Yong Werther

No definition can define the infinite richness of this imaginative masterpiece; But the significance of this tale of passionate and unhappy love, we may say briefly, is that it expresses not only the feelings and pains of one man alone, but the feelings, longings and pains of the whole age. The protagonist is a young man from the civic class; He was gifted in art, painted for pleasure, and worked as secretary of the legation. Goethe involuntarily endowed the young man with the views, feelings, and ideas of his youth, and endowed him with all the richness and excellence of his own intellect. This turns victor into a great symbolic figure; He not only represents the spirit of The Times, but also represents the wisdom of the new era. His greatness hardly corresponded to his fortune."