A bildungsroman is a coming-of-age kind of novel. It arose during the German Enlightenment. In it, the author presents the psychological, moral and social shaping of the personality of a character, usually the protagonist. The term Bildungsroman was coined by Johann Carl Simon Morgenstern.
The bildungsroman generally takes the following course:
- The protagonist grows from child to adult.
- The protagonist has a reason to embark upon his or her journey. A loss or some discontent must, at an early stage, jar him or her away from the home or family setting.
- The process of maturation is long, arduous and gradual, involving repeated clashes between the hero's (protagonist's) needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order. This conflict bears some similarity to Sigmund Freud's concept of the pleasure principle versus the reality principle.
Many genres other than the bildungsroman can include elements of it as prominent parts of their story lines. For example, a military story might show a raw recruit receiving a baptism by fire and becoming a battle-hardened soldier, while a high-fantasy quest story may show a transformation from an adolescent protagonist into an adult who is aware of his or her lineage or powers. Neither of those genres or stories, however, corresponds exactly to the bildungsroman.
This is an incomplete chronological list of Bildungsroman works that are widely acknowledged to be representative of the genre.
- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
- David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (1850)
- Green Henry, by Gottfried Keller (1855)
- Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1860–61)
- Sentimental Education, by Gustave Flaubert (1869)
- Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1881-82)
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1884)
- Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)
- A Room with a View, by E. M. Forster (1908)
- Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)
- Martin Eden, by Jack London (1909)
- Sons and Lovers, by D. H. Lawrence (1913)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce (1914–15)
- Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham (1915)
- The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (1915)
- Demian, by Hermann Hesse (1919)
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
- Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse (1922)
- The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann (1924)
- All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque (1928)
- Pather Panchali, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay (1929)
- Aparajita, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay (1931)
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)
- Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin (1953)
- Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein (1953)
- The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham (1955)
- The Tin Drum, by Günter Grass (1959)
- A Separate Peace, by John Knowles (1959)
- Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth (1959)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)
- Davy by Edgar Pangborn (1964)
- Out of the Shelter by David Lodge (1970)
- My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (1972)
- Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya (1972)
- Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie (1981)
- Lanark: A Life in Four Books, by Alasdair Gray (1981)
- Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy (1985)
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson (1985)[12]
- The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (1989)
- The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi (1990)
- The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson (1995)
- The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)
- Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell (author) (2006)
8 comments:
A fascinating post. I'd never heard of bildungsroman before.
'Catcher in the Rye' is on my 100 list. I might push it to the front soon.
Best,
Corra
from the desk of a writer
Great post! I hadn't thought of the thread that tied all those novels together. I do like those coming of age stories.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
I learned something new today! Thank you! And I see you've reached 100 followers. Congrats!
I'd never heard of 'bildungsroman' before, but it's nice to know what it means. The examples made it much clearer. Just please don't make me pronounce it. :)
~ TIna ~
Corra, I'd never heard of it either... I like learning new and complicated words.
Elizabeth, I know, who knew they even took the time to name it.
Suzette, nice name, btw. Yeah, 100 followers. I wanted to give something away but I have nothing and no money... Thanks for the comment.
Tina, yeah I know, difficult to pronounce. Sounds like Bill's poo is of roman decent.
ann
I posted to this before but it never showed. I wonder if the comment gods ate it?
I always liked Catcher in the Rye. I liked it because to me, Holden is all the things he hates. So when he talks about phonies and liars and he's lying left and right---he's hating who he is.
So many people hate themselves.
PLus, he's a guy in pain and no one except Phoebe ever acknowledges his pain. He should be 'done' with grief but he isn't.
He's drowning and everyone is filling his pockets with sand.
I identified with him when I was fifteen. He's not completely likable but he is very relatable.
I think that's why the parents hated it... all the children could relate and all the parents were afraid their children felt that way and would act the same.
ann
http://eekshop.com
one)iPhone Screen saver
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