Journal of Philosophy and Theology

1 See H.B. Nisbet, “Religion and Philosophy” in The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, ed. Lesley Sharpe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 219-231.

2 Maxim 548 in Goethes Werke (Hamburger Ausgabe. Hamburg: C. Wegner, 1949-1960). XII, 440. My translation.

3 Friedrich Paulsen, “Goethes ethisches Anschauugen: Festvortrag,” Goethe-Jahrbuch 23 (1902). 7. My translation.

4 C. S. Muenzer in Figures of Identity: Goethe’s Novels and the Enigmatic Self (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984) explores “the role that failure plays in the evolving reflexivity of the aspiring mind and its culmination in an autonomous sense of self-worth” (148). While Muenzer is right to point out the significance of failure in the novel, he argues that the letters ultimately allow Werther to achieve an autonomous sense of self-worth. However, he overlooks the sustained ambiguityof the novel. In the end, Werther’s quest for self-worth–as well as his quest for moral freedom–remains unresolved.

5 The ambiguous and ultimately indeterminate position on the success or failure of Werther’s attempt to achieve moral freedom through his suicide is even reflected in Goethe’s writing two versions of the novel. The first, of 1774, is more passionate and immediate; the second, of 1787 (the version treated in this article) is more withdrawn in tone, and is more sympathetic to the Albert figure. Goethe’s attempt to redress the balance of sympathies makes matters more, rather than less, complex. Additionally, it is worth noting that this disquieting ambivalence is reflected in Goethe’s uncomfortable relationship to the novel throughout his life: he never read from it in public, and his own responses to the Werther figure ranged from the censorious to the justificatory. Many critics overlook or refuse to accept the ambiguity so essential to Werther’s portrayal. For example, W.H. Auden, who is of the opinion that Werther is an egocentric monster (and that Goethe intended us to see him that way) cites Werther's resignation as the preeminent example of his selfishness. In doing so, Auden overlooks the complexity and ambiguity of Werther’s portrayal: while he is sometimes depicted egocentrically he is just as often depicted as compassionate, even selfless. Just as the novel resists taking a firm position on the success or failure of Werther’s assertion of feelings through his suicide, it resists taking a definitive value-laden position on Werther’s character. Even the name “Werther” is unusual as it implies a kind of “value” (“Wert”). Yet, what this value might be is unclear.

6 Goethe himself subscribed to a religion of nature that undoubtedly influenced that of Werther’s. According to Nisbet, Goethe’s pantheism may have been inspired by that of Spinoza’s whose Ethics (1677) he had studied in 1774, the same year the first version of Werther appeared (Nisbet 222).

7 Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, trans. Burton Pike. (New York: Modern Library, 2004),10. All translations are from this edition and indicated in parentheses.

8 Burton Pike notes an implicit contrast between Werther (“the weak artist”) and Goethe (“the strong artist”) in that Werther is unable to use art to bridge the gap between his self and the external world while Goethe is able to do so through the novel itself: “Goethe is very much in control of a novel about a character who spins increasingly out of control...The letters are constructed to make the feelings they present come alive.” See Burton Pike, Introduction to The Sorrows of Young Werther, Trans. Burton Pike (New York: Modern Library, 2004), xxi.

9 Pike, Burton. Introduction to The Sorrows of Young Werther, trans. Burton Pike. (New York: Modern Library, 2004)

10 Pike, viii

11 Clark S. Muenzer, Figures of Identity: Goethe’s Novels and the Enigmatic Self (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984), 19.

12 Pike, xi

13 Of course, even Werther’s empathy with Ossian is ambiguous: The Songs of Ossian which Goethe translated into German from English were a hoax. Goethe was aware of their questionable authenticity which adds another level of ambiguity to Werther’s use of Ossian to understand himself. In some sense, Werther’s use of this literary work to celebrate his own failure to connect with the world–and to take reassurance in his failure–is predicated upon a work which is, in some sense, also illusory.

14 Lotte's unique circumstances–being the oldest child in her family, temperamentally suited to child-rearing, and having a mother who died and left her in charge – encourage Werther to idealize her as a virgin mother.She, like the Virgin Mary, plays an intercessional role in her community; the dying Frau M., for example, wants Lotte by her side while she dies.

15 Goethe’s “editor’s” (“Herausgeber’s”) strange note about the omission of “several German authors” (presumably sentimental authors like Oliver Goldsmith, author of The Vicar of Wakefield) implies that those who share Lotte’s taste do not need the names of the authors since they will “feel it in his heart.” “No one else,” he claims, “needs to know it” (25). This suggests that he does not wish others who have not already encountered these sentimental novels to begin to read and be influenced by them. His attitude toward feeling (and, by extension, towards Werther) is reflected later in the cold, clinical tone with which he narrates Werther’s suicide.

16 As many commentators have registered, the image of the dancer as one with the dance constantly recurs in nineteenth-century European literature as the palpable expression of a desperately longed-for ontological wholeness: “We were delighted for a while with all the diverse interweaving of arms…To have the most charming person in my arms and fly around with her like lightning, so that everything around us vanished…” (26-7). The feeling of wholeness he experiences when he dances with Lotte (made possible by the reciprocity of feeling with her) is contrasted throughout the novel by the feeling of distance and fragmentation he feels when confronted with moral and social conventions. For example, he later writes of feeling like a spectator at a puppet theater: “I play along, or rather, I am played like a marionette and sometimes I grasp my neighbor by his wooden hand in recoil in horror” (25). Indeed, the trope of being “played” is helpful in thinking about Werther’s suicide: it occurs at the moment when he neither can nor will be played no more.

17Lotte’s invocation of Klopstock in response to the thunderstorm probably refers to his famous poem Die Frühlingsfeyerthat contained admiration of a thunderstorm.

18 Albert’s position on suicide recalls Kant’s who, in the Lectures, writes that “. . . the mention of suicide makes us shudder . . . Suicide is the most abominable of the vices which inspire dread and hate . . .” (Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1963), 124).

19 The details of Werther’s suicide, including the inclusion of Emilia Galotti, were taken wholesale from the suicide of Goethe’s distant acquaintance Jerusalam. An explanation of its resonance would go far beyond the scope of this article.

Christopher Trogan, PhD
Associate Professor
United States Merchant Marine Academy
&
Adjunct Lecturer
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
New York University
United States