bildungsromans

Noun

bildungsroman (plural bildungsromans or bildungsromane)

1. A novel tracing the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character, usually from childhood to maturity.
   • 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...2016 January 25, Adam Kirsch, “What’s great about Goethe?”, in The New Yorker