The Sorrows of Young Werther [Paperback]

A major work of German romanticism in a translation that is acknowledged as the definitive English language version. The Vintage Classics edition also includes NOVELLA, Goethe's poetic vision of an idyllic pastoral society.JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE(1749–1832) was a novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and scientist. He wroteThe Sorrows of Young Wertherwhen he was just twenty-four. His enduring dramatic poem "Faust" took fifty-seven years to write and was published in its entirety only after Goethe’s death at eighty-three.

BURTON PIKEis professor emeritus of comparative literature at CUNY Graduate Center. A leading critic, scholar, and translator of German literature, he has written and edited books on Robert Musil, Thomas Mann, and many others, and was the editor and co-translator of Musil’sThe Man With-out Qualities.May 4, 1771

How glad I am to have come away! Dearest friend, what is the human heart! To leave you to whom I was so attached, from whom I was inseparable, and to be happy! I know you will forgive me. Did not fate seek out my other attachments just to trouble a heart like mine? Poor Leonore! And yet I was innocent. Could I help it that while I found her sister’s willful charms pleasantly diverting, a passion was forming in the poor girl’s heart? And yet—am I wholly innocent? Didn’t I nourish her feelings? Didn’t I make fun of those entirely genuine expressions of nature that so often made us laugh, as little to be laughed about as they were? Didn’t I— Oh, what is man, that he can grumble about himself! I will, dear friend, I promise you, change for the better, will no longer, as I have always done, chew on the cud of the little bit of unpleasantness that fate puts in our way; I will enjoy the present, and the past will be past for me. Of course you are right, my friend, people would have fewer pains if—God knows why thel#)