Bildungsroman
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The Bildungsroman is closely associated with the new developmental psychology established by Leibniz, with the idea of a natural education in conformity with the inner development of the psyche. This had its beginnings with Rousseau's Emile and swept over all of Germany. The Bildungsroman is also associated with the ideal of humanity with which Lessing and Herder inspired their contemporaries."--Poetry and Experience (1906) by Wilhelm Dilthey "Emile, or On Education is the first Bildungsroman, preceding Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by more than thirty years."--Sholem Stein "L'Education sentimentale is the great "anti-Bildungsroman," the record of an education "away from" felt life and toward bourgeois torpor. " --In Bluebeard's Castle (1971) by George Steiner |
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In literary criticism, a bildungsroman is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words Bildung ("education", alternatively "forming") and Roman ("novel").
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Origin
The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905. The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term coming-of-age novel is sometimes used interchangeably with bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical.
The birth of the bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1795–96, or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's Geschichte des Agathon of 1767 Although the bildungsroman arose in Germany, it has had extensive influence first in Europe and later throughout the world. Thomas Carlyle's English translation of Goethe's novel (1824) and his own Sartor Resartus (1833–34), the first English bildungsroman, inspired many British novelists. The genre translates fairly directly into the cinematic form, the coming-of-age film.
Plot outline
A bildungsroman is a growing up or "coming of age" of a generally naive person who goes in search of answers to life's questions with the expectation that these will result in gaining experience of the world. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest child going out in the world to seek their fortune. Usually in the beginning of the story, there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on their journey. In a bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and they are ultimately accepted into society—the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.
There are many variations and subgenres of bildungsroman that focus on the growth of an individual. An Entwicklungsroman ("development novel") is a story of general growth rather than self-cultivation. An Erziehungsroman ("education novel") focuses on training and formal schooling, while a Künstlerroman ("artist novel") is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self. Furthermore, some memoirs and published journals can be regarded as bildungsroman although being predominantly factual (e.g. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac or The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Che" Guevara). The term is also more loosely used to describe coming-of-age films and related works in other genres.
Examples
Precursors
- Lazarillo de Tormes (first edition 1554)
- El Criticón by Baltasar Gracián (first edition 1651). Usually considered the pioneering work in its modern form.
18th century
- Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill), by John Cleland (1748)
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding (1749)
- Candide, by Voltaire (1759)
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne (1759)
- Geschichte des Agathon, by Christoph Martin Wieland (1767)—often considered the first "true" bildungsroman
- Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1795–96)
19th century
- The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni (1827)
- The Red and The Black, by Stendhal (1830)
- Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle (1833–34)
- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
- Netochka Nezvanova, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1849)
- David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (1850)
- Green Henry, by Gottfried Keller (1855)
- The Morgesons, by Elizabeth Stoddard (1862)
- Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1861)
- Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (1869)
- Sentimental Education, by Gustave Flaubert (1869)
- The Adolescent, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1875)
- What Maisie Knew, by Henry James (1897)
20th century
- Kim, by Rudyard Kipling (1901)
- Martin Eden, by Jack London (1909)
- Sons and Lovers, by D. H. Lawrence (1913)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce (1916)
- Demian, by Hermann Hesse (1919)
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
- The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924)
- Pather Panchali, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay (1929)
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)
See also