Yes it's true I'm just a wanderer, a vagabond on the earth. But what about you, you are something else?
-Goethe. Werther.
In so nothing can be said, Wittgenstein concluded his Tractatus , better shut up. Perhaps it would be the most sensible attitude after reading Werther ; remain silent and that silence, which is the rest as Hamlet, enjoy the feeling trip to what he can not say. And that language has its limits.
do not know if be worth noting, as evidence of those boundaries, that Goethe paraphrases Hamlet: "Why such hesitation and hesitation? Why will not know what back there? And why there is no return? And also because that is the condition of our spirit, we presume confusion and darkness where we do not know anything concrete? "(Goethe, 412), or say, with less certainty, which also paraphrases Novalis, Schlegel, and perhaps Swedenborg I know others who do not recognize. Goethe predicts that Camus, a little Mishima, Sartre or Nietzsche and some relationship to Rousseau, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Above all, Goethe paraphrases or dialogue with life itself, because there are some who find the roots of Werther in Book XII of Poetry and Truth , Goethe's passion for Lotte Buff and the suicide of his friend or acquaintance Jerusalem reasons later be ashamed of this little novel of letters, very fashionable at the time. The aesthetic value of the novel are better testimony than anything I could write, its more than two hundred years of consecutive editions and echoes already mentioned. All of which perhaps is well told, but do not know if it were worthwhile.
can be said that Goethe criticized bourgeois society, the fact that it does not offer consolation or roads for the development of spirit, and to promote the fullness of man, Werther does not last long in the public service and to jump against the marriage because "that's good for this world ... and this world will be a sin I love you and want to rip your arms, estrechándote in mine "(Goethe, 424). And this world of conventions and voluntary agreements is partial or rather artificial. Bourgeois world of worship to the conventions and forgotten the transcendent: "What is in our hearts the world without love? What a magic lantern without light "(Goethe, 371). We can say, but maybe the key is not there.
"Force should be referred to the episode of crazy, looking toward the time when tied with a straitjacket and placed in a sanatorium he was accompanied by emperors and even better, by the same Lotte for whom, and expelled from the paradise, is committed to weaving garlands of flowers that are not. The episode is a clear argument about the difficult relationship between reason and happiness, truth and said they often lived in constant warfare. Sufficient to cast doubt on any trial existence.
And what is worth spending on ethical or moral judgments Werther? And he answers it in advance: "Why do you, the men jumped me," you have to say at once: this is crazy, this one is wise, this is good, that bad? Do you have searched it thoroughly before the intimate circumstances of an act? "(Goethe, 376). Response to all questions of ethics encrypted on the false assumption that knowing enough to judge. Neither the letters, or notes, or impressions of those who are near to us about 'intimate circumstances' a suicide. So what can be said of Werther?
perhaps better addressed the novel by the personal side, by the unexpected ways in which to reread it, I realize that over the years, more than once I've put on the skin of Werther, perhaps better to say He was placed on the mine, and I found his repeating phrases or gestures without noticing until now that I reread. So strong is the novel and so I understand, at least, that has caused an epidemic of suicides. But honestly, who cares if I was in love without realizing Werther. Goethe may scoff, as I, when I reread this paragraph.
Language has its limits and honestly I doubt I can be transposed. I can say that I find in Werther a mixture of philosophy and poetry, which is a clear example of romanticism and contradiction, in the end, consciously or unconsciously, you end up wanting to wear the blue suit with a yellow vest and suffer dolendi the voluptas of Petrarch. But with all that, anything I say. As I can say nothing of all suicides to which I thought I knew but survived and, for that last act, left to avail me know. Silence, silence is always my answer.
A final attempt. Maybe it's that last, in silence, which is the key and something can be said to be worth, but surely has been said. Werther commits suicide ( selbststerben, Selbstmord) and pops that act throughout the novel, makes no sense what has been read. There is no possible causal link between development and the outcome, ie there is no reason in the strict sense explain suicide. Each reader can make sense of the act by the antecedent or deny that harmony. But any explanation deformed. Each novel is a world, a more or less consistent in the meaning of life. But there is a petition of principle, we assume that life is meaningless. I see in Werther one more question than an answer. I'm alive and I read, is still there, by force I guess it is worth living and reading. Goethe question: what if?
Since not closed the book and I shot me but I came to write, I think is worth living and that I have to get somewhere sooner or later. But the question remains, what else? It's chorus that reminds me that things could be otherwise. A question that can not be answered because every answer involves the belief in the meaning itself. Could answer that question makes no sense, but we say when someone calls into question what we clearly recognize as authentic, but we can not prove that we are right. Because language has its limits. Address this question, silent and live or die by their own hands. Each response is unique and infinite. And finally, with that question, Goethe manages to include every unique and individual life between the lines of their Werther. do not know if worth saying the latter, write three pages to get to this. It's the same question, what if it was worth? The answer is in the act, as I wrote it and has some sense, though, like life, it's worth or what makes sense is something I can not say. To that question was silent, but still writing and I live. Like Sisyphus, I'm pushing my rock.
Bilbiografía : Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. The Sorrows of Young Werther in Rafael Cansino Assens (Ed.). Complete Works of Goethe (Volume II). Aguilar, Mexico, 1991.
