The Sufferings of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

featuring Gabriel Trop, Associate Professor of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures

One of the most important works of German literature that greatly influenced the rise of the Romantic movement

—Based on Goethe’s unrequited love for Charlotte Buff, it is the first great “confessional” novel and turned Goethe into one of the first international literary celebrities. —Gildan Media Corp

—Goethe’s themes of unrequited love, the pain of rejection, deepening despair, and their tragic consequences are as relevant today as when the work was first published in 1774. This hugely influential novel was immediately bought, printed, read, exported, and imitated throughout Europe, and what Goethe called the novel’s “fire rockets” have continued to blaze through the centuries, influencing, among many others, Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka. —W. W. Norton Publishers

—“Corngold’s new translation is of the very highest quality, punctiliously faithful to Goethe’s German and sensitive to gradations of style in this extraordinary, trail-blazing first novel.” —J. M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books

—In one of the first important novels of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature, the self-absorption of youth unites with the extremes of emotion to create a perfect storm, leaving readers shipwrecked on the shores of grief and awe. —AmazonClassics

—“I categorically say: read The Sorrows of Young Werther!“ —Franz Kafka

Meeting Date: Wednesdays, February 16 and 23

Cost: $40, includes a copy of the book shipped to your home

Register online or call 919.962.1544