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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. From whom does Werther receive a letter, related in the letter of February 17, concerning his relationship with the Ambassador?

2. What social faux pas does Werther commit in the letter of March 15?

3. What, according to Werther, is most dangerous to the individual?

4. Whom does Werther blame for his sorrows in the letter of November 3?

5. Where does the event of March 15 occur?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Werther see as the keys to happiness, and how do these key things affect him specifically, as related in the letter of October 20?

2. How does Werther's relationship with God seem to change from its prior state toward the end of the letter of November 30, and how does Werther express his feelings about this change?

3. Summarize the event, related in the letter of March 15, which causes Werther considerable humiliation.

4. Whom does Werther meet while walking in Weimar, and what is this young woman like?

5. Who does Werther meet while walking along the water's edge in Wahlheim, what is the person doing, and what does this person look like, as related in the letter of November 30?

6. What bothers Werther about many of the people he meets?

7. What does Werther find out in the letter of December 1 about the man he met by the water, and how does he find this out?

8. What is the substance of Werther's letter of January 20 to Lotte?

9. What news does Werther receive from Albert and Lotte in the letter dated February 20, and how does Werther respond to the news?

10. What does Werther do during the flood of the river near Wahlheim, and why is this episode significant?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the theme of religion, God, Fate and the divine in the novel. Where, and in which situations, does Werther feel the presence or absence of God? Is there anything overtly, or covertly, religious or spiritual about the novel as a whole? Why does Werther feel, at times, both connected to and disconnected from God? What ambiguities does Werther confront, or ignore, about his passion for Lotte and the sinfulness or morality of it? How does Werther view Fate, and why might having a fated destiny be significant to considerations of the morality of Werther's end? How does Werther view Lotte in religious terms, and why does he seem to do so?

Essay Topic 2

Assess Werther's relationship with Wilhelm, the addressee of the letters. How does Werther "speak" to Wilhelm in his letters? What type of relationship might they have, considering their communications to one another? How can we judge Wilhelm's letters based on Werther's responses? Give at least one example of a response of Werther's which indicates the subject of their correspondence. How might the identity of Wilhelm also be entwined with the identity of the reading audience or the reading individual? What is the effect of this connection? Is the audience primed to be automatically sympathetic to Werther? Why would this consideration be significant in your assessment of character development and the development of the overall themes of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Examine the theme of nature and its progression throughout the text. How does Goethe use nature to express Werther's character, and/or to express the themes of sensibility or the sublime? What about nature attracts Werther to wander so much in it? How does Werther respond emotionally, intellectually, and physically to nature? How does he connect nature to poetry as well as to personal relationships? How do Goethe's depictions of nature, and of Werther's responses to nature, change over the course of the novel?

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