An instant bestseller in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther was carried by Napoleon on his campaign in Egypt, it led to spin offs in fashion, porcelain and perfume and created Werther fever. A work of his Sturm und Drang years, Goethe's epistolary novel was published anonymously when he was aged 24. The story captures the intensity of unrequited love, frustrated ambition and mental suffering. It is also a novel that keys into the big philosophical arguments of its age and has given rise to a wide range of artistic responses in the two centuries since. With the Royal Opera House staging Massenet's operatic adaptation of the story, Anne McElvoy explores the ideas that fed into it.

Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London.

Dr Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Dr Andrew Cooper is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Dr Sabina Dosani is a doctoral researcher in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. She is a consultant psychiatrist and a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Werther: Antonio Pappano conducts Massenet's opera with a cast including Jonas Kaufmann and Aigul Akhmetshina. Performances at the Royal Opera House are from June 20th - July 4th

You can find other discussions about artworks, literature, film and TV which are Landmarks of culture gathered into a collection on the Free Thinking programme website. They include episodes about Gunter Grass, ETA Hoffmann, Hannah Arendt, and Thomas Mann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44