Bildungsroman

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Literature In literary criticism, a bildungsroman (Template:IPA) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and change of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age).Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>Template:Efn The term comes from the German words Template:Lang ('formation') and Template:Lang ('novel').

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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> 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,Template:Sfn or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's Template:Lang of 1767.<ref name=" Swales, Martin 1978">Swales, Martin. The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. 38.</ref> 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.<ref>Buckley, J. H. (1974). Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding, Harvard Univ Press, Template:ISBN.</ref><ref>Ellis, L. (1999). Appearing to Diminish: Female Development and the British Bildungsroman Template:Webarchive, 1750–1850, London: Bucknell University Press, Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="Golban">Template:Cite journal</ref> In the 20th century, it spread to France<ref>Moretti, Franco, and Albert Sbragia (1987), The Way of the World: the Bildungsroman in European Culture, London: Verso, Template:ISBN.</ref><ref>Hirsch, Marianne. "The Novel of Formation as Genre: Between Great Expectations and Lost Illusions" Template:Webarchive, Genre Vol. 12 (Fall 1979), pp. 293–311, University of Oklahoma.</ref> and several other countries around the globe.<ref>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, Template:ISBN; Template:Doi.</ref>

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".<ref>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.</ref>

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.<ref>"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" Template:Webarchive, Le Télémaque, 2010/2 (n° 38), pp. 57–70. DOI: 10.3917/tele.038.0057.</ref> 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.

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".<ref>Lazzaro-Weis, Carol. "The Female 'Bildungsroman': Calling It into Question", NWSA Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 16–34. Template:JSTOR</ref>

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,<ref>Malone, David H. Faculty Development, or Faculty Life as a "Bildungsroman", Profession (1979), pp. 46–50. Template:JSTOR</ref> while a Künstlerroman ("artist novel") is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self.<ref name="Werlock2010p387">Template:Cite book</ref> Furthermore, some memoirs and published journals can be regarded as bildungsroman although claiming to be predominantly factual (e.g. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac or The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Che" Guevara).<ref>"The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara–HSC English Discovery Template:Webarchive", Real Teacher Tutors. Retrieved 12 July 2016.</ref> The term is also more loosely used to describe coming-of-age films and related works in other genres.

Examples

Precursors

• Template:Lang by Ibn Tufail (12th century)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (13th century).
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th century).

16th century

• Template:Lang (first edition 1554)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

17th century

• Template:Lang 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)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (1749)<ref name="McWilliams2009p14"/>
• Candide by Voltaire (1759)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (1759)<ref name="McWilliams2009p14">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Template:Lang by Christoph Martin Wieland (1767)—often considered the first "true" bildungsroman<ref name="Swales, Martin 1978"/>
• Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1795–96)<ref name="Robison">Template:Cite web</ref>

19th century

• The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (1827)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1830)Template:Sfn
• Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle (1833–34)<ref name="Golban"/>
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Template:Lang (unfinished) by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1849)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)Template:Sfn
• Green Henry by Gottfried Keller (1855)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard (1862)
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1869)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (1869)Template:Sfn
• The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1875)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)
• What Maisie Knew by Henry James (1897)<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

20th century

• Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Beneath the Wheel by Hermann Hesse, 1906
• Martin Eden by Jack London (1909)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani (1911)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (1913)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (1916)<ref name="Werlock2010p387"/>Template:Sfn
• Demian by Hermann Hesse (1919)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924)Template:Sfn
• Template:Lang by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (1929)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)<ref name="thetop2">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, (1952)
• Children of Violence by Doris Lessing (1952–1969)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming (1953)<ref>"George Lamming, West Indian author" Template:Webarchive, Encyclopædia Britannica</ref>
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles (1959)
• Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (1959)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)<ref name="thetop2" />
• Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook (1961)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Brian Moore (1965)<ref name = Hicks>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton (1967)<ref name="Kinchen2006">Template:Cite web</ref>
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (1984)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• How to Kill a Bull by Anna-Leena Härkönen (1984)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1985)<ref name="Kinchen2006"/>
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• English Music by Peter Ackroyd (1992)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (1997–2007)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto (1999)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2000)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

21st century

• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (2003)<ref name="Kurth 2003">Template:Cite news</ref>
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)<ref name="thetop2"/>
• Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel (2005)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (2006)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano (2007–2013)<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Citation needed
• Indignation by Philip Roth (2008)Template:Efn
• Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey (2008)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (2011–2014)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina (2015)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (2018)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (2018)<ref name=SMH>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Bildung
• Künstlerroman
• Mirrors for princes
• Roman à clef

Bibliography

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Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
  Revised edition, with bibliographic updates by Charles Bane and Sean M. Flory (Scarecrow Press, 2006). Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite book

External links

• 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