View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What vision is Werther constantly haunted by, as related in the letter of December 6?

2. What does Werther assert about the state of mind of the person he meets in the letter of November 30?

3. What is the gift Werther receives in the letter of April 19?

4. What is this person Werther meets on his walk doing when Werther meets them?

5. What gifts does Werther wish from God, as expressed in the letter of October 20?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Werther react to reading Ossian, as related in the letter of October 12?

3. 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?

4. 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?

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

6. What reaction does Werther have to the news about the walnut trees in the courtyard of the vicarage?

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

8. Summarize Werther's thoughts on the relationship between contentment and reason, as expressed in the letter of November 30.

9. How do Werther's personality and his thoughts change upon returning to Wahlheim?

10. Summarize the final interaction between Werther and Lotte.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the little peasant family that Werther meets in Wahlheim and subsequently gets to know: the mother and her several children, including Hans. What is the little family's story? What attracts them to Werther? How does he interact with them? How is his relationship with them symbolic of a relationship between social classes at large? What might the symbolism be when their inheritance falls through, and when Hans dies? What is the effect of their tragedy on Werther? What about their fate of poverty is significant to the major themes of the novel?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,214 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample