I've already read Faust, Young Werther and Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice and my mind hasn't been blown yet. I thought you guys said this guy was good? Did I miss something? Faust was pretty good, but nothing to write home about, and Sorrows is basically Twilight-tier (not even baiting here).
Did you read them in German?
>>8292259
No, but I read the best translations I could get my hands on. Doesn't that count for something?
>>8292269
No.
>>8292270
Fair enough, anon. I've actually been considering taking German classes to read some of the basic texts and classics. I don't plan on achieving fluency or even complex comprehension any time soon, but I do hope to one day read Goethe, Rilke, Mann, Musil and Kafka (I know, different dialect) in their originals.
>>8292255
read them again in a couple years
you lack the intelligence to appreciate them now, Goethe after all was 25 when he published Werther.
>>8292255
>pretty good
Look no offense but if your critique of them is "pretty good" maybe you should re-evaluate yourself not the work.
Also regarding werther.
He initially published the novel anonymously and distanced himself from it in his later years,[2] regretting the fame it had brought him and the consequent attention to his own youthful love of Charlotte Buff. He wrote Werther at the age of twenty-four, and yet this was what some of his visitors in his old age knew him for. He even denounced the Romantic movement as "everything that is sick.
>>8292255
you're a pleb no way around it.
read more. after you read a few hundred "canon" works you'll probably look back on this and feel ashamed
Nah, Goethe isn't all that great really
muh romanticism muh bloo bloo
At least Byron was actually a badass who didnt afraid of anything
Faust is more complex than you're seeing it as
>>8292255
>Faust was pretty good, but nothing to write home about
I'm willing to bet most of it went right over your head.
Don't worry, you're not alone, you have a bunch of German high schoolers on your side.
>>8292255
>Sorrows is basically Twilight-tier
Retard. It's a brilliant satire of the entire Romantic movement
>>8292269
I read Werther in German and it's still basically Twilight.
>>8292282
>I know, different dialect
What did you mean by this?
>>8293776
How can it be a satire of romantic movement when Sorrows of Young Werther literally started the movement?
>>8293836
Because the main character ends up killing himself in the most pathetic and botched way?
>>8293836
There is no reason why it can't. Also most people misunderstood it, a large part of the reason why Goethe distanced himself from it.
One facet of his genius is his collection of maxims and reflection, the dude said everything
