EXCESSIVE SADNESS IS the distinguishing feature of the heroines Lila and Mandandane in Goethe's Lila (1777, 1778, 1788) and Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit (1778). Although these plays are usually described as Singspiele (often translated as musical comedies), both lack the entertaining appeal which, in the eighteenth century, made this genre so popular amongst all strata of society. The numerous arias and duets in Lila and Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit are not intended as pure entertainment for the audience, but as a means to articulate the heroines’ solitude, lamentations, and death wishes. In addition, Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit contains farcical elements, a rather unorthodox ingredient for a Singspiel. As a consequence, none of the three different musical settings of Lila by Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Carl Siegmund von Seckendorff, and Friedrich Ludwig Seidel succeeded in making the play a popular choice for theatre productions. Seckendorff also set Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit to music, with a similar lack of success.

Goethe used the Singspiel-genre to illustrate a particularly female reaction to the metaphysical upheavals of the late Enlightenment. While the repressed desires and unfulfilled longings of men tend to attain philosophical dignity, they are invariably endowed with the stigma of madness when attributed to women. Accordingly, they require treatment, not tolerance. Lila and Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit set out two psychological case histories, something that places them at the heart of fairly recent debates in literary criticism.