Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Potter, Edward T

Titel

Hypochondria, Onanism, and Reading in Goethe’s Werther

Ist Teil von

• Goethe yearbook, 2012, Vol.19 (1), p.117-141

Ort / Verlag

Rochester: North American Goethe Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Literature Online (LION eBooks)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Werther's cure, in Nicolai's version, is his integration into society in the patriarchal role of the father of the family, and this enables him to see his life as being affected not by an immutable fate but rather by the workings of benevolent Providence. [...]Nicolai connects Werther's problems with contemporary physicians' views of hypochondria either as a viscous imbalance in the economy of humors caused by an excess of black bile or as an overextension and drying out of the nerves. According to the 1743 encyclopedia article, onanism is encouraged by reading the wrong kinds of books, such as novels and love stories. [...]the text becomes a warning about their dangers: identificatory reading leads to the misuse of the imagination, which, in turn, leads to sexual fantasizing and onanism, which then brings about hypochondria, which, in Werther's case, leads to a brutally painful, soberly described death at the end of the novel. The original version reads: "Ihr Blut war in einer fieberhaften Empörung, und tausenderley Empfindungen zerrütteten ihr Herz. [...]the 1787 version underlines the contagious effect of Werther's hypochondria and eradicates Lotte's own dangerous use of her imagination from the text, thereby inviting a more critical perception of Werther's behavior.