1. Goethe

Fig. 1 James Hervey, Meditations and Contemplations (London: J. Goodwin, 1812). Goethe and the Novel Only superlatives will do for Werther. For Thomas Mann, for instance, it remains ‘ein Meisterwerk’. For this and other modern masters of the theme of death such a reaction might come more from literary mediation than through direct access. For earlier generations, however, it came straight from the experience of the heart. Werther concentrates many of the aspirations and strivings of the Stur...