Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus! Goethe and the Quest for Individual Sovereignty

This project examines Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774) and his early poetry and their influence on the German literary movement of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress, 1770-1785). As a reaction to the rise of rationalism, Goethe’s texts embody the value of raw, subjective emotion versus logical, objective understanding of the preceding Enlightenment period. Through his literature, Goethe challenges the status quo of absolute rule of church and state as well as humanity’s relationship with God: are we bound to the laws of the Almighty’s design or are we, in turn, creators of our own reality