In literary criticism, a bildungsroman () is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age).
Origin
The term was coined in 1819 by
Philology Karl 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.[Swales, Martin. The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. 38.] 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.[Buckley, J. H. (1974). Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding, Harvard Univ Press, .][Ellis, L. (1999). Appearing to Diminish: Female Development and the British Bildungsroman , 1750–1850, London: Bucknell University Press, ][Moretti, Franco, and Albert Sbragia (1987), , London: Verso, .][Hirsch, Marianne. "The Novel of Formation as Genre: Between Great Expectations and Lost Illusions" , Genre Vol. 12 (Fall 1979), pp. 293–311, University of Oklahoma.] and several other countries around the globe.[Slaughter, J. R. (2006). "Novel Subjects and Enabling Fictions: the Formal Articulation of International Human Rights Law", Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law, Ch. 2 (2007), New York: Fordham University Press, ; .]
Barbara Whitman noted that the Iliad might be the first bildungsroman. It is not just "the story of the Trojan War. The Trojan War is in effect the backdrop for the story of Achilles' development. At the beginning Achilles is still a rash youth, making rash decisions which cost dearly to himself and all around him. (...) The story reaches its conclusion when Achilles has reached maturity and allows King Priam to recover Hector's body".[Whitman, Barbara C. "The Iliad as a Bildungsroman". In Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Roundtable on Classical Greece (eds. Victor Kromberg and Amalia Stanton, pp. 71, 73.]
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 expecting that these will gain him or her experience of the world. The genre evolved from
folklore tales of a
dunce or youngest child going out in the world to seek his or her fortune.
["Franco Moretti et John Neubauer, historiens de la littérature, ont tous deux insisté sur le rôle fondamental qu'a joué le roman, depuis la fin du XVIIIe siècle jusqu'à la Première Guerre mondiale, dans la construction des âges de la vie, de l'adolescence et la jeunesse. Si, avant cette période, les jeunes sont les laissés-pour-compte de la littérature romanesque, cette entrée tardive est compensée par la place centrale qu'ils occupent dans le roman de formation. Vers la fin du XIXe siècle, quand ce genre entre en crise, les jeunes sont remplacés par les adolescents, nouveaux protagonistes des œuvres de fiction. Après les écrits de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, le roman de formation, ou Bildungsroman, dont l'apogée se situe entre Les années d'apprentissage de Wilhelm Meister de Goethe (1795–1796) et l'Éducation sentimentale de Flaubert (1869), invente la figure littéraire du jeune homme voyageur. C'est à partir donc de cette période qu'il faudra retrouver certains traits des voyages fictionnels, que j'appelle matrices , qui hantent encore notre imaginaire, et que l'on retrouve dans les séjours Erasmus contemporains" (Cicchelli Vincenzo, "Les legs du voyage de formation à la Bildung cosmopolite" , Le Télémaque, 2010/2 (n° 38), pp. 57–70. DOI: 10.3917/tele.038.0057.] Usually in the beginning of the story, there is an emotional loss that makes the protagonist leave on his 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, who is 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.
Franco Moretti "argues that the main conflict in the bildungsroman is the myth of modernity with its overvaluation of youth and progress as it clashes with the static teleological vision of happiness and reconciliation found in the endings of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and even Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice".[Lazzaro-Weis, Carol. "The Female 'Bildungsroman': Calling It into Question", NWSA Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 16–34. ]
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,[Malone, David H. Faculty Development, or Faculty Life as a "Bildungsroman", Profession (1979), pp. 46–50. ] while a Künstlerroman ("artist novel") is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self.[" The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara–HSC English Discovery ", Real Teacher Tutors. Retrieved 12 July 2016.] The term is also more loosely used to describe coming-of-age films and related works in other genres.
Examples
Precursors
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Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail (12th century)
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Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (13th century).
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th century).
16th century
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Lazarillo de Tormes (first edition 1554)
17th century
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El Criticón by Baltasar Gracián (first edition 1651). Usually considered the pioneering work in its modern form.
18th century
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Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure ( Fanny Hill) by John Cleland (1748)
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The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (1749)
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Candide by Voltaire (1759)
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (1759)
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Geschichte des Agathon by Christoph Martin Wieland (1767)—often considered the first "true" bildungsroman
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Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1795–96)
19th century
20th century
21st century
See also
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Bildung
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Biographical novel
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Künstlerroman
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Memoir
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Mirrors for princes
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Roman à clef
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
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Revised edition, with bibliographic updates by Charles Bane and Sean M. Flory (Scarecrow Press, 2006). .
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External links
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The Bildungsroman Project - academic digital humanities project featuring user-submitted articles on genre exemplars and contemporary personal narratives, edited by English literature professor Katherine Carlson
