The very beginning of the romantic movement, the decade of the 1770s, saw the phenomenon of Sturm und Drang, ‘storm and stress’, a young generation of German poets who rebelled against their strict education and social conventions to explore their emotions.54 The best-known of these ‘ill-considered’ works was Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).55 Here we have the perfect romantic scenario, in which the individual is set against and is at odds with society. Werther is a young, enthusiastic, passionate individual isolated amid strict, desiccated, pious Lutherans.
