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Goethe's Rebellion Through Werther Analysis

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Goethe’s Rebellion Through Werther: An analysis on the works of Goethe indicates his rebellion against the Age of Enlightenment, and through the character of Werther and the surrounding cast uses the story as a cautionary tale of philosophical arguments posed in open disagreement during the Romantic Movement.
Following the Age of Enlightenment and the introduction of the Industrial Revolution, the societal ramifications that not only occurred throughout Europe also bled into a number of intellectual aspects which evolved after Enlightenment thought - leading to the intellectual movement of Romanticism. As a rebellion against the radical rise of rationalism being applied to the world, while the new approaches to investigation, reasoning …show more content…

“A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet spring mornings which I enjoy with all my heart. [...] When I hear the humming of the little world among the stalks, and am near the countless indescribable forms of worms and insects, then I feel the presence of the Almighty Who created us.” (Goethe & Hulse, 2016) From this extract the author through the eyes of Werther describes nature as a enlightening and emotional experience that grants a primal enjoyment, being quick in expanding on its spiritual influences that fit into the Romantics focus on the spirit that they considered to be an inherently human phenomenon being forgotten at the time. The concepts of the human soul and the introduction of the Christian God better illuminating how such a scene in the context of Werther leaving the ‘modern & industrial’ city to be in the countryside generates the distinction of spiritual fulfillment, as the possession of his soul and acknowledgement of life present in nature provides depth to an emotional deficiency implied in the earlier addressing to his colleague after moving to the

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