The Sorrows of Young Werther Author: [Germany] Goethe Publisher: People's Literature Publishing House

Introduction
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) is a representative work of the Sturm und Drang movement. It is an epistolary novel written by Goethe based on his own experience, depicting Werther's love tragedy and expressing the depression of a generation of young people. The novel became popular in Europe after its publication, setting off a "Werther fever". Napoleon also carried this little book with him when he was busy with military affairs. For more than two hundred years, Werther's fate has touched generations of young people.
Werther and Goethe
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) was an outstanding German poet, writer, scholar and thinker. With his hard work for more than sixty years, he left behind a rich, brilliant and enormous spiritual wealth for Germany and mankind. He made great contributions to the development of German and human culture. People today regard him as the most outstanding representative of modern Western spiritual civilization after Dante and Shakespeare. His major work, the poetic drama "Faust", is regarded as a summary of the three hundred years of European history since the Renaissance, and a magnificent ode to mankind's unremitting spirit of self-improvement and a bright future. However, during his lifetime, Goethe was Goethe, and the reason why he was famous all over the world was not because of the first published "Faust" or other long novels like "Wilhelm Meister", but mainly because of a thin "little book" he wrote when he was young.
——"The Sorrows of Young Werther" (abbreviated as "Werther").
Werther not only occupies a prominent position among Goethe's numerous works, but is also closely related to an important stage of his development. In his later years, Goethe said in his autobiography Poetry and Truth, which recalls his life in his youth, that his works are "just fragments of a huge confession". Werther is undoubtedly the most meaningful of these "fragments". It directly reflects the life experience of the young Goethe, and his thoughts and feelings are imprinted everywhere between the lines.
Goethe grew up in Germany, which was still in a state of feudal separatism and backward in politics and economy. His hometown, Frankfurt on the Main River, was an independent so-called imperial city with relatively developed commerce, but it still retained the strict hierarchy and other old customs of the Middle Ages. His father, Caspar Goethe, was a wealthy citizen in the city. Although he was wealthy, knowledgeable, and had a doctorate in law, he was still despised by the dominant nobles and wanted to get a city government position without receiving a salary, but he failed. In a fit of anger, he spent money to buy an empty title of royal advisor from Emperor Karl VII of the Empire, and was forced to stay at home for life. He had to spend his time collecting paintings and writing travel notes about his early trip to Italy in Italian. He married the daughter of the mayor from a poor family at the age of 39, and since then he has devoted more energy to the education of his young wife and children. On the one hand, such a family background enabled Goethe to enjoy a good education and live a leisurely life without the fear of starvation and coldness, but on the other hand, it also made him subtly
The people were gradually infected with disgust for the feudal hierarchy and corrupt aristocratic society.
At the age of sixteen, Goethe was sent to the University of Leipzig to study law, but dropped out of school three years later due to illness. After recuperating at home for a year and a half, he went to Strasbourg in April 1770 to continue his studies. Strasbourg is located on the border between Germany and France, and was deeply influenced by the new ideas of the French Enlightenment. It was a place where German writers, scholars and young citizens who were dissatisfied with the status quo gathered. Like in Leipzig, Goethe did not focus on his studies, but was enthusiastic about studying the architectural art of the majestic Gothic cathedral, making friends with some like-minded young people, and often went to the picturesque suburbs with them. But the most important thing was that he met Herder, who was already famous in the German literary world at that time. Under his guidance, he read the poems of Homer, Pindar and "Ossian" (the "Ossian" elegy inserted in "Werther" was translated by Goethe at this time), read Shakespeare's plays and novels such as Goldsmith's "The Country Vicar of Wakefield", collected and sorted folk songs, and studied Spinoza's pantheistic philosophy. Through the joint efforts of Goethe and Herder, Germany launched the first nationwide ideological liberation movement since the Reformation - the "Sturm und Drang" movement. Herder was the planner of this movement, and Goethe later published the "Virtue".
He has become its standard-bearer through a series of works with a strong rebellious spirit, including "Special".
In August 1771, Goethe returned to his hometown after obtaining his doctorate and opened a law firm. But not long after, the firm was completely handed over to his father, and he often wandered around the nearby towns and villages. The following year, introduced by his friend Melke, he joined a sentimentalist group in Darmstadt, where he often met with fashionable men and women who cried when seeing flowers fall and felt sad under the moon, and indulged in reading Klopstock's poems and Sterne's "Sentimentalism".
Novels like "Travel".
In May 1772, Goethe followed his father's wishes and went to the Imperial High Court in Wetzlar for internship. At a country dance, he met the innocent and beautiful girl Charlotte Buff and fell in love with her. But Charlotte was already engaged to his friend Kestner, so Goethe was desperate and distressed. He had thoughts of suicide from time to time. Four months later, he resolutely left without saying goodbye and returned to Frankfurt. More than a month later, there was the sad news that a young man named Jerusalem committed suicide in Wetzlar. This man was Goethe's classmate at the University of Leipzig, and he had contact with him after arriving in Wetzlar. Goethe learned from Kestner's letter that the reason for his suicide was that he was rejected for his love for his colleague's wife, was often criticized by his superiors at work, and was despised by noble men and women in social occasions. This incident greatly shocked Goethe.
This made him unable to forget his misfortune for a long time.
In early 1774, Maximilien, the daughter of the female writer Sophie de la Roche, came to Frankfurt and married a wealthy businessman named Brentano. She was eighteen years old, lively and clever. Goethe had known her before and had a good impression of her. They were both very happy after the reunion, so they became very close. Her husband was twenty years older than her. Before marrying her, he was a widower with five children. He was a vulgar man and soon became jealous of the relationship between the two young people. Finally, he had a fierce conflict with Goethe. This new stimulation made the old wound in Goethe's heart bleed again, making him pick up his pen in anger. Finally, he decided to write down all the pain he had experienced and felt in his love life in the past two years, which gave rise to "The Sorrows of Young Werther".
A world classic.
Regarding the writing of Werther, Poetry and Truth Volume 13 gives the following description: "... before long, this situation became unbearable for me, and all the unpleasantness that was accustomed to arise from such embarrassing situations seemed to be doubled and tripled.
It's oppressing me, and I need to make a new decision to get relief.