Bildungsroman - a novel, which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity.

 Bildungsroman

 

 Webster's College Dictionary's definition of Bildungsroman is "a novel dealing with the education and development of its protagonist". The Bildungsroman as a genre has its roots in Germany. Jerome Buckley notes that the word itself is German, with Bildung having a variety of connotations: "portrait," "picture," "shaping" and "formation," all of which give the sense of development or creation (the development of the child can also be seen as the creation of the man) The term Bildungsroman emerged as a description of Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. This was the first Bildungsroman; having been published between 1794 and 1796 The word "lehrjahre" can be translated as "apprenticeship". "Apprenticeship" has many connotations, most of which deal with education and work. An apprentice goes to work for an experienced worker and learns and develops his trade and also to a greater extent his identity. Similarly, the Bildungsroman is characterized by the growth, education, and development of a character both in the world and ultimately within himself. The Bildungsroman is subcategorized into very specific types of the genre, most often found in German literature. There is the Entwicklungsroman, which can be defined as "a chronicle of a young man's general growth rather than his specific quest for self-culture". In other words, a story recounting a man's life rather than focusing on the inner changes that contribute to his maturity.  Again, the concern is not the overall development of the main character, but a specific aspect of that character's life. Finally, there is the Kunstlerroman. The root Kunstler translates as an artist in English. Therefore, this is the development of the artist from childhood until his artistic maturity, focusing on the man as an artist rather than the man in general.

Great Expectations is widely considered to be a direct descendant of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, the prototypical Bildungsroman.

The "highest happiness of humankind" is the development of the person as the unifying, substantial form of human existence".

The German word Bildungsroman means "a novel of formation" or novel of education" - someone's growth from childhood to maturity. A kind of subset of the Bildungsroman is the Kunstlerroman, the story of an artist's growth to maturity. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a famous example.

A Bildungsroman (German: "education novel") is a novel, which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity.

 One of the foremost examples of this genre is Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and David Copperfield.  More contemporary examples are Iain Banks' novel The Crow Road and Ursula K. Le Guin's fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea.

The English Bildungsroman as a type of novel has a strong in English literature. In Great Britain, it can trace its roots back to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Since then, the British novel has grown in popularity.  The type of novel that was particularly popular in Victorian England was the novel of youth. Many authors of the time were producing works focused on the journey from childhood to adulthood. Some of the more famous examples: are Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, George Eliot wrote The Mill on the FlossCharles Dickens wrote David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

All of these novels trace the growth of a child. In this respect, some of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century were part of the genre called the Bildungsroman Author Somerset Maugham speaking about his novel Of Human Bondage. 'It is not an autobiography, but an autobiographical novel; fact and fiction are inextricably mingled'". Naturally, an author does bring something of his own life into his work, especially in a form in which childhood recollections are so important to the development of the protagonist, and the flow of the novel itself. The second common characteristic of the Bildungsroman is the ancestry of the main character. Many of the English Bildungsroman have a protagonist who is often an orphan or a child who has suffered the loss of a father. This sets the scene for a difficult development, marked by a desire in the protagonist to search for his or her own identity since there is either none, to begin with as an orphan, or no familial identity as a fatherless child. Therefore, the child seeks to gain an identity of their own, and the development begins.  Part of the development of the child is the desire, as mentioned earlier, to leave home and become "his own man." Both the search for identity and the repression of the small town presents the motivation for the protagonist to do just that, and often his destination is London.

This is most appropriate for the English Bildungsroman, after all, of course, London is the largest, most cosmopolitan city in England and therefore presents the most opportunities for the now adolescent child to continue his development, education, and ultimately find his niche within society through his chosen occupation. Buckley points out that this journey is "more importantly . . . his direct experience of urban life". However, this urban experience is not always a pleasant one. However poor the child may have been in his provincial town, there is urban squalor and abject poverty in London, a harsh reality to bear. In this case, London, although it seems like some perfect destination, full of opportunity, is the source of "disenchantment more alarming and decisive than any dissatisfaction with the narrowness of provincial life". Therefore, despite the hero's image of the shining city of hopes and dreams, it is disappointing, and not so much better than the life he had at home. An aspect of this new life in the city is that of love. It is usually here that the hero has his first experience with love. Buckley writes that there are "at least two love affairs or sexual encounters, one debasing, one exalting". Usually, between the debasement of the one love affair and the disillusionment with the city, the young man takes the final step in his development.

 He must reconcile "after painful soul-searching, the sort of accommodation to the modern world he can honestly make" In other words the inner development and maturity of the protagonist takes place after his "education" in the city. It is this newfound self-knowledge that signals the ultimate maturity of the hero. With this maturity of course comes success, recognition of acceptance and maturity; now that he knows himself he often goes on to share his life with someone else. Clearly, this is a display of pride in his accomplishments, and more importantly a search for external validation, however ironic it may be that he must return to the place he wanted so desperately to escape to achieve this validation. It is with this return home, where the reader is reminded of who the protagonist was and where he came from, that his development can most clearly be delineated. Although he has come full circle, the memories of the boy that was are perfectly suited to emphasize the man that he has become. The basic principles of education and development, and the journey from childhood to adulthood, from small to large, are present within every English Bildungsroman. After all, even though every person's story is different, they must all go through stages of development in order to reach maturity and find their personal niche within the larger world. The basic formula of the Bildungsroman is a universal

Additional Notes

-        a "search for meaningful existence within society.

-        To spur the hero or heroine on to their journey, some form of loss or discontent A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots is a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and must jar them at an early stage away from the home or family setting.

-        The process of maturity is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order.

-        Eventually, the spirit and values of the social order become manifest in the protagonist, who is then accommodated into society. The novel ends with an assessment by the protagonist of himself and his new place in that society.

-        It examines a regular course of development in the life of the individual; each of its stages has its own value and each is at the same time the basis of a higher stage.

-        The dissonances and conflicts of life appears as the necessary transit points of the individual on his way to maturity and harmony.

 

 

Works Cited:

"Bildungsroman." Webster's College Dictionary. New York: Random House, 1996.

Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1974.

Kroll, Richard. "Defoe and Early Narrative." Columbia History of the British Novel. Ed. John Richetti. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Link to