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

Description of genre

A bildungsroman is generally defined as the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."

Among the components of a bildungsroman:

  • To spur the hero or heroine on to their journey, some form of loss or discontent 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/herself and his/her new place in that society.

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.

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 his/her 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.

Prominent examples

Films

Although by definition a bildungsroman story is in book form, many such books have been translated to film.

Films exhibiting the bildungsroman form are listed here, showing the character and the actor playing the role. They include:

See also

See Buckley, Jerome H. Season of Youth (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1974) and Jeffers, Thomas L. Apprenticeships: The Bildungsroman from Goethe to Santayana (New York: Palgrave, 2005).

Literary genres | German loanwords

Bildungsroman | Bildungsroman | Bildungsroman | 教養小説 | 教育小说

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Bildungsroman".

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