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- Title
In Werther's Thrall: Suicide and the Power of Sentimental Reading in Early National America.
- Authors
Bell, Richard
- Abstract
An essay is presented on American reactions to suicide in sentimental novels in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It examines American ideas about sensibility, parents' and preachers' criticisms of these novels, and fears of the Werther effect among young people, or the idea that reading about suicide would cause readers to commit it. The author discusses the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther," or "Die Lieden des Jungen Werthers," by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
- Subjects
SUICIDE in literature; SENTIMENTALISM in literature; SENSITIVITY (Personality trait) in literature; SORROWS of Young Werther, The (Book : Goethe); GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832; REVOLUTIONARY (Literary period)
- Publication
Early American Literature, 2011, Vol 46, Issue 1, p93
- ISSN
0012-8163
- Publication type
Essay
- DOI
10.1353/eal.2011.0010