I dolori del giovane Werther

Werther is a sensitive young man who goes to a village in the countryside, and writes letters to his friend Wilhelm about his feelings. He is charmed by nature and the simple lives of the villagers, and falls in love with Lotte, a warm young woman who is already engaged to Albert. After Lotte marries Albert, Werther's despair grows and his attempts to find work or distraction fail. Goethe's 1774 epistolary novel traces his emotional descent to a suicide that shocked readers. It was a key work in the Sturm und Drang movement, which valued feeling over reason.

It is a good read for anyone interested in German Romanticism, or in how literature captures intense emotion. It is short, passionate and vivid, though it deals with heavy subject matter.

Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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