J M Coetzee, a respected and admirable author, paraphrases the sorrows of young Werther: Werther's malady, the stigmatic cloy of social decrepitude. According to Coetzee in the London Review of Books,
'Two energies go into the making of Werther: the confessional, which gives the book its tragic emotional force, and the political. Passionate and idealistic, Werther is representative of the best of a new generation of Germans sensitive to the stirrings of history, impatient to see the renewal of a torpid social order. An unhappy love affair may precipitate his suicide, but the deeper cause is the failure of German society to offer young people like him anything but what Goethe would later call “dull, spiritless citizen life.”
No, this is not, I fear, the answer.. The riddle is deep. As deep as the Sphinx of love. Werther conceived his passion for Charlotte, a passion agonizing to come to fruition.. Werther, ecce homo, is transported by his wound to chase eternal nuptials.
A social calamity, perhaps, a sacrifice surely... Requiem in pacem
(Compare Brahms, C Minor Piano Quartet).
No comments:
Post a Comment