In the following essay, Kontje traces the origins of Bildungsroman theory, and the impact and critical reception of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.
The belated introduction of the term ...
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In the following essay, Johnson examines North and South as a Bildungsroman in which the characters Margaret and Thornton achieve maturity by revising their ideologies of class and gender.
The auth...
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In the following essay, Redfield studies the concept of Bildung and the paradoxes of literary Bildung, maintaining that the complications of the Bildungsroman genre stem from its aesthetic ideology.
...
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In the following essay, Matteo suggests that Waverley and Kim are Bildungsromane that portray the development of not only a protagonist, but also of the British Empire in its colonial subjugation of S...
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In the following essay, first delivered as a lecture in 1975, Hirsch considers the Bildungsroman a European literary genre rather than a strictly German one, and outlines the differences between Germa...
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In the following essay, Sammons questions the very existence of a Bildungsroman genre, contending that only—at most—four novels conform to Bildungsroman conventions.
If a person inter...
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In the following essay, Swales examines the Bildungsroman genre, particularly its use of irony, contending that the genre is a vital part of the European novel tradition, with a palpable legacy in the...
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In the following essay, Mahoney proposes that Bildungsromane have a unique impact and influence upon their readers.
When dealing with the novels of German Classicism and Romanticism, sooner or late...
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In the following essay, Smith suggests that Bildungsromane rarely end happily because they are characterized to some extent by the protagonist's unfulfilled desire in relation to a female other...
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In the following essay, Kohn suggests that Emma is an example of a Bildungsroman in which a heroine's education and development as a lady are achieved in a domestic setting rather than through ...
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In the following essay, Ellis contends that Jane Eyre, along with Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Betsy Thoughtless, conforms to the female Bildungsroman genre by presenting a heroine who manages to de...
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In the following essay, Kardux maintains that eighteenth-century social changes that altered family relationships made the nineteenth century uniquely suited for the burgeoning Bildungsroman genre in ...
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Excerpts from the Swedish Academy's citation awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature to Doris Lessing:___The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2007 is awarded to the British writer Doris Lessing "t...
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In the wake of Boerum Hill’s “It”-ification, my father and I recently decided to ring the doorbell of our old house on Dean Street. The visit was odd for several reasons, the firs...
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So there was A. Gifford Miller, standing around in khakis and one of his candy-stripe Sea Island cotton button-downs outside the Western Beef on Merrick Boulevard in Queens.
“We Know the Nei...
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So there was A. Gifford Miller, standing around in khakis and one of his candy-stripe Sea Island cotton button-downs outside the Western Beef on Merrick Boulevard in Queens.“We Know the Neigh...
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Critical Essay by Todd Kontje
Nobel literature prize excerpts
