Romantic Primitivism in The Sorrows of Young Werther

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther is a Romantic work in the sense that it embodies the ideas of Romantic Primitivism. Romantic Primitivism celebrates “Dionysian spontaneity, the free play of genius…the simple, the untutored, the primitive, children, peasants, people of humble background or mentality.” Romantic Primitivism upheld the idea that things such as those listed above were better left to nature, not to be improved upon. As Blake says, “Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” (Perkins, pg 106) Geothe embodies these values in the character of Werther and these values can be seen through the judgments that Werther passes on his surroundings and his companions.
In the opening pages of the book Werther is describing the Count von M.’s garden. Through this description the reader can see the Romantic’s love of “Dionysian spontaneity” and the natural, rural scene:
The town itself...