Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers Research Articles

Werther and Montaigne: The Romantic Renaissance

BENJAMIN BENNETT Werther and Montaigne: The Romantic Renaissance ι ACCORDING TO Dichtung und Wahrheit, Montaigne was one of Goethe's "friends" as early as 1771, and I shall argue that Die Leiden des jungen Werthers contains serious thought about several important questions raised in the Essais, especially "Du repentir" and "De l'expérience."11 will not attempt to treat all the possible parallels between Werther and Montaigne, however obvious some of these may be, as for example the discussion of suicide in "Coustume de l'isle de Cea." My aim, rather, is to understand better the character and significance of Goethe's indebtedness to Renaissance thought in general,2 and to suggest some possible conclusions concerning the unity of European Romanticism. To begin with the texts, there is more than merely a hint of Montaigne in the question by which the main theme of Werther is established: "O was ist der Mensch, daß er über sich klagen darf!" (p. 5, 4. Mai). We must understand first that this question has two distinct meanings. In the first place it expresses a certain pragmatic humility—what right has a man to complain about himself, if it is really himself he is complaining about?—and in this meaning it echoes a main point of the essay "Du repentir": There are some impetuous, prompt and sudden sins: let us leave them aside. But as for these other sins so many times repeated, planned, and premeditated, constitutional sins, or even professional or vocational sins, I cannot imagine that they can be implanted so long in one and the same heart, without the reason and conscience of their possessor constantly willing and intending it to be so. And the repentance which he claims comes to him at a certain prescribed moment is a little hard for me to imagine and conceive.3 2 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA A person's constitutional faults, says Montaigne, cannot in honesty be the object of repentance, and the applicability of this idea to Werther is clear enough. Despite his protestations at the beginning—"ich will mich bessern, will nicht mehr ein bißchen Übel, das uns das Schicksal vorlegt, wiederkäuen" (p. 5)— Werther in the end not only must accept his constitutional "hypochondria,"4 but actually defends it on quasi-theological grounds in the letters of 15 and 30 November 1772. In the second place, however, Werther's question, "O was ist der Mensch, daß er über sich klagen darf," is a theoretical question rich in implications: what is this creature, man, that is permitted to be dissatisfied with itself? how is it possible to be a single entity, yet at the same time stand over against oneself as one's own accuser? And the question in this meaning expresses not humility but pride, for it involves the recognition of man's unique status among created things, his freedom. If all our faculties were the direct expressions of a single level of existence, like the faculties of a horse or an angel, then obviously we could never be dissatisfied with ourselves; but neither would we be that creature to whom God says in Pico's Oration, "We have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, so that, with free choice and as a mark of honor, you, as it were the shaper and maker of your own self, might present yourself in whatever form you please."5 If our nature did not include the possibility of existing on completely different levels, if we did not therefore possess a capacity for radical self-dissatisfaction, then true change would be impossible for us, and the idea of a free existence would be meaningless. Therefore Montaigne, even in arguing against repentance, must still distinguish two acceptable forms of self-dissatisfaction, one more superficial than ordinary repentance—"le regretter"—and one more profound: "It [repentance] must grasp me by the vitals and afflict them as deeply and as completely as God sees into me" (p. 791). Therefore the essay "Du repentir" must be prefaced by a vivid evocation of the mutability of all things, including one's own self. Our recognition that the text itself cannot claim to be...

Contributions to Psychohistory: V. East-West Dimensions of Ideology Measured by Transtemporal Cognitive Matching

Contemporary romantic revival bears close resemblance to previous romantic movements in ways of structuring reality, styles of thought, and partisan support of certain types of preferred societal outcomes. The quantification of the postulated structural similarity between two recent romantic periods was discussed using the method of transtemporal cognitive matching. The target structure was based on analysis of Goethe's Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers; referent neoromantic structures were derived from Reich's The Greening of America and Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Relationships between target and referent structures were quantified and interpreted within the context of Apollonian and Dionysian styles of thought and East-West categories of value systems.

Passion and Aggression: The Meaning of Werther's Last Letter*

This paper is about “Werther and his Readers.” That includes contemporary readers of the novel, among them Johann Christian and Charlotte Kestner; it includes critics and scholars; and last but not least, it includes Lotte, the recipient of Werther's last letter, a letter which has been largely ignored in the criticism of Goethe's novel. I have taken a less positive view of Werther than most critics, by concentrating on Werther's asocial behavior, his aggressions, and on acts which can even be called “criminal.” This does not detract from Goethe's truly remarkable achievement in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, it only adds another dimension. Instead of a novel of sentimentality, the novel becomes thereby a story of obsession and madness, a portrayal of the passions of illicit love. My discussion is based throughout on the first version of the novel published in 1774, which is, in some respects, artistically more successful than the revised version of 1787.

Bettina von Arnim —: A Study in Goethe Idolatry

BETTINA VON ARNIM - A STUDY IN GOETHE IDOLATRY Hans-Wtlhelm Kelling Hans-Wilhelm Kelling (BA., Brigham Young University; MA. and Ph.D., Stanford University) is presently an associate professor of German at Brigham Young University. He served as director of the B.Y.U. Semester Abroad Program in 1963, 1967, and 1968. Mr. Kelling is co-author of Deutsche Aufsatzhilfe , published by Brigham Young University Press, 1967 and 1968. Bettina von Arnim, one of the most colorful figures of the early nineteenth century in Germany, was not only an eccentric Romantic but also an enthusiastic Goethe worshipper who contributed to the phenomenon of Goethe idolatry. She helped shape that particular Goethe image which regards the great German poet as a rather unique being who, unlike ordinary humans, is endowed by a supernatural source with special insights, gifts, and intuitions. "Zum Teil hat sie seine Legende geschaffen bis auf den heutigen Tag. Wie Goethe selbst sich durch ihre Augen zu sehen begann, so sehen auch wir ihn."1 In Bettina's estimate the creative genius Goethe becomes a divinely favored individual whom she venerates as a Saviorfigure and to whom she turns for comfort and inspiration. Her famous work, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde,2 apparently caused a sensation when it was published3 and for decades inspired Goethe worshippers all over Germany. "Mit einem Schlage war die von den Edelsten des Volkes längst hochgeschätzte und verehrte Frau auch die bekannteste und gefeiertste Schriftstellerin Deutschlands geworden."4 Bettina was born in 1785. She was the daughter of Maximiliane von La Roche, in her youth a beautiful woman whom Goethe had known and adored when he was working on his novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. Bettina took an early interest in Goethe and became a friend of his mother, asking her many questions about her famous son, while privately recording for two years everything she heard. From her notes she later contributed material for Goethe's autobiography Dichtung und Warheit." Frau Rat Goethe seems to have loved Bettina dearly, and Bettina regarded her as 1BeUOTIa von Arnim, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (Berlin: Grünberg, 1835). 2Bettina von Arnim, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, ed. Heinz Amelung (Berlin: Bong & Co., 1914), p. xviii. 3Ihid., p. xix. 4IUd. •^Critics generally accept this as fact. "Die Wärme der Auffassung, die in diesem Grade nur Bettinens Kult von Goethes Persönlichkeit eigen war, hat in Wahrheit dem Anfang seiner Biographie das Leben gegeben. Niemand hat der Nachwelt überliefert, wie Goethe Bettinas Berichte und Erzählungen aufnahm und in sich verarbeitete! Auch das Ungeschriebene ist." Waldemar Oehlke, Bettina von Arnims Briefromane (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1905), p. 161. "Die Jugendgeschichte in Dichtung und Wahrheit beruht auf Bettinas Schilderungen, die sie aus Worten der Frau Rat zusammensetzte." Curt von Faber du Faur, "Goethe und Bettina von Arnim: Ein neuer Fund," PMLA, LXXV (June I960), p. 216. 74RMMLA BulletinJune 1969 her second mother.6 Bettina met Goethe for the first time personally on August 23, 1807, in Weimar. In November of the same year she again visited in Weimar, this time for almost two weeks, spending considerable time with Goethe.7 Judging from Goethe's entries in his journals, he was much less impressed by her than she would have her readers believe.8 They met for the third time in Teplitz in 1810 and, in a letter written to Christiane on August 13, 1810, Goethe states: "Bettina . . . war wirklich hübscher und liebenswürdiger als sonst. Aber gegen andere Menschen sehr unartig." In March 1811, Bettina married Achim von Arnim, a well-known Romantic poet, and the newlyweds visited Goethe in August and September. During one of these visits, Bettina and Christiane quarrelled in public, insults were exchanged, and Goethe, siding with his wife, broke off the relationship with Bettina.8 However, Bettina continued to write to her idol, and after Christiane's death visited Goethe on two occasions (in 1824 and 1826). Bettina's relationship with Goethe was almost entirely one-sided: she worshipped the genius while the poet felt uneasy around her. His letters show restraint and coolness. He ignored her many requests and frequently bold advances, or cleverly changed the subject when Bettina...