Practice the steps of close analysis with one of the following quotes from The Sufferings of Young Werther.

1) Circle keywords. 2) Analyze their technical functions in the sentence: word meaning/etymology; syntax; symbolism/simile/metaphor/allegory, see other literary elements; and tone. 3) Relate this data to some of the critical and thematic issues in the text. 

A. August 18: "When, looking out from these rocks across the river to those hills, I used to survey the fruitful valley and was aware of the sprouting and swelling of all that surrounded me; when I saw those hills clothed from foot to peak with tall, closely ranked trees, saw those valleys with their many turnings shaded by the loveliest woods and the gentle stream gliding between the lisping reeds and mirroring the lovely clouds that the gentle evening winds rocked, as in a cradle, across the sky; when I heard the birds around me lend life to the forest while a million swarms of gnats boldly danced in the last red rays of the sun, whose final quivering glance roused the humming beetle from the grass, and the whirring and weaving around me made me look into the ground and to the moss that wrests its nourishment from these hard rocks, and the shrubbery that grows along the barren sand dunes revealed to me the innermost glowing sacred life of nature: how my warm heart enfolded all that, how I felt like a god among the overflowing abundance, and the glorious shapes of the infinite world entered and quickened my soul" (Goethe 39/yours: 37).

B. August 22: "I have no power of imagination, no feeling for nature, and books repel me. When we are inadequate in ourselves, everything seems inadequate to us. I swear to you, sometimes I wish I were a day laborer, if only on waking in the morning I could have a clear view of the day to come, a striving, a hope" (Goethe 40/yours: 39).

C. August 21: "Everything, everything, has gone by! No hint of the world as it was, no pulse-beat of my earlier emotion. I feel as a ghost must feel who returns to the burned-out ruins of a castle he, as a prosperous prince, built and appointed with all the articles of splendor and, full of hope, bequeathed to his beloved son on his deathbed" (Goethe 59).


Goethe, J. W. v. The Sufferings of Young Werther. Trans. Stanley Corngold. NY: Norton, 2013. Print.

"Macaroni." Oxford English Dictionary. 2013. Web.