#thesorrowsofyoungwerther

[recycledmoviecostumes]

This costume (presumably) first appeared on Martina Wilka and Lilli Palmer playing young and older Charlotte Kestner, respectively, in 1975’s 𝑳𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝑾𝒆𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒓 – who, Thomas Mann argued, was fellow scribe Goethe’s inspiration for his Werther’s Lotte.   So, Lotte got to wear the costume in 1976’s 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 – where Katharina Thalbach played her.   Both films were directed by Egon Günther and costumed by Christiane Dorst, who worked on a large portion of 1970 to mid-1990s 19th-century set German movies.   Learn more about this costume at: Bit.ly/StuGeo158  

[akikotobawa]

[arabhoneey]

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

[penandpapertrails]

"For we are so constituted by nature, that we are ever prone to compare ourselves with others; and our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us. On this account, nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior. All things appear greater than they really are, and all seem superior to us. This operation of the mind is quite natural: we so continually feel our own imperfections, and fancy we perceive in others the qualities we do not possess, attributing to them also all that we enjoy ourselves, that by this process we form the idea of a perfect, happy man,—a man, however, who only exists in our own imagination."

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

[ofgraveconcern]

Literary Sorrows (The answer to this weeks historical riddle) 29 September 1774, publication of ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, by German writer and social philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. An early follower of the ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement, with Johann Friedrich Schiller; Goethe also corresponded with Prussian polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer Alexander von Humboldt. The success and cultural impact of the work led to strange episodes of suicides known as "Werther Fever", in which the victims were found dressed as the main character, with the same pistol in the story and a copy of the book found at the scene. The book also appears as one of the book’s the creation of Dr, Frankenstein learns to read with, in Mary Shelley’s work. 29th September 1810, birth of English novelist, biographer and short story writer Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Her first novel Mary Barton was published in 1848, and exposed the lives and Victorian economic conditions in the city of Manchester; depicting the growing bitterness of the working classes, trade unionism, and the Chartist movement, as well as struggling to survive in the height of the industrial revolution. The work was published the same year as the ‘Springtime of the peoples’, in which Europe erupted in a series of revolutions. The most widespread revolutionary activity in European history. All images shown are part of the historically inspired Ofgraveconcern Industrial Sublime Tarot 1760 - 1848. Prints of the cards are for sale on the website see link in bio. #thesorrowsofyoungwerther #goethe #sturmunddrang #18thcentury #19thcentury #frankenstein #frankensteinsmonster #maryshelley #elizabethgaskell #victorian #victorianera #tarot #tarotcards #tarotdeck #tarotartist #tarotart #tarotartwork #illustration #illustrationartist #history #historyart #histology #historygeek #darkhistory #macabre #weirdhistory #interesting https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7CmwSAdhD/?igshid=ba5ie6ea6pu0

[shelbys-commonplace]

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Wether is addressing his friend and letting him know of his love that he has discovered, in a letter dated June 16th.

“I am a happy and contented mortal, but a poor historian.”

In this line Werther is remarking on how this woman is able to blind him of his past mistakes and hurdles. I chose this line because I like how it shows his knowing choice to love her despite what his previous knowledge is telling him to do. Werther including his friend in this knowledge feels like an almost transfer of blame or fault if things go sour. 

[shelbys-commonplace]

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Werther addresses his friend, Wilhelm, in a letter dated July 18th. 

“Wilhelm, what is the world to our hearts without love? What is a magic-latern without light?”

Besides the obvious connection of love being equal to light, brighting and warming, there can be an alternate thought to this quote. In a later light is one single fleeting flame. The flame is not constant and can often times feel as though it is fleeing or hiding from you. This light can create phantom objects as well with the shadows that are created, constructing an almost imaginary word.

I chose this quote because of how it showed what the presence of love means to Werther. The inappropriateness of his choice of woman to fall in love with is extinguished when these are Werther’s thoughts. It is as he would be empty if it were not for something he could love, or at least inappropriately yearning for and pursuing. 

[paradiselostix]

«In me there are two souls, alas, and their Division tears my life in two. One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds Itself to her, clinging with furious lust; The other longs to soar beyond the dust Into the realm of high ancestral minds.» (Faust, Part One, Scene 5: Outside the Town Wall, trans. D. Luke) ~ «Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.» (Maxims and Reflections, Maxim 542, trans. E. Stopp) ~ #BornOnThisDay: #Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832), German poet, novelist, playwright, scientist and statesman, who was one of the most notable proponents of proto-Romantic Sturm and Drang movement, and is considered as the most influental and the greatest German writer of all time. His works include epic and lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; four novels; memoirs; an autobiography, literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour, as well as numerous literary and scientific fragments; and drawings. ~ Best-known works: • "Prometheus" (c. 1774/89, lyric poem) • The Sorrows of Young Werther [Die Leiden des jungen Werthers] (1774, novel) • Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship [Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre] (1795-96, novel) • Faust, Part One (1808, tragedy) • Elective Affinities [Die Wahlverwandtschaften] (1809, novel) • West-Eastern Diwan [West–östlicher Divan] (1819, diwan/lyric poetry collection) • Faust, Part Two (1832, tragedy) ~ «And he values my understanding and my talents more than my heart which is, in the end, all I am proud of, the one source of everything, all my strength, all my bliss, and all my wretchedness. Oh, anyone may know the things I know—my heart is exclusively my own.» (The Sorrows of Young Werther, Book II, May 9, trans. D. Constantine) ~ #birthday #JohannWolfgangVonGoethe #TheSorrowsOfYoungWerther #Faust #ElectiveAffinities #Urfaust #DieLeidenDesJungenWerthers #WilhelmMeistersApprenticeship #WestöstlicherDivan #book #books #bookstagram #poet #poetry #bibliophile #reading #read #booklove #bookoftheday #instabook #literature #bookish #booknerd #bookaddict #bookworm #bookstagramfeature #epic #classics https://www.instagram.com/p/B1s_wY6gtQf/?igshid=1aj71r1026o04