Johan Wolfgang von Goethe wrote
The sorrows of young Werther when he was 24 years old. He got inspired by the meeting
that he had with a 19 years old lady named Charlotte Buff. He got introduced to her by one of her friends, in the occasion of a ball, and he fell immediately in love. But she was honest and made clear that he had no chance with her; she was also engaged with an older man, who would have soon become her husband.
This experience marked deeply the author’s imagination, who wrote this novel which would have obtained a huge celebrity around all Europe. Even Napoleon Bonaparte expressed his admiration for the book, and considered it one of the great works of
European literature. Napoleon thought so highly of it that he wrote a monologue in Goethe's style in his youth and carried
Werther with him on his campaigning to Egypt.
The novel’s success generated also a phenomenon known as the "Werther Fever", which caused young men throughout Europe to imitate Werther habits and also caused copycal suicides.
The book an epistolary novel: it’s presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist with sensitive and passionate temperament, and sent to his friend Wilhelm.
In these letters, Werther gives a very intimate account of his stay in the village of Wahlheim. He is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there. He meets and falls instantly in love with Lotte (Charlotte), a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Charlotte is, however, already engaged to a man named Albert, who is in fact 11 years her senior.
Despite the pain this causes Werther, he spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with both of them. His pain eventually becomes so great that he is forced to leave and go to Weimar. While he is away, he makes the acquaintance of Fräulein von B. He suffers a great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend on the day when the entire aristocratic set normally meets there. He returns to Wahlheim after this, where he suffers more than he did before, partially because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day serves as a torturous reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love. Out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, Lotte comes to the decision that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after Werther's recitation of a portion of
Ossian, a nordic epic which was very popular in Goethe’s time and constituted the inspiration for many romantic writers.
Werther had realized even before this incident that one of them — Charlotte, Albert or Werther himself — had to die. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider committing murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter (to be found after he commits suicide), he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, under a pretense that he is going "on a journey". Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but doesn't expire until 12 hours after he has shot himself. He is buried under a linden tree, a tree he talks about frequently in his letters, and the funeral was not attended by clergymen, Albert or his beloved Charlotte.