A Study On Bildungsroman From Goethe To Saul Bellow

The genre Bildungsroman rose in Germany in the late 18th and flourished in the early 19th. It is a traditional novel genre in the German literature and had once been the main form in the history. In the late 19th, the writing's climax of this genre began to reduce in Germany, while it flourished in England, France and America. Even now, the Goethic Bildungsroman has still played a very important role in the world literature and as a special analytical method, the criticism on Bildungsroman has also been attracted.It has always been puzzled about the genre such as its occurrence the definition the estimation and the characteristics. So it is necessary to research the genre's connotation before the theory study in this field.The name Bildungsroman came from German. At the beginning, Bildung was synonymous with Bild and Image. It meant the portrait or the imagery. In 18th, the followers of religion considered the word as God's great influence.After the middle time in 18th, the comment released it from the religion meaning and turned it into the common customs. So it expressed the interaction between the human being with the nature and among the human. In the following period of enlightenment, they made the meaning of Bildung into education and culture, and emphasized the logos, so the meaning of Bildung contained all around.As to the definition of Bildungsroman, from abroad to home, it is various. In conclusion, it contains thus styles. First of all, it defines from the angle of narrative mode and is inclined to the stories; the second emphasized particularly on epistemology; while the third gives prominence to the novel's education, and the name of education novel most comes from this angle.The definitions above express the commonness: firstly, the Bildungsroman is an important novel genre; secondly, it takes the novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship as example; thirdly, the hero changes at every turn; fourthly, the final's trend. Among the four characteristics, the first refers the Bildungsroman's status; the second is about its writing example, and the last two are its main characteristics.For the sake of theoretical base, the penman defines that a Bildungsroman is a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character with sensitivity from usually mental childhood to maturity.This definition refers to the genre's key problems. Above all, it is about the content. Spiritual, moral and psychological belong to inner characteristics; the hero's social show belongs to the outer; in the course of this, the hero's emotion and thought connect the inner and outer.Secondly, the hero grows and shapes while the society develops lengthways; during the growth, the hero's trouble and the society's contradiction will all be spread in front of the readers.Which can be said that we talk about Bildungsroman nowadays is related to Goethe, and Bildungsroman can be a theme and a focus in German literature even comes from Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. It was the novel's publishing that indicated the genre was taken for granted in the west literature field.From Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, the classical Bildungsroman came into being in the background of classical literature in Germany with strong aesthetic and era characteristic: it focused on a young man and went through the whole novel; it referred the stage to him to show his growth from youth to adult; it aimed at the man's integrity and the harmonious relation with society, so the final was always filled with hope and optimism. In this sense, the former classical Bildungsroman was full of romanticism and humanism. Compared with the later Bildungsroman, the novel of this time expressed the trend of grace and simplicity.Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship not only inherited the former, but also referred model to the following including in the German, English, French and American literature field; on the contrary, their special characteristics also impel the Bildungsroman's development.In the novel of The Portrait of a Lady, apart from the heroine's spiritual contradiction, the emotion's struggle and the grope in mentality, it also brings the international theme and heroine which make the novel more complex and colorful, so the genre's characteristic circling around the hero's transformation of character is concentrated on the novel.Look Homeward, Angel gives prominence to the genre's another characteristic that contains the hero's development from three angles. Whether the guide, the love or the important accident, the Bildungsroman always describes the story from outer factor, and the content and the theme are expressed and uncovered through the hero's inner psychology, mentality and character.Bildungsroman always contains the balance strength in emotion and structure. Although among these some novels expresses the dullish feeling, the final's attitude and method will make up in order to get the balance; another is the hero's epiphany, The Catcher in the Rye just shows this. It is vain to find the integrity and system just like William on this novel's hero, and it's more complex with emotional fragment than individual. The hero is just the whole novel. Just because of this, his sincerity differs from William. Perhaps, this is the modern meaning that the novel contains.The Catcher in the Rye's final trend is upward, which represents the Bildungsroman's change in modern novel, The Adventures of Augie March uses the formal of adventure to embody the Bildungsroman's demand of space change, that is to say, the hero developments in an open environment, and he must contact with the environment including relationship among human and in society, and at the same time, the environment changes constantly.The Adventures of Augie March expands the hero's world in spirit and mentality through his travel. It symbolizes the hero's inner research from the outer adventures which starts the Bildungsroman's new view.In contrast, the traditional Bildungsroman inspects from individual, and tries to show the great matter in large background through detailed menu, so it's serious and traditional; the modern Bildungsroman applies itself to dig great matter through little incision, and it relates with jocosity. In tradition, the great matter is the philosophical theme such as life, fate, chance and inevitability; in modern, it focuses more on the individual and society's deep chronic illness, and through their crash, the author expresses or suggests the matter. It is the different attitude to solve the matter that hints the differences between tradition and modern.With the development of history and society, Bildungsroman grows many kinds and the style also changes synchronously. But the basic characteristics retain, and to some degree, they compose the prime principle to judge.First of all, generally speaking, most typical Bildungsromane are feature-length which is not the only standard, because the novelettes can belong to the genre, and they are just less relatively.Secondly, the hero is clever, sensitive and thoughtful. With the story going on, new portraits and new matter come in more and more, but there is one key hero all the time; from beginning to end, the hero is always the focus but not utterly; the hero's transformation in character and spirit composes the plot, and the hero's whole portrait shows gradually with the story's development, so his growth is coherent and integrated to be perfect little by little.Thirdly, the content is abundant and rich. It contains the hero's transformation from three angles: to himself, to society and to conform them. For himself, it's a course to find and recognize in order to say no then say yes to himself, so it corkscrews and upward; to society, it describes in the impact of friendship, love and family and the practice in society. Fourthly, in the time span, Bildungsroman gets used to the initiation from the hero's mental youth to adult. In the course it even spans two extents from inner to outer.Fifthly, most Bildungsromane take on a special structure which corkscrews and upward.Finally, the character of the hero's grown up is multiplex and complicated with the development of history.Of course, the characteristics can't solve the problem to judge Bildungsroman, but they offer some suggestive references out of question. Besides, to judge Bildungsroman can be to consult three demands: hero not visual angle; space's change and mentality's development. In conclusion, a Bildungsroman is a novel genre with bilinear, upward and spiral structure which traces a young man as clue and protagonist tries to adapt himself to society in order to make it possible that his character, mentality, world and life view are harmonious with society in the developmental and mutative social environment.Many critics oppugn the Bildungsroman's shortcomings in order that the critics of post-modernism challenges its status in literature, on the other hand, the demurral also offers the chance for the study of Bildungsroman to develop to a higher stage.In China although there is no or no classical Bildungsroman properly, it imitates some analogous Bildungsroman with its special nationality, culture and sociality such as thematic Bildungsroman.In a word, with the development of society, the genre hasn't lost its battle field of hundreds of years, and will not go to death in art. On the way of its grown up, just as its hero, the Bildungsroman is also transforming to the maturity with suffering and enjoyment.