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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s most famous novel:
„The sorrows of the young Werther“
Completely translated into Latin and got up with a detailed glossary by Nikolaus Groß.
„The
sorrows of the young Werther“ is an epistolary novel of Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe. The first edition was published in 1774, a revised
edition followed in 1787. This book was Goethe’s first novel, by
which in Germany he became famous overnight. The book was edited
in autumn of 1774, during the Book Fair of Leipzig and became there a
bestseller. No further book of Goethe has been read by so many
contemporaries. The success caused by it was enough for lifelong glory
and wealth.
The greatest part of the plot is told by letters, which Werther addresses to his friend Wilhelm Humml.
As
a young man, who still does not know what he wants to do in his life,
Werther flees from the city into the middle-class world of a village
named „Wahlheim“. There he enjoys it to roam around the
country and to practice drawing, because he considers himself as an
artist. One day, Werther learns to know a bailiff, who invites him into
his house. For long time Werther has no opportunity to go there. But
one day he decides to visit the bailiff and there he meets a beautiful
woman, Lotte, the bailiff’s daughter. Her eight brothers and
sisters simply swarm around Lotte, who cares them with maternal
solicitude. Werther knows in advance, that Lotte is betrothed, when he
is going to the bailiff. He is told that by the women, who make this
travel together with him. But he dismisses this thought and falls in
love with Lotte immediately. One day Werther and Lotte go
together to a ball. During the ball a storm is brewing. They both think
about the same poem of Klopstock so that they feel their deep affinity
of nature. From that time on Lotte and Werther spend much time together.
When
Albert, Lotte’s fiancé, returns from a business travel,
Werther’s feelings gradually change. The presence of the
fiancé makes him conscious of the hopelessness of his love.
Although Albert is a pleasant, good-natured man, the relationship
between him and Werther remains tense. When Werther notices that
because of the problematic constellation he cannot live out his strong
feelings for Lotte, he leaves the city in order to get over his love.
For some time, Werther works with an envoy; but the pedantry of
business and the narrowness of etiquette destroy his hopes. He cannot
identify himself with the life of the nobles. Disappointed he returns
to W. Meanwhile Lotte and Albert are married.
One
evening, when Werther short before Christmas, in the absence of
Albert visits Lotte and reads her from the „Ossian“,
he is overcome with emotion, embraces and kisses her. But Lotte tears
herself free and asseverates to want to see him not before Christmas (4
days later). After this occurrence, Werther despairs definitely. He
writes a farewell letter, on the pretext of a travel he borrows from
Albert two pistolets and shoots himself. Next morning, he is found
fatally wounded, in his characteristic blue-yellow dress, and finally
dies about high noon. Lessing’s tragedy „Emilia
Galotti“ lies opened on his desk. As a self-murderer he is
refused to be buried according to christian rite.
"I
have carefully collected whatever I have been able to learn of the
story of poor Werther, and here present it to you, knowing that you
will thank me for it. To his spirit and character you cannot refuse
your admiration and love: to his fate you will not deny your tears. And
thou, good soul, who sufferest the same distress as he endured once,
draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be thy friend,
if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a
dearer companion."
(English translation: Thomas Carlyle and R.D. Boylan)
Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe’s most famous novel „The sorrows of the
young Werther“, translated into Latin and provided with a
detailed glossary by Nikolaus Groß.
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