Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Literature – Comparative Literature, grade: 1, 3, Cardiff University, course: German literature, language: English, abstract: “He had drunk only one glass of the wine. Emilia Galotti lay open on his desk” (Goethe 2004). When Werther commits suicide at the end of Goethe’s novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther, Lessing’s play Emilia Galotti lies next to him on his desk. The fact that it is opened, lets the reader assume that Werther had read the book, perhaps just moments before his suicide. It makes it seem of importance to Werther and it might have been relevant for his decision to commit suicide. But that is just one assumption which can be made. For the reader, it is interesting to know what Goethe wanted to tell us by including Lessing’s work in his novel. It does not seem much of a coincidence that Lessing’s work appears at the most important scene of the novel. This leads to the question this essay is concerned with. What is the relevance of Lessing’s play for Goethe’s novel? Did Lessing’s play influence Goethe or is he actually criticizing Lessing by including the play in his novel? And going even further: What is the relevance of the play for the state of mind of Storm and Stress writers/artists in general? There are several possible assumptions to those two questions so some of them will be presented and analysed in this essay although not all of them can be covered.
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