The Works of JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832) Contents The Novels THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER WILHELM MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP ELECTIVE AFFINITIES WILHELM MEISTER’S JOURNEYMAN YEARS The Short Stories A TALE THE GOOD WOMEN The Plays THE WAYWARD LOVER THE FELLOW CULPRITS GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN CLAVIGO EGMONT THE BROTHER AND SISTER STELLA IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS TORQUATO TASSO FAUST: PART ONE THE NATURAL DAUGHTER FAUST: PART TWO The Poetry THE POEMS OF GOETHE LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Non-Fiction THEORY OF COLOURS MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS The Criticism GOETHE – THE WRITER by Ralph Waldo Emerson GOETHE by C. E. Vaughan GOETHE by John Cowper Powys GOETHE’S FAUST by George Santayana SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE by David Masson GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS by John Tyndall EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE by Sir Walter Scott The Autobiography TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE The Biography THE LIFE OF GOETHE by Calvin Thomas © Delphi Classics 2013 Version 1 The Works of JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE By Delphi Classics, 2013 The Novels Goethe’s birthplace, Frankfurt Goethe’s birthplace today Goethe’s parents THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER Translated by R.D. Boylan Published in 1774 when only twenty-five years old, Goethe’s first novel is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical work, which he revised in 1787. It is now recognised as an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, which greatly influenced the later Romantic literary movement. The “Storm and Stress” period was a proto-Romantic movement taking place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and extreme emotions were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment. The novel made the young Goethe one of the true first international literary celebrities. The Sorrows of Young Werther is depicted as a collection of letters written by a young artist of highly sensitive and passionate temperament, sent to his friend Wilhelm. In the letters, Werther gives an intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim, which is in fact based on the town of Garbenheim, near Wetzlar. Werther is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there and the artist meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Despite knowing beforehand that Charlotte is already engaged to Albert, eleven years her senior, Werther falls desperately in love with her. Goethe, close to the time of his first novel’s publication