[154]
[Footnote 153: In making these modifications Goethe was advised by
Herder and Wieland.]
[Footnote 154: Though to the satisfaction of neither Kestner nor
Lotte.]
With what degree of similitude Goethe has portrayed himself in the
character of Werther must necessarily be matter of opinion, but that
his work was essentially drawn from his own experience the merest
outline of it conclusively shows. Equally in the case of the two parts
of which the book is composed we have the presentment of successive
phases of emotion through which we know that he had himself passed
when he sat down to write it. The first part, the substance of which
was probably drafted in the year 1773, is all but an exact transcript
of Goethe's own experience from the day he settled in Wetzlar till the
day he left it. Like Goethe himself, Werther settles in the spring of
the year in a country town, unattractive like Wetzlar, but also, like
Wetzlar, situated in a charming neighbourhood. His first few weeks
there are spent as Goethe spent them--in daydreaming and vague
longings; finding distraction alternately in sketching, in reading
Homer, in intercourse with children and simple people, in
contemplations on nature and the life of man, inspired by Spinoza and
Rousseau.
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