The Sorrows of Young Werther

For more than two centuries the very title of this book has evoked the sensitivity of youth, the suffering of the artist, the idea of a hero too full of love to live. When the book was first published The Sorrows of Young Werther created a sensation. Banned and condemned but embraced—especially by the young—it has continued to captivate. It is a tragic masterpiece that explores the mind of an artist in alternately joyful and despairing letters recounting an unhappy romance. Goethe addresses issues of love, death, and redemption in an influential portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world.