bildungsroman

plural bildungsromans · plural bildungsromane · alternative Bildungsroman

1. A novel tracing the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character, usually from childhood to maturity.

   Goethe's honorific assignment to the vanguard of a uniquely German novelistic tradition of the bildungsroman simultaneously places him outside the mainstream of the development of the novel.

   2020, Frederick Amrine, Goethe and the Myth of the Bildungsroman: Rethinking the Wilhelm Meister Novels, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 2

   2 more examples

   Of course, the story is in fact a false bildungsroman: the fading vampire (whose natural evolution and emancipation had been – of course – cut down by what else than the emergence of communism) slowly comes to life and becomes who he really is – i.e., a civilised (noble, even!), a legitimate, respectful and extremely polite consumer of (Romani) blood.

   2016 January, Ramona Hărșan, “Literary Deflection of Cultural Stereotypes as Deliberate Decontextualisation: A Case Study on Alexandru Mușina’s Uptight Vampire in Dracula’s Nephew”, in Convergent Discourses: Exploring the Contexts of Communication: Literature, Târgu Mureș: Arhipelag XXI Press, →ISBN, pages 638–639

   English speakers are more hospitable to fiction in translation, and yet when was the last time you heard someone mention “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” or “Elective Affinities,” Goethe’s long fictions? These books have a good claim to have founded two of the major genres of the modern novel—respectively, the Bildungsroman and the novel of adultery.

   2016 January 25, Adam Kirsch, “What’s great about Goethe?”, in The New Yorker

plural Bildungsromans · plural Bildungsromane

1. Alternative letter-case form of bildungsroman.