The Sorrows of Young Werther- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (3/50)

"Yes, I am right. That's how it is. As all nature tends to toward autumn, it becomes autumn within me and around me"

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" was published in 1774 by Goethe. It had a great impact in European society. Actually, power started to emerge from youths who, in som cases, selected their clothes to suggest a reference to the book. The text was forbidden in some cities. Its impact extended so far that Napoleon always used to carry this book in his wars. Goethe tries to explain his reasons to write it, he needs to clarify suicide sometimes is related to poetry; however, literature is like a river that is borning everyday, following roads that neither authors may control.

The book is about the letters sent  by Werther to his close friend William. Werther is a young man in a small town called Walheim. He uses to read Homer and to talk about his feelings. In fact, everything is about his intense, passionate and deep feelings. His notion about life makes him want to follow an utopia where poetry may be alive (touchable). He is an admirer of peasants' life, their simple and humane way to be. 

He is in love with Charlotte whom he calls repeatedly Lotte. She is a warm woman in charge of her brothers and sisters afer her mother died. Her feelings oscilate as much as Werther's. In fact, she tries to preserve her image of maternal woman but in the end she realizes about mixed feelings towards her admirer. She has a relationship with a man called Albert with whom she marries.

Lotte's seduction power may be understood in the scene when she kisses a hungry bird and makes Werther do the same. It is a mixture of impossibility, hunger and desire. Werther knows about a man who killed someone because of love. He fears he might do the same. He is a really close friend of Albert and Lotte marriage but it hurts him. He is playing a game in which he is always the loser.

Finally, he decides to shoot a gun to put end to his sorrows not without giving us his story of love. It is a story about a romantic man who is following poetry but sometimes may not find it. May be Homer is too far.