The Sorrows of Young Werther
Borrow's precocious linguistic skills as a youth made him a protégé of the Norwich-born scholar William Taylor, whom he depicted in his autobiographical novel "Lavengro" (1851) as an advocate of German Romantic literature. Recalling his youth in Norwich some 30 years earlier, Borrow depicted an old man (Taylor) and a young man (Borrow) discussing the merits of German literature, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther". Taylor confessed himself to be no admirer of either "The Sorrows of Young Werther" or its author, but he stated, "It is good to be a German [for] the Germans are the most philosophical people in the world."