What lies in wait at the nexus of heartbreak and unrequited love? In teasing out the answer to this question, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe produced The Sorrows of Young Werther, one of history’s first bestsellers and the book that would propel Goethe to celebrity status and the heights of the Sturm and Drang movement that defined Germany’s literary scene during the late 1700s.

The novel follows Werther, a young and sensitive artist, through his letters written to his friend Wilhelm concerning his all-encompassing yet unrequited love for Charlotte, a woman already engaged to a man eleven years her senior. The devastation that ensues turned the only 26-year-old Goethe into a celebrity almost overnight, with figures like Napoleon Bonaparte extolling the story as one of the greatest novels of their time. Ultimately, Goethe would distance himself from Young Werther, regretting the fame it brought him and the unwanted attention it placed on the companions of his youth that he drew inspiration from. Even in his lament, Geothe’s undeniable mastery of language shines through: “If Werther had been my brother and I had killed him, I could scarcely have been so persecuted by his avenging ghost.” History, however, will always remember The Sorrows of Young Werther as one of the greatest works of Romanticism ever produced and an enduring glimpse into the potential for love, rejection, and tragedy that lives within us all.

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The Sorrows of Young Werther

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