TWO OF THE WORKS THAT GOETHE WROTE in 1774 end with a Liebestod. Clavigo, an enduringly popular play, does not actually celebrate the blending of the lovers in a death-transcending union: Its horizon is more social than existential and revolves around Clavigo's difficulty in choosing between love and ambition, between ascendancy in society and government on the one hand and marriage to the declassé Marie Beaumarchais on the other. The dilemma is resolved by the thrust of a dagger from Marie's brother, the mortally wounded Clavigo falling on the coffin of the woman he has wronged. He grasps her cold hand, saying “Du bist die Meinige — Und noch diesen Bräutigamskuß. Ach!” (FA 1,4:492).

The protagonist of Goethe's sensational novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers envisions his suicide in terms of a Liebestod, and Werther is one of the most important works structured around this topos in world literature. The novel also involves matters social, however, and is often interpreted, famously by Georg Lukács, as a reflection of the struggle of a middle class now feeling its oats against the prevailing feudalistic structure: Werther indulges appetites that social developments have awakened but that a repressive class structure cannot yet tolerate. Mainstream critics, however, focus on Werther's frustrated love and his suicide, on his progress from initial self-affirmation to his eventual self-surrender, in a vain hope — so recognized by Werther himself — of being united with Lotte beyond the grave.