Dalla prima alla seconda edizione del Werther : Ripensamenti, ristrutturazioni, focalizzazioni

The proliferation of radical reactions to Werther is a reflection of its success. The extreme responses to its publication range from accusations of immorality and vindication of suicide to the enthusiastic identification of young readers, who read it as a generational manifesto. Goethe often expressed annoyance at displays of naive enthusiasm and acritical identification. His plans for a second edition, issued after several breaks in 1787, aimed precisely at facilitating an interpretation of the novel closer to the spirit in which it was conceived, which had little to do either with promoting the absoluteness of passions or with the moral condemnation of a pathological case. This essay analyzes the main interventions on the text starting from the 1774 draft and tries to identify elements of coherence while taking into account the often contradictory rewriting strategies used for the second edition.