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Goethe's Werther and its effects

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s2215-0366(14)70229-9

2215-0374

Belinda Jack,

In 1774, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published a novel entitled Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther), that tells of an unhappy romantic infatuation that ends in suicide. Goethe immediately became the "first literary character in Europe", as Lord Byron described him 50 years later. Goethe was the chief proponent of a movement in German literature known as Sturm und Drang, literally "storm and stress". It was a literature that strove to be more local and more realistic. Werther is, equally, a high point of German Romanticism and it contains what is probably the most famous suicide in literature. The novel is made up of biographical and autobiographical facts in relation to two triangular relationships and one individual: Goethe, Christian Kestner, and Charlotte Buff (who married Kestner); Goethe, Peter Anton Brentano, Maximiliane von La Roche (who married Brentano), and Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who died by suicide on the night of Oct 29 or 30, 1772. He shot himself in the head with a pistol borrowed from Kestner. Goethe, Kestner, and Charlotte were close friends and Goethe was deeply in love with Charlotte. He left Wetzlar where they all lived in the autumn of 1772 in a bid to get over his passion for the married young woman. Goethe made his way to Koblenz and there he met and fell in love with Maximiliane von La Roche, who was 16 years old. In the 13th book of his autobiography Poetry and Truth, he wrote, "It is a very pleasant feeling when a new passion starts in us before the old has quite lapsed—as at sunset when we see the moon rising opposite and enjoy the double radiance of both heavenly lights". Goethe had first met Jerusalem when he was a student in Leipzig, and their friendship was confirmed during the summer of 1772, in Wetzlar, central Germany. Jerusalem was in love with the married Elisabeth Herd but feelings were not reciprocal. When Goethe returned to Wetzlar in early November, deeply affected by Jerusalem's death, he set about finding out all he could concerning the circumstances and possible motives for the suicide. Much of what he learnt was from a detailed account written by Kestner which Goethe might or might not have encouraged him to write. At this stage Goethe was simply amassing information. In January, 1774, Goethe was in Frankfurt and met up again with Maximiliane, now married to Bretano. Bretano was more than twenty years older than Maximiliane, a widower who already had five children: Maximiliane would bear Bretano twelve more. She died aged 37 years. During that January, 1774, Goethe and Maximiliane formed a close relationship and it was when Maximiliane left Frankfurt that he set to work on his remarkable novel. In his autobiography he wrote: "I had entirely isolated myself, indeed I had forbidden my friends to visit me. Inwardly also I put to one side everything that did not belong to my project but gathered together everything that had any bearing on it. I went over my recent life, the stuff of which I had not put to any poetic use." As David Constantine writes in the introduction to his excellent translation, "Novels and poems, which are fictions made of the stuff of life, again and again will alter our decided versions of the lives we have lived and are living now. Beyond any doubt, Goethe's Werther altered the way its readers viewed their lives; doubtless many lived or wished to live differently because of it." And it was a literary sensation. As Bayard Quincy Morgan writes, "Werther is the first German novelette (a form in which German writers have excelled), the first German epistolary novel and the first German work of any kind to make both its author and his country's literature internationally known." There were translations into French and English in numerous editions. In Germany, where the work created an extraordinary craze, 20 pirated editions appeared within 12 years of its first publication. Werther's costume, blue tailcoat, yellow waistcoat, trousers, and tall boots, the Werthertracht (Werther costume), was copied everywhere and was worn by the court at Weimar when Goethe visited in 1775. Napoleon himself was a great admirer of the novel and had apparently read it seven times. He and Goethe discussed it when they met in 1808. Additionally, publication of the novel initiated one of the earliest cases of intensive merchandising in Germany. Scenes from the novel decorated porcelain (made in China) and fans; silhouettes of Lotte (the novel's heroine) circulated; a perfume was named after Goethe's hero (eau de Werther); and the Werther costume could be seen in the pages of fashion books. The success of the novel may seem exaggerated to the 21st century reader, but it has to be remembered that novels constituted the most emotionally powerful medium at a time when there were no other mass media; no radio, television, cinema, videos, video games, or the vast resources of the internet. More chillingly dramatic than the extraordinary commercial success of Werther, is the fact that it was said that people in many countries were so persuaded by the novel that, if disappointed in love, they imitated Werther's manner of death. According to Goethe, "My friends…thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public…" That there was significant imitation of Werther's suicide was never demonstrated conclusively, but we do know that various authorities were sufficiently concerned to move them to ban the book in, for example, Italy, Copenhagen, and Leipzig (where the Werther costume was also banned). We also know that on Jan 16, 1778, Christel von Lassberg drowned herself in the River Ilm in Weimar. In her pocket was a copy of Goethe's Werther. It is difficult to ascertain today whether or not there was a sudden rise in the suicide rates of broken-hearted young people in the 18th century, but modern psychiatric research suggests the existence of a so-called Werther effect of suicide contagion. As a result, many countries now have guidelines for the media when reporting suicides. It turns out that it is not simply the fact of a suicide that might affect the actions of others, but the manner in which it is reported. Conversely, attempts to prevent suicide by the method of reporting have recently been termed the Papageno effect, after the character of that name in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. Papageno fears that he has lost his love, Papagena, and is planning his death when he is prevented at the last minute by three child-spirits who suggest that he ring his magic bells to summon Papagena. She duly appears. So the anecdotal evidence of the suicides provoked by reading The Sorrows of Young Werther begins to look more convincing. I would like to propose a further reason for its credibility, to add to the recent evidence of psychiatric research, and that is to do with the narrative technique of the novel. The novel is made up mainly of letters. But Goethe's epistolary form has a peculiarly original distinction, and that is that Werther's correspondent's letters are missing. So Werther writes to his friend, the pragmatic Wilhelm, but the reader cannot see his replies. The reader, therefore, becomes Wilhelm's stand-in. 18th century readers would be used to novels with a clear moral message, often articulated by the narrator. But reading Werther we are left to intuit Wilhelm's responses on the basis of Werther's subsequent letter. Nowhere is this engagement with Werther more intense then when, at great length, he justifies suicide in his letter of Aug 12, 1771. As readers, we imagine Wilhelm's response and even consider what our own persuasive strategies might have been. Having identified so completely with Werther, we then have to make sense of the sudden and disturbing suicide which the editor, who appears relatively late on in the book, informs us of at the end. I would argue that it is this manner of the telling of the tale that has such a profound effect on the reader. We are left to try to make sense of the suicide much as Goethe was when Jerusalem shot himself. We have, to some extent, to tell ourselves the tale. And some young people might well have done it in a way that deepened their own sadness. There is one final irony about the background to Werther. Although readers of the novel might have experienced a greater degree of despair about their lives, Goethe had used the novel's content to free himself from it. When he completed Werther, he likened his mood to one experienced "after a general confession, joyous and free and entitled to a new life". For Goethe the Werther effect was a cathartic one. Not so for his readers, it seems.