it's a middling work with some moments of beauty.

faust is his magnum opus, werther doesn't really compare at all.

>>7659245
>werther doesn't really compare at all
Really? I know it's probably his most well known work so I assumed it was the most respected next to Faust.

>>7659264
it's well known in part because of the influence on contemporaries (copycat suicides, etc)

in terms of "respected" works, the top ones are Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and various verse/drama works, such as erlkonig and egmont from the early sturm and drang period and later stuff like west-eastern divan when he got more into other genres/styles

>>7659236
>touched on a number of contemporary philosophical concepts
like?

>>7659290
In particular I think I was reminded of Hume.

>>7659303
>Hume
Really? Not sure I see where you're finding that. But contemporary philosophical/enlightenment ideas it definetely touched upon. Rousseau's view of children and Burke of the sublime. That's what I noticed from the first half of the novel anyway.

Goethe was a real-life Ozymandias from Watchmen.

I think Werther is genius. It's pretty much a perfect satire of Romanticism.

I've read a shitty translation and hated it. One day I'll learn German well enough and give it an another chance
Still, the ending was intense.

>>7661139
Werther is preromanticism/Sturm und Drang you retard. Goethe couldn't satirize a movement that he was about to start.

>>7659381
His views on children reminded me of Nabokov more than Rousseau.