Johann Martin Miller - Siegwart: eine Klostergeschichte

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Siegwart: eine Klostergeschichte

by Johann Martin Miller

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Zenodot Verlagsgesellscha

Publication date ‏ : ‎ 14 Feb. 2014

Language ‏ : ‎ German

Print length ‏ : ‎ 430 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 3843043396

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-3843043397

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.81 x 2.44 x 21.01 cm

What we were allowed was only longing -

and even that was to be bourne alone.

I have loved you

as one loves something

one may not possess.

I did not lose you -

I was never allowed

to keep you.

And yet, my heart

learned your name

as if it were a wound.

We loved each other

without permission.

That was our sin.

We loved each other briefly,

to pay for it the rest of our lives.

by R.E. Slater
December 16, 2025
[either originals, or a paraphrase
from film, Victoria, stanza #2]
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

German theologian and writer, Johann Martin Miller

Siegwart: eine Klostergeschichte (Siegwart: A Monastery Story) is a famous sentimental novel written by Johann Martin Miller. It was published in 1776 and, similar to Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, became a bestseller of its time.

The narrative follows the life of the pious and deeply emotional Siegwart, who is placed in a monastery by his family. The novel weaves together two distinct love stories that contrast happy virtue with tragic passion:

• The Happy Arc: Siegwart falls in love with a virtuous young woman named Marianne. Their relationship is portrayed as a model of pure, moral, and religiously sanctioned love.

• The Tragic Arc: This involves the story of another character, a beautiful but unhappily married woman whose despair over a lost love ultimately leads to her death.

Miller intended the book to be a moral guide and a source of solace ("Trostschrift") dedicated to "all noble souls." Unlike Werther, which ends in suicide and social critique, Siegwart emphasizes themes of Christian virtue, emotional purity, and the pursuit of a morally correct life within the constraints of society and faith, concluding with virtue rewarded rather than tragedy. It resonated deeply with the contemporary audience's appetite for intense emotional expression.

Content and Features

• Genre: The novel is a significant work of sentimental literature in Germany, which is characterized by the depiction of strong emotions and moral questions.

• Plot: It tells two parallel love stories, one of which ends happily and the other tragically. The plot is shaped by emotional entanglements and the moral decisions of the characters within a monastic setting.

• Reception: The book was dedicated to "all noble souls" and became a sensation following *the Werther fever, making it an important source for understanding Southern German culture and literary taste of that era.

• Style: It is a novel of solace (Trostschrift), often considered a rich source of contemporary observations.

The book was published in several parts and often includes copperplate engravings. You can find various editions of the novel through online booksellers, such as Amazon.com.

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Victoria (a 2013 Norwegian drama)

A tragic love affair between Victoria and Johannes. She's a daughter of a rich estate owner and he's the son of the local miller. Despite the deep love between them, her father makes Victoria abandon Johannes for the richer Otto.

IMDb info

The 2013 Norwegian film, Victoria, directed by Torun Lian, may be considered very relevant to the sentimental novels Siegwart and Werther, capturing the intense, emotionally fraught atmosphere of unrequited love.

The film is a direct adaptation of the 1889 novel of the same name by the acclaimed Norwegian author and Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun. Hamsun's novel shares the core themes of Miller and Goethe's works:

• Social Class Barriers: The central conflict in Victoria is the tragic love story between Johannes, a miller's son (similar to the lower status of Werther), and Victoria, the daughter of a wealthy and strict estate owner (the inaccessible beloved).

• Unrequited/Doomed Love: Their love is doomed from the start due to societal expectations and parental interference. Both characters sacrifice their happiness in silent obedience to duty and circumstance.

• Melodrama and Sentimentality: The narrative is steeped in the melancholic, passionate, and often heart-wrenching emotional style characteristic of 19th-century and late 18th-century sentimental literature.

• Tragic Ending: Like Werther and the tragic arc in Siegwart, the story culminates in profound loss and death, reinforcing the impossibility of their union.

Summary: Victoria perfectly fits the emotional landscape of the "Werther fever" era, providing a powerful cinematic parallel to the themes explored in Miller's Siegwart.

Werther and Lotte, from The Sorrows of Young Werther

*The "Werther fever" (or Wertherfieber in German) was a cultural phenomenon and moral panic that swept across Europe in the late 18th century following the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774.

The phenomenon involved several aspects:

• Imitation of Fashion: Young men throughout Europe began to emulate the protagonist, Werther, by adopting his distinctive clothing style: a blue tailcoat, a yellow waistcoat, and yellow or brown trousers with tall boots.

• Emotional Identification: Readers, particularly young people, deeply resonated with Werther's intense emotions, unrequited love, and struggles against societal norms, embracing the Romantic ideal of individualism and passionate feeling over rationality.

• Merchandising: The novel's immense popularity led to the production of various "Werther" themed items, including prints, decorated porcelain, and even a perfume.

• Copycat Suicides: Most notably and controversially, the novel was allegedly linked to a wave of copycat suicides (a phenomenon now known in social research as the Werther effect). Reports circulated of young men ending their lives using the same method as Werther (a self-inflicted gunshot) and sometimes with a copy of the book found nearby.

• Bans: Due to concerns over the novel's influence, it was banned in several cities and countries, including Leipzig, Denmark, and Italy, in an attempt to stop the "suicide contagion". 

The "Werther fever" highlighted the immense power of mass media and literature at the time to influence public behavior and sentiment, sparking widespread debates about mental health and the moral responsibility of authors.

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The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (publ. 1774; rev. 1787)

Most of The Sorrows of Young Werther, a story about a young man's extreme response to unrequited love, is presented as a collection of letters written by Werther, a young artist of a sensitive and passionate temperament, to his friend Wilhelm. These give an intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim (based on Garbenheim (de; it; nl), near Wetzlar), whose peasants have enchanted him with their simple ways. There he meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who takes care of her siblings after the death of their mother. Werther falls in love with Charlotte despite knowing beforehand that she is engaged to a man named Albert, eleven years her senior.

Despite the pain it causes him, Werther spends the next few months cultivating a close friendship with them both. His sorrow eventually becomes so unbearable that he is forced to leave Wahlheim for Weimar, where he makes the acquaintance of Fräulein von B. He suffers great embarrassment when he forgetfully visits a friend and unexpectedly has to face a weekly gathering of the entire aristocratic set. He is not tolerated and asked to leave since he is not a nobleman. He then returns to Wahlheim, where he suffers still more than before, partly because Charlotte and Albert are now married. Every day becomes a torturing reminder that Charlotte will never be able to requite his love. She, out of pity for her friend and respect for her husband, decides that Werther must not visit her so frequently. He visits her one final time, and they are both overcome with emotion after he recites to her a passage of his own translation of Ossian.

Even before that incident, Werther had hinted at the idea that one member of the love triangle - Charlotte, Albert or Werther himself - had to die to resolve the situation. Unable to hurt anyone else or seriously consider murder, Werther sees no other choice but to take his own life. After composing a farewell letter to be found after his death, he writes to Albert asking for his two pistols, on the pretext that he is going "on a journey". Charlotte receives the request with great emotion and sends the pistols. Werther then shoots himself in the head, but does not die until twelve hours later. He is buried between two linden trees that he had mentioned frequently in his letters. The funeral is not attended by any clergy, or by Albert or Charlotte. The book ends with an intimation that Charlotte may die of a broken heart: "I shall say nothing of . . . Charlotte's grief. . . . Charlotte's life was despaired of."

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Open Read link

Johann Martin Miller (1750–1814) was an influential German theologian and writer, primarily known for his sentimental novels that captured the emotional climate of the late 18th century.

• Early Life and Education: Born in Ulm, Germany, on December 3, 1750, Miller studied theology at the University of Göttingen.

• Göttinger Hainbund: In 1772, while still a student, he co-founded the Göttinger Hainbund (Göttingen Grove League), an important literary circle of young poets who promoted ideals of friendship, virtue, and an interest in Germanic history, aligning with some tenets of the Sturm und Drang movement. He was close friends with fellow writers Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.

• Major Work: He achieved immense fame with his 1776 novel Siegwart: eine Klostergeschichte (Siegwart: A Monastery Story), a bestseller that imitated the style and success of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.

• Career: Miller was a Protestant theologian by profession. After his studies, he returned to his hometown of Ulm, where he served in various clerical and educational roles throughout his life, including as a pastor, a high school teacher, and eventually the dean of the Ulm Minster (cathedral preacher) in 1810.

• Later Writings: While Siegwart was his most successful work, he continued to write, publishing a moral weekly (1779–1781), two more novels, collections of poems, and sermons.

• Death: Johann Martin Miller died in Ulm on June 21, 1814, at the age of 63. 

Despite his later works not reaching the heights of his debut novel, Miller remained a significant figure in German literary and ecclesiastical circles of his time.