The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings Read online

  Persons like that are not overly absorbed with themselves. They have time to observe what is going on around them and are sufficiently easygoing to adjust to the outside world and enjoy a sense of equality with it. They become clever and understanding without undue exertion and require few books for their education. The girl’s nature was like that. Her fiancé, with his thoroughly honest and trusting attitude toward life, soon introduced her to everyone he thought well of, and liked it—because he was busy during the greater part of the day—when, after having completed her household duties, she amused herself in other ways and enjoyed sociability in the form of walks or excursions into the countryside with friends. Lotte—I suppose we might as well call her that—was undemanding in two ways: first, according to her nature, which was intent on creating general good will rather than on attracting any specific attention, and secondly, she had already chosen someone who was worthy of her, who had declared himself willing to join his fate with hers for life. Wherever she was, it was always gay. It is indeed a pleasant sight to see parents devoting themselves to their children, but it is even more beautiful to see brother and sister doing the same thing for each other. In the former we see a more natural drive and more traditional origins; in the latter, greater freedom of choice and spirit.

  The new arrival was completely free of all ties and blithe in the presence of this girl who, already betrothed to another, did not interpret his favors as a wooing and could thus enjoy them all the more. He could therefore afford to let himself go and was soon so deeply infatuated, and at the same time receiving such trustful and kind treatment from the pair, that he didn’t know his own mind! Idle and dreamy—since the present could not satisfy him—he found what he missed in this girl who, because she lived for time as a whole, seemed to live only for the moment. She enjoyed the young man as a companion. Soon he did not know how to get along without her, for she opened up the outside world to him, and they became inseparable companions in field, on meadow, and in garden. When her fiancé’s work permitted, he accompanied them. They became accustomed to being three quite unintentionally, without knowing how or when they had reached this point of mutual need. Thus a glorious summer passed by, a true German idyll. The fruitful earth provided the prose and their pure attraction the poetry. They refreshed themselves on dewy mornings by wandering through the ripe cornfields; the lark’s song and the quail’s cry delighted them. Hot days followed, there were terrible thunderstorms—all of which succeeded only in bringing them closer—and numerous little family spats were quickly forgotten thanks to their steadfast love. One ordinary day followed another, and every day seemed to be a feast day. The whole calendar might have been printed in red! He will understand me who recalls what was prophesied about the unhappy friend of the new Héloïse: “Sitting at the feet of his beloved he shall break flax, and he shall want to break flax, today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, yea, for his entire life.”2

  And now I can tell a little, but as much as is necessary, about a young man whose name will be mentioned often in the pages to come—Jerusalem, the son of a liberal-minded and highly sensitive theologian. He also held a post at one of the embassies. He was pleasant-looking, of medium height, and well built. His face was round rather than long, his features were soft and tranquil, and he possessed everything else that a nice-looking, blond young man should have—even blue eyes that were appealing rather than expressive. He dressed in a style which the North Germans had copied from the English—a blue coat, a leather-yellow vest and breeches, and boots with brown cuffs. I never visited him, nor was he ever a guest at my house. We met sometimes at the houses of friends. The young man expressed himself with moderation, but amiably. He took part in our various artistic endeavors and seemed especially attracted to those drawings and sketches that succeeded in conveying the silent aspects of a lonely region. Sometimes he would show us etchings by Gessner and would encourage us amateurs to study them. But he took little or no part in our efforts to re-create the chivalric aspects of an earlier life,3 or our masquerades. He lived according to his convictions. There was some talk about his passion for the wife of a friend, but they were never seen together in public. Altogether very little was known about him except that he was interested in English literature. He was the son of a wealthy man and therefore had neither to worry about business nor seek a lucrative post anywhere.

  The Gessner etchings just mentioned heightened our longing for pastoral scenes, and a short poem that was ecstatically received in our small circle also affected us so that we seemed to have eyes for nothing else. “The Deserted Village,” by Goldsmith, was enjoyed by people on every level of education. In it all those things were described, not as living or still effective but as part of a past, lost existence, which we wanted to see with our own eyes, which we loved and valued and sought avidly in the present, in order to play our youthful, lively part in it. Feast and holiday in the country, church fair, and market, to say nothing of the serious assembly of town elders under the village linden tree being jostled by the robust dancing of the young people or perhaps even by the gentler folk—these pleasures seemed to be so fitting, tempered as they were by the village priest who knew just how to take care of any situation that got out of hand or might give cause for bickering and strife. Here we found our honest Wakefield again in his well-known surroundings, no longer vividly portrayed, but a shadow recalled by the elegiac poet’s soft lament. The very idea of such a description is felicitous as soon as one has decided to recall the innocent past in a mood of sweet sadness. And how the English succeed in this amiable pursuit! I shared Gotter’s enthusiasm for this charming poem. He was more successful in translating it than I was, for I approached the task of reproducing the delicate meanings of the original in our language too timidly and succeeded in some passages, but not with the thing as a whole.

  If, as they say, our greatest happiness rests in our longings, and if true longing may have only what is unattainable as its goal, then all things certainly had come together to make our young man, whom we are accompanying on his erratic journey, the happiest of mortals. His attraction to a girl already affianced, his urge to assimilate the masterpieces of a foreign language, thereby making them his, his efforts to re-create all things natural not only in words but with stylus and brush as well, and this without any actual technique—all these things could have sufficed to oppress him and bring his heart to the breaking point….

  I could hardly wait to introduce Merck to Lotte, but alas, his presence in our little circle didn’t do me any good, for just as Mephistopheles may go where he pleases but can hardly be expected to act as a blessing, Merck’s indifference to my dear girl did not exactly cause me to waver in my affections but it certainly did not add to my pleasure. I might have known this would happen; I should have remembered that it was just such slight, dainty persons, who know how to spread a vital gaiety around them without making any demands, that Merck did not care for. He soon showed his preference for a more Junoesque friend of Lotte’s, and since he lacked the time to start an affair with her, he scolded me quite acridly because I was not wooing this magnificent female, especially since she was free and unattached. I didn’t know what was good for me, he declared, and he didn’t like to see, even here, my special penchant for wasting my time.

  It is dangerous to introduce a friend to the merits of one’s beloved because he may find her attractive too, but his rejection is no less a danger, for he may confuse us with it. This was not the case now—I was far too deeply touched by the magic of her sweetness for the picture ever to be erased—but his presence and his powers of persuasion hastened my decision to leave the place. He made a trip along the Rhine that he was about to undertake with his wife and son sound fascinating, and aroused in me the longing at last to see with my own eyes a region that I had always heard about with envy. After he had left, I took leave of Charlotte with a clearer conscience than I had said farewell to Friederike, but still not without pain. Through habit and indulgence, our rel
ationship had become more ardent on my side than had been my intention. She, on the other hand, and her fiancé, had always been so carefree and behaved toward me in a fashion that could not have been more sweet and friendly, and the feeling of security resulting from this had made me forget any idea of danger. But there was no hiding the fact that this little episode was about to end, for their marriage now depended only on his imminent promotion, and since a man, if he is resolute, does what is necessary of his own free will, I decided to remove myself before what was unbearable might drive me away.

  Frankfurt, September 1772

  He who dares go out into the world is like a man who has decided to become a soldier and go to war. Courageously he takes upon himself the idea of enduring perils and hardship, wounds and pain, even death, but he never takes the trouble to imagine the specific circumstances under which these universally anticipated misfortunes may choose to surprise him disagreeably. An author especially finds himself in such a position, and that is what happened to me. Since most readers are inspired more by the material than by the way it is treated, the sympathy of young men to my plays was, for the most part, for their content. They thought they saw in the events a standard behind which everything that was wild and boorish in youth could rally. And it was just the keenest minds—those who were trying to cope with something similar—that were most enchanted with them…. More sober men, on the other hand, accused me of portraying the policy of the mailed fist too sympathetically and went so far as to accuse me of wanting to bring back such uncertain times. Some took me for an erudite man and demanded that I publish a new edition of the original story of Götz, with footnotes, which I did not feel at all like doing, although I permitted them to put my name on the title page of a new printing. Because I had known how to pick the fruits of a great life, they took me for a scrupulous gardener, but this supposedly tremendous erudition of mine was the subject of doubts in others.

  An esteemed merchant paid me an unexpected visit. I felt greatly honored, especially since he started the conversation by praising Götz von Berlichingen and my fine insight into German history, but I soon began to feel hurt when I noticed that he had really come only to inform me that Götz von Berlichingen had not been a brother-in-law of Franz von Sickingen, and that I was offending history with such poetic license. I tried to excuse myself by pointing out that Götz himself had called the man that, but I was told that this was a manner of speech meant only to express a more intimate relationship, similar to the current fad of calling the stagecoach driver “brother” without enjoying any family ties with him. I thanked the man for his information as best I could and expressed my regret that there wasn’t much we could do about it now. He expressed the same regret and proceeded to exhort me, in a quite friendly way, to make a further study of Germany’s history and constitution, and offered me the facilities of his library toward that end, an offer which I promptly made good use of.

  But the most amusing incident of this kind was the visit of a bookdealer who blithely asked me for a dozen such plays and promised to pay well for them. Of course, this amused all of us highly, yet the man was not so far wrong, for I was quietly toying with the idea of moving backward and forward from this turning point in German history and of treating the main events in a similar way, a praiseworthy intention that was thwarted by the swift passage of time, like so many other things. But Götz was not the only theme on my mind, for while I was reflecting on it, writing and rewriting it, and it was being printed and distributed, many other ideas and suggestions occupied my thoughts. Those that would have to be treated as dramas took first place. I thought them through most often and brought them closer to realization. At the same time, however, there was developing in me the transition to another representational form that is not usually categorized with the drama, yet has strong kinship with it. This transition took place because of a peculiarity of mine that enabled me to transform a conversation with myself into a dialogue.

  Accustomed by preference to spending my time sociably, I succeeded in transforming solitary thinking into friendly conversation in the following manner: When I saw that I was alone, I would summon some person or other from my circle of friends, in spirit. I would ask this person to sit down and would pace up and down or stand still before him and discuss any problems with him that were on my mind. Every now and then my companion would reply and agree or disagree with the usual gestures—every person has his own way of doing so. I would then elaborate on whatever seemed to have pleased my guest or would qualify what had not; perhaps I would be more precise about it and probably, in the end, let the subject drop. Strangely enough I never chose to summon my more intimate friends, but only those I saw seldom—even some who lived far away, with whom I enjoyed only a fleeting relationship. But the ones I called in were, for the most part, of a receptive rather than effusive nature, capable of participating quietly and clearheadedly, even when I chose to summon contradictory spirits to join in these dialectical exercises. Toward this end, persons of either sex and every age and rank were good enough to appear and all of them were amiable, since nothing was mentioned except subjects that were clear and agreeable to them. And it would have been a marvelous revelation to some of them, if they had found out how often they were called in to such an idealized conversation, since quite a few of them would have been heard to come by for a real one!

  It is clear that a conversation in spirit, such as this, is closely related to correspondence, the only differences being that in the latter one sees one’s confidence reciprocated and in the former one creates one’s own fresh and constantly changing unrequited confidences. When it came to the point, therefore, of my wishing to describe the weariness with which people often experience life without having been forced to such a dismal outlook by want, I hit upon the idea, as author, of expressing my feelings in letters. For this weariness, this disgust with life, is born of loneliness; it is the foster child of solitude. He who gives himself up to it flees from all opposition; and what could oppose him more than all blithe company? The joy of life in others is an embarrassingly painful reproach to him. Thus he is thrust back upon himself by the very things that should serve to take him out of himself. If he ever does want to discuss it, then surely only in letters, for a written effusion, whether it be joyous or morose, does not antagonize anyone directly, and an answer filled with counterarguments gives the lonely man an opportunity to harden in his peculiarities and offers the inducement to become more obdurate. Werther’s letters, which were written with this in mind, probably enjoyed such a diversified popularity because the various events were first discussed in idealized dialogues with several individuals but then, in the composition itself, they are directed at one friend and participant only. I don’t think it would be advisable to say more about the treatment of this much-discussed little volume, but quite a bit remains to be told about the content.

  A repugnance toward life has its physical and moral origins. We shall leave the explanation of the former to the doctor, of the latter to the moralist, and, in material that has been worked over again and again, let us pay attention to the salient point where this phenomenon expresses itself most clearly. All one’s gratifications in life are based on the regular reappearance of external things. The change from day to night, of the seasons, of flower and fruit, and all the other things that confront us at regular intervals so that we may and should enjoy them—these are the actual wellsprings of our daily life. The more openly we avow these pleasures, the happier we are. But if these divers spectacles revolve in front of us and we take no part in them, then we are unreceptive to these precious gifts; then the greatest evil, the most dire sickness breaks out in us—we look upon life as a repulsive burden. There is the story of an Englishman who hanged himself because he didn’t want to dress and undress himself any more. I knew a gardener, a stalwart fellow in charge of a big park, who in his bleakness cried out one day, “Am I to spend my whole life watching the rain clouds move from eve to morn?” And then I have h
eard tell of one of our best men that he hates to see the greening of springtime and wishes that, for a change, everything would come up red! All these are symptoms of a weariness of life that quite often culminates in suicide and is more prevalent among thoughtful introverts than one would care to believe.

  Nothing, however, can further such a weariness of life as much as the repetition of love. First love is truly described as the only love, for in the second, and through the second, the emotion in its highest sense is already lost. The idea of forever and eternal—which is really what uplifts and sustains love—is destroyed, and it becomes a transient thing like all events that are repeated. The separation of its sensual and moral aspects, which in our confused civilization has split our loving and desiring sensations, also produces harmful exaggerations.

  Furthermore, a young man soon becomes aware—if not in himself, then in others—of the fact that moral epochs change just as the seasons do. The graciousness of the great, the favor of the powerful, the promotion of those who are diligent, the adulation of the crowd, the love of an individual—all fluctuate without our being able to hold fast to any of them, any more than we can grasp the sun, moon, or stars. And these things are not all natural phenomena. They elude us through our own fault or the fault of others, by chance or by fate, but they change, and we can never be sure of them.