The 1774 Novel Blamed for Youth Suicide
The Sorrows of Young Werther was blamed for a supposed youth suicide epidemic
Two hundred and fifty years ago - in 1774 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published The Sorrows of Young Werther.
The novel unfolds through a series of letters written by its protagonist - Werther - portraying a tale of unrequited love that leads him to ultimately take his own life with a pistol.
The book would quickly become a sensation, first among youths in Germany and then across Europe and the United States after translations emerged. A community grew around the novel, an early ‘fandom’—similar to that of Harry Potter or Twilight—with merchandise and even cosplayers: some youths adopted the sartorial style of the main character donning a blue tailcoat, yellow waistcoat and boots.
New Media
The rapid popularity of the book was dubbed ‘Werther Mania’ - and inevitably made older generations uneasy, particularly religious institutions who admonished it for glorifying suicide.
It should be remembered that novels “constituted the most emotionally powerful medium” at the time, as the Lancet pointed out, noting “there were no other mass media; no radio, television, cinema, videos, video games.” The book would quickly be scorned and scapegoated, much like those more modern mediums:
A year after publication, the act of dressing in ‘Werther-Tracht’ (Werther Costume) would be banned in Leipzig, Germany - where the novel was originally published. This was only the start of the backlash…
Suicide Epidemic
Early reviews of the novel in German newspapers would allude to the danger of ‘glorifying’ suicide to a young audience “who are not able to distinguish between fiction and reality.” One outlet would sign off a piece with: “we would wish that it had never been written.”
Translated Excerpt: “But if we consider this little book from another perspective and reflect on how harmful it could be for certain young men or some girls who might fall in love, who are not able to distinguish between fiction and reality, we would wish that it had never been written.”
The Blame Game
Those early concerns that Werther might encourage suicides created an expectation and elicited confirmation bias. It was only a matter of time before the book would be directly blamed for adolescent tragedy.
The first example of this was in 1778 when Christel von Lassberg, a young Weimar court official's child, died by suicide. The Sorrow of Young Werther was found in her coat pocket leading to obvious conclusions. Goeth gave credence to this conclusion, taking responsibility and promising to build a memorial in her honor.
Possession of the book by victims was treated as causative evidence by grieving families, the media, and the church, despite its common wide ownership among young people. Use of a gun, and motivation by heartbreak were also deemed proof of inspiration by The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Correlation not Causation
In 2023 a study noted that of the reported suicides blamed on the novel, many of them were attributed using these questionable forms of evidence:
In the above examples from previous literature, 19 suicides were attributed to the novel between 1755 and 1833. 10 of them were blamed on the novel because the young person simply owned the book. Only 2 could be directly tied to the book. The study also found new examples, with a similar lack of causative evidence.
These speculations and reporting led to the notion of a "suicide epidemic," prompting bans in Italy, Denmark, and parts of Germany out of an abundance of caution. The reputation stuck.
Guilty Conscious
One author remarked in 1813 that the novel “caused more suicides than the most beautiful woman in the world” and the following year Goethe himself would recount his feelings of culpability for some tragedies, saying:
“My friends…thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public…”
This suggests he felt guilt for more than just the death of Christel von Lassberg - but of the larger supposed epidemic. These feelings prompted him to re-release a slightly toned down version of the novel in 1787.
The Werther Effect
In 1974 the concept of the ‘Werther Effect’ was coined by David Philipps, who suggested that reporting on high profile suicides - such as a celebrity or one blamed on a novel - can cause a spike of copycat suicides. Notably this is about reports of real world suicides, not fictional ones.
Assuming Philipps theory is correct, the panicked reporting on ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ could have exacerbated any uptick in youth suicides - many of which may well have been wrongly blamed on the novel, reported as such and lead to more coverage and potentially more copycats.
Although even ‘the Werther Effect’ could be just another simplistic answer to a complex issue: youth suicide - and scapegoating media - real or fictional, a distraction from real mitigations.