The Fine Line Between Romance and Madness: Anna Seward's Didactic Response to Werther Anonymous College

In a patriarchal society, it is common for women to be denounced for their emotional tendencies, specifically being blamed for lacking rational thought. This preconception is seen in a multitude of different literary works, from centuries ago to today. Anna Seward reverses this notion in her didactic response to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. In her poetic reaction to the novel, “Written in the Blank Pages of Wether,” Seward feminizes Werther, putting him into the emotional role that women so often play, in literature and society. Through cautioning her readers of the downfalls of sensibility, she is relieving Lotte of the responsibility for Werther’s suicide, putting a blame on Werther that we don't see in the novel. Through her perception of Werther’s fatal flaw, Seward is not only denouncing the cult of sensibility prevalent at this time, but subverting the classic gender roles often seen in literature, transforming the novel from one about unreciprocated love, to one about the loss of identity.

Goethe’s novel is rooted in 18th century European sensibility, a new understanding of he body and mind, putting a large emphasis on emotion over reason. This was a time of radical thought and this cult of...