Bildungsroman
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A Bildungsroman (IPA /Template: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.
- 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 a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."
- 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 and his 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 Kunstlerroman is about the development of an artist.
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Prominent Examples
- Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy
- Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
- Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
- Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
- Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- More examples are listed here
Contemporary Examples
- James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- C. S. Forester's Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
- Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird
- Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- More examples are listed here
Films
Many such books have been translated to film. Other films exhibiting the Bildungsroman form are listed here, showing the character and the actor playing the role.
- Lili (Leslie Caron) in Lili
- Gigi (Leslie Caron) in Gigi
- Katsushiro (Isao Kimura) in Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai)
- Chico (Horst Buchholz) in The Magnificent Seven
- Will Hunting (Matt Damon) in Good Will Hunting
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).de:Bildungsroman es:Bildungsroman nl:Bildungsroman ja:教養小説 zh:教育小说