetry of Heinrich Heine himself in the 19th century.
Let us move away from traditional views of Werther as the apostle of lack of will. Let's take a slightly different look at his behavior, his actions, etc. to his final act - suicide. It's not that simple here. Werther understood that his love for Charlotte was madness. This madness did not lie in the fact that it was impossible to love someone else’s bride, and then someone else’s wife, that it was impossible to insist on her breaking up with the groom or then with her husband. Werther would have had the will and character to do this. The madness was that he encroached on the harmony in which Charlotte lived.
She was in the world of reason, where everything was regulated, ordered, and she herself was part of this world, i.e. just as orderly and rational. To take Charlotte away from this world would mean to destroy her. Werther had no moral right to do this. He himself lived in the world of feelings, he accepted only it, did not want, did not tolerate any guardianship over himself, he would like complete uninhibition, complete freedom and independence in feelings. Live and act not out of duty, but out of feeling. Werther understood that in the society in which he lived, this in itself was madness. Could he persuade the woman he loved to go mad? He knew that Albert, rational, practical, flesh and blood of the rational, practical world, would make Charlotte happy, would give her that comfortable harmony with society that he, Werther, could not give her. And he left, withdrew completely. He would have done it even sooner if Charlotte had responded to his feelings. Werther acted as any decent person would do, suffering, for example, incurable disease. It was not a defeat, but a moral victory, ultimately a victory of duty over feeling.
Soon after the publication of Goethe's novel, Christoph Friedrich Nicolai, one of the figures of the German Enlightenment, published his “improved” “Werther” (“The Joys of young Werther- The Sorrows and Joys of Werther the Husband"). Nikolai gave a different ending: Werther marries Charlotte and gains family happiness, becoming a reasonable and respectable spouse. The question arises: did Goethe’s Werther want such happiness and did the author want such a fate for his hero?
What was the protesting, rebellious spirit of Goethe's book? In the very rejection of the atmosphere in which Germany lived then, the entire way of life of society.
The book created a sensation. It immediately gained worldwide resonance. Translated into all European languages, it spread around the world. Two generations lived it. The young Napoleon read it seven times and took it with him as a Bible during the Egyptian campaign. She created a fashion for love suffering, even for suicide because of love (what people don’t do because of fashion!).
Goethe's book provoked interesting thoughts among Dostoevsky. He wrote in 1876: “The suicide Werther, ending his life, in the last lines he left, regrets that he will no longer see the “beautiful constellation Ursa Major,” and says goodbye to him. Oh, how the novice Goethe affected this line. Why were these constellations so dear to Werther? Because he, contemplating, each time realized that he was not an atom at all and not nothing in front of them, that all this abyss mysterious miracles God is not at all higher than his thoughts, not higher than his consciousness, not higher than the ideal of beauty... and, therefore, equal to him and makes him related to the infinity of being... and what happiness is it to feel this great idea, revealing to him who he is - he owes only his human face.” ("A Writer's Diary")
The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (a brief summary is presented below) is the most famous, after “Faust,” work of the 18th century by J. V. Goethe. It is about this dramatic narrative, based on real events, we'll talk about it in this article.
About the product
The novel was written in 1774. The work is based on a story that Goethe himself witnessed. In 1772, the writer was in Wetzlar, a small town. Here, in the office of the imperial court, he practiced law. Fate brought him together with a certain Kästner, who served as secretary of the Hanoverian embassy. Goethe spent several months in the city and left at the end of the summer. After some time, the writer received a letter from his friend. Kästner reported that their mutual friend Jerusalem, a young official, had committed suicide. The reason for this was feelings of hopelessness and humiliation, as well as dissatisfaction with their position in society.
Goethe decided that this incident could be presented as a tragedy for his contemporary generation. It was then that the writer had the idea of writing a novel.
Genre originality and structure
He turned to the then popular genre of the novel in verse by Goethe. “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (a brief summary will confirm this) - sentimental novel. And such works very often had one structure - they were made up of numerous letters written by the main characters. Our work was no exception.
The novel consists of two parts, each of which, in turn, is composed of letters from Werther himself and the publisher publishing the novel, whose messages are addressed to the reader. The main character's letters are addressed to him true friend Wilhelm. Werther describes in them not only the events occurring in his life, but also his experiences and feelings.
“The Sorrows of Young Werther”: summary
The main character is a young man named Werther, he is inclined towards poetry and painting. A young man settles in a small town, wanting to be alone. Here he communicates with ordinary people, enjoys nature, draws and reads Homer.
Werther is invited to a youth country ball, where he meets a certain Charlotte S., with whom he immediately falls in love. The girl's relatives call her Lotta, she - eldest daughter amtman (district commander) of the principality. The mother in their family died early, so Charlotte replaced her for her younger brothers and sisters. The girl turned out to be not only beautiful, but also smart.
Love
It was from this moment that the most terrible suffering of young Werther began. Summary talks about the birth of his love. young man everything free time spends at Lotte's house, which is located outside the city. He and his beloved go to visit a sick pastor and take care of a sick lady. Werther enjoys these visits because he can be with Lotte.
However, the young man’s love is doomed to suffer due to the fact that Charlotte already has a fiancé, Albert, who has left to get a high position.
Return of Albert
The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” was written within the framework of the sentimental direction, a brief summary of which we are considering, therefore the hero of the work is very emotional, he is not able to restrain his feelings and impulses, he is disgusted with rationality in his actions. That is why Werther is overcome by an unbearable feeling of jealousy when Albert returns. The young man shows his restless disposition: he either falls into unbridled gaiety, or becomes gloomier than a cloud. Albert is friendly towards Werther and tries not to attach importance to such differences.
Birthday
We continue to describe the summary of “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” Werther's birthday is coming. Albert gives him a mysterious package. There is a bow from Charlotte's dress, in which the young man saw her for the first time. Werther suffers and comes to the conclusion that it is better for him to leave, but the moment of departure is constantly postponed.
The young man does not tell anyone about his decision. On the eve of his departure, he goes to see Charlotte. The girl begins to talk about death, remembers her mother and those moments when they saw each other in last time. Werther is excited by the girl’s story, but still remains firm in his intention to leave.
In a new place
Serious changes are taking place for the main character of the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (Goethe Johann is the author of the work). He leaves for another city. Here he enters the service of an envoy who is distinguished by his pedantry, pickiness and stupidity. Werther's only friend in the new place is Count von K., who brightens up the young man's loneliness. It turns out that in this city there are very strong prejudices associated with a person’s class. Therefore, Werther now and then hears unpleasant statements about his origin.
The young man meets the girl B., who is somewhat similar to Charlotte. Werther often talks with this girl about his past life, even talks about Lotte. Society constantly annoys the young man, and his relationship with the messenger deteriorates. As a result, the boss writes a complaint against Werther to the minister. He sends back young man a letter asking him to be less touchy, to abandon extravagant ideals and direct his energy in the right direction.
Return
The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (Goethe) continues. And the summary tells why the main character had to leave his new place of residence, despite the fact that he managed to come to terms with his situation.
Werther was visiting his friend Count von K. and accidentally stayed too long. At this time, guests began to gather to the count. According to city etiquette, among the noble society there should not be a person of low origin. Werther completely forgot about this rule and stayed with the count. In addition, he noticed B., with whom he immediately spoke. However, gradually the young man realized that the audience was casting sidelong glances at him, and his interlocutor had to make more and more efforts to maintain a conversation. Realizing this, Werther quickly leaves.
However, the next day the city was flooded with rumors that Werther had been expelled by Count von K. The young man, realizing that this story would end with his dismissal from service, decided to resign himself and then leave.
First of all, Werther goes to where he spent his childhood. Here it is given sweet memories. At this time, an invitation comes from the prince, and our hero goes to his domain, from where he soon leaves, no longer able to bear the separation from his beloved.
Charlotte lives in the city. During the time that Werther was away, she managed to marry Albert. Now she is happily married. However, the arrival of an old friend causes discord in the family. Lotte sees Werther's love and sympathizes with him, but it is difficult for her to watch his suffering. The young man himself is constantly in dreams; he would long to fall asleep forever, so as not to leave the world of dreams and not return to painful reality.
Lotta
Creates images of very vulnerable and impressionable people Goethe I.V. (“The Sorrows of Young Werther”) - summary Henry's story confirms this. One day, Werther meets a local madman, Heinrich, in the outskirts of the city, who collects poems for his beloved. It soon turns out that this is none other than the former scribe of Charlotte's father, who fell in love with the girl and went crazy from unrequited passion.
Werther begins to realize that the image of Charlotte is haunting and tormenting him. With this confession, Werther’s own letters end. The publisher now continues to describe the events.
The young man becomes unbearable to those around him because of his passion. Gradually, the young man becomes stronger in the idea that his only salvation is to leave this world. On the eve of Christmas, Lotte asks her friend to come to them no earlier than Christmas Eve. However, Werther appears the very next day. The girl accepts it, they read it together. At some point, the young man loses control of himself and approaches Charlotte, who immediately asks him to leave their house.
Denouement
The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is coming to an end. A chapter-by-chapter summary describes the final episode of the work. Werther returns home, writes a letter to Lotte and sends a servant to Albert for pistols. At midnight, a shot is heard in the young man's room. The next morning, the servant discovers Werther still alive and calls the doctor, but it is too late. Albert and Charlotte had a hard time hearing about their friend's death. They bury him outside the city in the place where Werther wanted to be buried.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
"The Sorrows of Young Werther"
It is this genre, characteristic of literature of the 18th century, that Goethe chooses for his work; the action takes place in one of the small German towns in late XVIII V. The novel consists of two parts - these are letters from Werther himself and additions to them under the title “From Publisher to Reader.” Werther's letters are addressed to his friend Wilhelm, in them the author strives not so much to describe the events of his life, but to convey his feelings that the world around him evokes in him.
Werther, a young man from a poor family, educated, inclined towards painting and poetry, settles in a small town to be alone. He enjoys nature, communicates with ordinary people, reads his beloved Homer, and draws. At a country youth ball, he meets Charlotte S. and falls madly in love with her. Lotta, as the girl’s close friends call her, is the eldest daughter of the princely ruler; there are nine children in their family. Their mother died, and Charlotte, despite her youth, managed to replace her with her brothers and sisters. She is not only visually attractive, but also has independent judgment. Already on the first day of meeting Werther and Lotte, a similarity of tastes is revealed, they easily understand each other.
From now on, the young man spends every day most time in the amtman's house, which is an hour's walk from the city. Together with Lotte, he visits a sick pastor and goes to look after a sick lady in the city. Every minute spent near her gives Werther pleasure. But the young man’s love is doomed to suffering from the very beginning, because Lotte has a fiancé, Albert, who has gone to get a respectable position.
Albert arrives, and although he treats Werther kindly and delicately hides the manifestations of his feelings for Lotte, the young man in love is jealous of her for him. Albert is reserved, reasonable, he considers Werther an extraordinary person and forgives him for his restless disposition. For Werther, the presence of a third person during meetings with Charlotte is difficult; he falls either into unbridled joy or into gloomy moods.
One day, in order to get a little distraction, Werther is going on horseback to the mountains and asks Albert to lend him pistols for the road. Albert agrees, but warns that they are not loaded. Werther takes one pistol and puts it to his forehead. This harmless joke turns into a serious dispute between young people about a person, his passions and reason. Werther tells a story about a girl who was abandoned by her lover and threw herself into the river, because without him life for her had lost all meaning. Albert considers this act “stupid”; he condemns a person who, carried away by passions, loses the ability to reason. Werther, on the contrary, is disgusted by excessive rationality.
For his birthday, Werther receives a package as a gift from Albert: it contains a bow from Lotte’s dress, in which he saw her for the first time. The young man suffers, he understands that he needs to get down to business and leave, but he keeps putting off the moment of separation. On the eve of his departure, he comes to Lotte. They go to their favorite gazebo in the garden. Werther says nothing about the upcoming separation, but the girl, as if anticipating it, starts talking about death and what will follow. She remembers her mother last minutes before parting with her. Worried by her story, Werther nevertheless finds the strength to leave Lotte.
The young man leaves for another city, he becomes an official under the envoy. The envoy is picky, pedantic and stupid, but Werther made friends with Count von K. and tries to brighten up his loneliness in conversations with him. In this town, as it turns out, class prejudices are very strong, and the young man is constantly pointed out about his origin.
Werther meets the girl B., who vaguely reminds him of the incomparable Charlotte. He often talks with her about his former life, including telling her about Lotte. The surrounding society annoys Werther, and his relationship with the envoy is getting worse. The matter ends with the envoy complaining about him to the minister, who, being a delicate person, writes a letter to the young man in which he reprimands him for being excessively touchy and tries to direct his extravagant ideas in the direction where they will find the right application.
Werther temporarily comes to terms with his position, but then a “trouble” occurs that forces him to leave the service and the city. He was visiting Count von K., stayed too long, and at that time guests began to arrive. In this town it was not customary for noble society a low-class man appeared. Werther did not immediately realize what was happening, besides, when he saw the girl B. he knew, he started talking to her, and only when everyone began to look sideways at him, and his interlocutor could hardly carry on a conversation, the young man hastily left. The next day, gossip spread throughout the city that Count von K. had kicked Werther out of his house. Not wanting to wait until he is asked to leave the service, the young man submits his resignation and leaves.
First, Werther goes to his native place and indulges in sweet childhood memories, then he accepts the prince’s invitation and goes to his domain, but here he feels out of place. Finally, unable to bear the separation any longer, he returns to the city where Charlotte lives. During this time she became Albert's wife. Young people are happy. The appearance of Werther brings discord into their family life. Lotte sympathizes with the young man in love, but she is also unable to see his torment. Werther rushes about, he often dreams of falling asleep and never waking up, or he wants to commit a sin and then atone for it.
One day, while walking around the outskirts of the town, Werther meets the crazy Heinrich, who is collecting a bouquet of flowers for his beloved. Later he learns that Heinrich was a scribe for Lotte’s father, fell in love with a girl, and love drove him crazy. Werther feels that the image of Lotte is haunting him and he does not have the strength to put an end to his suffering. At this point the young man's letters end, and about him future fate We'll find out from the publisher.
Love for Lotte makes Werther unbearable for those around him. On the other hand, the decision to leave the world gradually becomes stronger in the young man’s soul, because he is unable to simply leave his beloved. One day he finds Lotte sorting through gifts for her family on the eve of Christmas. She turns to him with a request to come to them next time no earlier than Christmas Eve. For Werther, this means that he is deprived of the last joy in life. Nevertheless, the next day he still goes to Charlotte, and together they read an excerpt from Werther’s translation of Ossian’s songs. In a fit of unclear feelings, the young man loses control of himself and approaches Lotte, for which she asks him to leave her.
Returning home, Werther puts his affairs in order, writes Farewell letter his beloved, sends a servant with a note to Albert for pistols. At exactly midnight, a shot is heard in Werther's room. In the morning, the servant finds a young man, still breathing, on the floor, the doctor comes, but it is too late. Albert and Lotte are having a hard time with Werther's death. They bury him not far from the city, in the place that he chose for himself.
Goethe chooses this one, characteristic of literature XVIII century genre for your work. The action takes place at the end of the 18th century in one of the towns in Germany. The novel has two parts – Werther’s letters and additions to them with the title “From the Publisher to the Reader.”
Secluded in a small town, an educated young man from a poor family, communicating with ordinary people, enjoys nature, draws, reads his beloved Homer. At a youth ball outside the city, he meets Charlotte, who is a substitute for his brothers and sisters. deceased mother. Werther and Lotta discovered a similarity of tastes and mutual understanding.
Werther spends most of his time with Lotte, participating in joint charity, feeling the pleasure of communicating with her and suffering from the fact that Lotte already has a fiancé, Albert. He comes to the town, is delicate and friendly, but Werther has a hard time with Albert’s presence on dates.
While going on horseback to the mountains, Werther borrowed pistols from Albert and jokingly puts one of them to his forehead, which caused a serious dispute about the man, his mind and passions. For his birthday, Albert gives Werther a package with a bow from Lotte’s dress, this caused a surge of suffering in the young man’s soul and he decides to leave. On the eve of his departure, he meets Lotte in his favorite gazebo, they talk, anticipating separation, Lotte remembers her mother, but Werther finds the strength to part with Lotte.
The young man leaves and becomes an official in another city under an envoy who is stupid, picky and pedantic. The town turned out to be difficult, with strong class prejudices, where origins are constantly pointed out. Werther meets a certain girl who is somewhat reminiscent of Charlotte and spends time with her, at the same time his relationship with the envoy becomes worse. Werther comes to terms with his position for a while, but after the “trouble” that happened, he had to leave both the service and the city. He accidentally found himself present in noble society, which was unacceptable for a person of low class. This led to the need for resignation and departure.
Werther first goes to his native place, but still returns to the city where Charlotte lives. She married Albert, but the appearance of Werther brings discord into her family life. His love for Lotte made him unbearable for those around him. Werther also lost his peace. Gradually, his decision to leave this world becomes stronger. One day he met Lotte on the eve of Christmas, but she asks him not to visit them until Christmas Eve next time. Werther perceives this as depriving him of the last joy in life, but still he goes to Charlotte the next day. The young man loses control - in a fit of emotion he approaches Lotte, but she asks to leave her.
Goethe's novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1774), which went down in the history of literature as an example of sentimentalist prose, which all sentimentalist writers were guided by, brought true worldwide fame. “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (in some translations “The Sorrows of Young Werther”) is a novel in letters, or an epistolary novel. This genre was especially widespread in mid-18th century century, and Goethe's predecessors in this genre were the English writer Samuel Richardson and the French classic of sentimentalism Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The first, most part of the work is occupied by letters from the ardent and sensitive young man Werther to his friend Wilhelm, in which the hero pours out his love experiences and relationships with the world, the second part is a postscript “from the publisher to the reader.” Thus, Goethe shows his hero from two perspectives: confessional and from the outside. Thanks to this narrative device Goethe anticipates realism literature of the 19th century and XX centuries.
The plot basis of the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is as follows: the hero leaves his native place and is therefore forced to tell his friend about himself in letters, which determines the form of the novel. Soon Werther meets a beautiful girl, Lotte, and falls in love with her. The hero's falling in love develops into a passionate feeling - exceptional love, which is impossible to subordinate to the voice of reason, as circumstances require. Lotte cannot respond to Werther's love because she has a fiancé, Albert, who later became her husband. Werther, Lotte and Albert present the classic love triangle, which is characteristic of romanticism: Werther longs for harmony of soul, fullness of life and love, Albert is reasonable and reasonable, and Lotte’s choice leaned in his favor. Werther's conflict with the world is complex nature, he is not only shocked unrequited love, but is also subjected to humiliation in society, being a victim of class prejudices, being a person of poor means and modest origin. Hopelessness and despair, lack of any support, loneliness push Werther to commit suicide. Goethe expressed the irreconcilable conflict with the world, the impossibility of happiness and peace of mind for a person in the lines that became the epigraph to anniversary edition"Werther":
You have to leave, it’s my lot to live,
When you left the world, you lost so little.
The plot of the work seems very simple, even banal, especially if we read it today. Therefore, it is so important to understand what caused such a strong feeling in Goethe’s contemporaries and why this novel still arouses interest among readers. The novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” became a “discovery of man”, confirmation of his right to privacy, worthy place in society, free life choice. Goethe's book was written on the threshold of epoch-making political upheavals in Europe, declaring the most important thing - how the modern man. Fifteen years after the publication of Goethe’s novel, the Great French Revolution began, which destroyed the French monarchy and changed everything that had social order. The novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" was reference book the future conqueror Napoleon, at the height of his fame, he talked with Goethe, discussing the favorite book of his youth. The novel influenced, along with European political ideas, Russian literature, for example, the story by A.N. Radishchev “Diary of one week” in form and description strong feelings and the nature of the young man’s thoughts reminds him of Goethe’s hero.
The plot events of the novel are given credibility and credibility by the fact that they are based on facts from the biography of the writer himself and his life observations. In the summer of 1772, Goethe interned in the court of the city of Wetzlar, during which time he was platonically in love with his friend's fiancée, Charlotte Buff, which helped him later in describing Werther's feelings. The creation of the main images of the novel was also influenced by life experiences: the suicide of a friend, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, due to unhappy love, Goethe’s admiration for another girl, Maximilian von Laroche, who became the prototype of Lotte in the novel. Weave biographical facts, which over time disappear in memory and lose their meaning, with free and inspired poetic fantasy, as Goethe noted, and leads to the fact that everything described in the novel is perceived by the reader as written “only for him alone.”
In his novel, Goethe posed the problem of choice, which is very important for a person: not to accept in life active participation, not to resist its cruel laws and leave it, or through labor and faith in possible happiness and truth on earth to affirm life. Of course, the novel had a tragic impact on many, but Goethe own life proved the correctness of man’s life-affirming path.
Question 35. The Stürmer period in Goethe’s work. Goethe's lyrics.
Goethe's lyrics (the Stürmer period and the first Weimar decade).
Goethe was called an "Olympian" because of his desire for objectivity and balance. He has a certain distance between the creator and the subject of the image. The most important feature is a feeling of completeness and completeness. Goethe's talent is called organic. Many ideas grow from already outlined plots, forms that reveal new facets. Takes time to publish to introduce new images. The main quality of a worldview is dialecticity. Goethe perceives the whole world as a single whole - man is inseparable from nature. Such close ties develop evolutionarily; nothing is static; the hero is always changing, as are the circumstances around him. Goethe creates a special theory of evolution, transferred to the theory of the origin of the Earth. He's a supporter evolutionary development, not the big bang. His long life devoid of shocks, gradual revelation of Goethe's personality. A number of stylizations on folklore themes and images. One of the elements is song, small form, melodious verse, simple images– “Steppe Rose” (“Wild Rose”). Refrain, simple situation, fit into nature. The most important thing is the universality of the expressed feeling. Anyone can imagine themselves in this lyrical situation. "Infidel", "King of Fula", "Wild Rose".
The lyrics of the early Weimar period bear the stamp of internal discord and longing for harmony. In this sense, two small poems with the same title “Night Song of the Wanderer” (1776 and 1780) are indicative. The second was included in Russian. Poetry in a free translation by Lermontov. The same motives sound in love lyrics dedicated to himself to a loved one in those years - Charlotte von Stein, an intelligent, extraordinary woman who had a significant influence on the development of his personality in this turning point. Love is a reason to rise above the ground. The cycle of works “Sazenheim Songs”. The basis of poetics is 1) the specificity of the emotional state, inscribed in the circumstances. Goethe will comprehend this as a fundamental feature expressed through everyday elements - meetings with his beloved in home environment, walking together, reading turn into an occasion for lyrical outpourings. Goethe strives to find universal significance through the typical features of feeling. 2) intense dynamism, feelings are given in constant movement. The main emphasis is on verbs, even emotional condition transmitted through action, deed. “Date and parting.” Source internal conflict there was also a dichotomy, painful for Goethe, between practical, social and government activities and creativity; many works remained for a long time unfinished. As a result, Goethe decided to secretly flee from his duties to Italy. Visited Rome, Sicily, Naples, talked with German and Italian artists, plunged into the world of ancient and Renaissance art, an admiration for which he retained until the end of his life. He sees the aesthetic ideal, following Winckelmann, in the harmonious unity of the perfect physical and spiritual appearance of a person. This ideal contrasts with social reality, which no longer inspires him with hopes for radical renewal.
Goethe's "stormy" sentimentalism. "The Sorrows of Young Werther."
Goethe was born a citizen of the free imperial city of Frankfurt am Main, his family occupied a high and honorable place. Got a good one home education. In 1765, his father sent him to the University of Leipzig to study law, but the young student was more concerned about the lively literary and theatrical life cities. Classes in Leipzig were interrupted by serious illness. 1.5 years at home is a time of spiritual turning point, varied reading, spiritual quest. In 1770 he went to Strasbourg to complete his education. Here I joined a circle against the influence of French on German and literature. Goethe's acquaintance with Herder, cat. instilled in him a taste for the Middle Ages, for national history, infected with worship of Shakespeare. Love for the village pastor's daughter Friederike Brion, cat. dedicated best poems this period.K to a modern hero addresses Goethe in the very famous work of this period - the epistolary novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1774). At the heart of this novel, imbued with a deeply personal, lyrical beginning, is a real biographical experience. In the summer of 1772, Goethe practiced law in the office of the imperial court in the small town of Wetzlar, where he met the secretary of the Hanoverian embassy, Kästner, and his fiancée, Charlotte Buff. After Goethe returned to Frankfurt, Kästner informed him about the suicide of their mutual acquaintance, a young Jerusalem official, which deeply shocked him. The reason was unhappy love, dissatisfaction with one's social status, a feeling of humiliation and hopelessness. Goethe perceived this event as a tragedy of his generation. The novel arose a year later. Goethe chose the epistolary form, sanctified by the authorities of Richardson and Rousseau. She gave him the opportunity to focus on inner world the hero - the only author of the letters, to show through his eyes the life around him, people, their relationships. Gradually, the epistolary form develops into a diary form. At the end of the novel, the hero’s letters are addressed to himself - this reflects a growing feeling of loneliness, a vicious circle, which ends in a tragic denouement. At the beginning of the novel, an enlightened joyful feeling dominates: having left the city with its conventions and the falseness of human relationships, Werther enjoys solitude in the picturesque countryside terrain. Rousseau's worship of nature is combined here with a pantheistic hymn to the Omnipresent. Werther's Rousseauism is also manifested in his sympathetic attention to ordinary people, children who trustingly reach out to him. The movement of the plot is marked by seemingly insignificant episodes: the first meeting with Lotte, a village ball interrupted by a thunderstorm, the simultaneous memory of Klopstock's ode that flared up in both of them as the first symptom of their spiritual intimacy, joint walks - all this takes on deep meaning thanks to the internal perception of Werther, an emotional nature, completely immersed in the world of feelings. Werther does not accept cold arguments of reason, and in this he is the direct opposite of Lotte’s fiancé Albert, for whom he forces himself to respect as a worthy and decent person. This opposition is especially clear in their conversation about suicide: the sensible pragmatist Albert refuses to understand voluntary death, considering it immoral and a sign of weakness. Werther objects to this: “If the people, groaning under the intolerable yoke of the tyrant, finally rebel and break their chains, will you really call them weak?” these words not only foreshadow tragic end Werther himself, but also give him an interpretation. The second part of the novel introduces social issue. Werther's attempt to realize his abilities, intelligence, and education in the service of the envoy encounters the routine and pedantic pickiness of his boss. To top it off, he is made to feel his burgher origin in a humiliating manner. The final pages of the novel, telling about last hours Werther, his death and funeral are written on behalf of the “publisher” of the letters and are presented in a completely different, objective and restrained manner. The novel ends with the laconic lines: “The coffin was carried by the artisans. None of the clergy accompanied him." This precise detail (suicides were not buried according to church rites) emphasizes Werther’s rejection, his loneliness. Werther’s spiritual world, the changes in his mood are reflected in his reading - at the beginning of the novel he is immersed in the harmonious world of the “Odyssey” with its picture of patriarchal morals, at the end of the novel Homer is replaced by the mournful Ossian (Goethe included in the text of the novel his translations from Ossian, made under the influence of Herder). On the night of his suicide, “Emilia Galotti” lies open on his table. This non-fictional detail (it is taken from the circumstances of Jerusalem’s suicide) emphasizes the meaning of Werther’s act - the protest of an extraordinary, restless nature against the squalor of German reality. Goethe showed the spiritual tragedy of a young burgher, shackled in his impulses and aspirations by inert, frozen conditions surrounding life. But having penetrated deeply into the spiritual world of his hero, Goethe did not identify himself with him, he was able to look at him with an objective gaze great artist. Many years later he would say: “I wrote Werther so as not to become him.” He found a way out for himself in creativity, which turned out to be inaccessible to his hero. “Werther” provoked many imitations not only in literature, but also in life - in response, a wave of suicides swept through. But if the youth of sentimental circles received the novel enthusiastically, Lessing was skeptical about it: he resolutely refused to sympathize with the young man who committed suicide because of unhappy love.
