BILDUNGSROMAN

A 'bildungsroman' (/, German: "novel of personal development") is a novelistic form which concentrates on the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity. These themes are now often portrayed in films as well as novels.
''Bildungsromane'' usually contain the following course:

★ The protagonist grows from boy or girl to man or woman.

★ The protagonist must have some reason to go on this journey. A loss or discontent must jar him or her at an early stage away from the home or family setting.

★ The process of maturing is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of repeated clashes between the needs or desires of the hero and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order. This bears some similarity to Sigmund Freud's concept of the pleasure principle versus the reality principle.

★ 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/herself and his/her new place in that society.

★ The character is generally making a smooth movement away from conformity. Major conflict is self vs. society or individuality vs. conformity.

★ There are themes of exile or escape
Within the genre, an ''Entwicklungsroman'' is a story of general growth rather than self-culture; an ''Erziehungsroman'' focuses on training and formal education; and a ''Künstlerroman'' is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self.
Many other genres include a bildungsroman as a prominent part of their story lines; for example, a military story frequently shows a raw recruit receiving a baptism of fire and becoming a battle-hardened soldier. A high fantasy quest may also show a transformation from an adolescent protagonist into an adult aware of his/her powers or lineage. The concept also carries over to many role-playing games, where characters frequently gain experience points and/or "levels" that make them more powerful through the course of their adventures.

Contents

List of bildungsromane

See also

References

List of bildungsromane

Main articles: Bildungsroman examples (pre-1930), Bildungsroman examples (post-1930)


★ ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''

★ ''The House on Mango Street''

★ ''Invisible Man''

★ ''The Chosen''

★ '' by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

★ ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' by J.W. Goethe

★ The Telemachy in ''The Odyssey'' of Homer

★ ''Peter Camenzind'' by Herman Hesse

★ ''The Studs Lonigan Trilogy'' by James T. Farrell

★ ''Anton Reiser'' by Karl Philipp Moritz

★ ''Jane Eyre'' by Charlotte Brontë

★ ''Great Expectations'', ''David Copperfield'' and ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' by Charles Dickens

★ ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' by Mark Twain

★ ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' by Harper Lee

★ ''The Power of One'' by Bryce Courtenay

★ ''Starship Troopers'' by Robert A. Heinlein

★ ''Harry Potter'' series by J. K. Rowling

★ ''Eureka Seven'' by Tomoki Kyoda

★ ''The Catcher in the Rye'' by J. D. Salinger

★ ''The Go-Between'' by L. P. Hartley

★ ''Lord of the Flies'' by William Golding

★ ''Portnoy's Complaint'' by Philip Roth

★ ''How Many Miles to Babylon?'' by Jennifer Johnston

★ ''Empire of the Sun'' by J. G. Ballard

★ ''Riddley Walker'' by Russell Hoban

★ ''His Dark Materials'' trilogy by Philip Pullman

See also

★ Coming of age

References

★ Buckley, Jerome H., ''Season of Youth'' (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1974).

★ Jeffers, Thomas L., ''Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana'' (New York: Palgrave, 2005).

★ Abrams, M.H. ''Glossary of Literary Terms - Eighth Edition'' (Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005).