Goethe's Werther and the critics

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"Literary critics, too, have maintained their interest in Werther. The book's first appearance immediately provoked a lively debate about its aesthetic and moral implications. Then, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, critics increasingly explored its narrative strategies, its relation to various literary movements, its autobiographical elements, its depiction of an individual subjectivity, its social criticism, and its role in constructing a German national consciousness. Hundreds of subsequent critics have continued these discussions and added topics that reflect such developments as semiotics and gender studies. In fact, the history of Werther's critical reception largely mirrors the history of literary criticism in the last 230 years. Goethe's Werther and the Critics traces this development, demonstrating how changing notions of both aesthetics and the role of literary criticism have influenced perceptions of this great work."--BOOK JACKET.