Goethe's Willhelm Meister novels, widely held to be the most significant and influential in all of German literature, have traditionally been classed as Bildungsroman, or 'novels of formation'. In Goethe and the Myth of Bildungsroman, Frederick Amrine offers a unique reading of Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre, which posits the second novel as a sequel to the first. Deconstructing and jettisoning the notion of the Bildungsroman, the features of the novels which have historically proved problematic for critics, seeming to testify to the novels' disunity, become instead the articulation points of a subtle concord between thematic and formal elements. Reading the novels in light of the eminent criticism of Northrop Frye, this book productively shifts away from social commentary towards the archetypal and symbolic, showing Goethe not to be an exception within world literature; rather, that he participates deeply in its overarching structures.

This detailed analysis of the evolution of the Bildungsroman genre is unprecedented in its historical and geographical range.

This book establishes a vector of methodology in the approach to a particular type of fictional discourse, namely the English Bildungsroman (the novel of identity formation). Its wide-ranging critical perspectives are also useful to anyone concerned with, first of all, European and English novelistic genres, but also to those interested in theoretical perspectives of modern fiction studies in general, as well as in certain aspects of Western literature as a developing tradition.

An authoritative English translation of one of the most important works in the history of the novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–1796), Goethe’s second novel, is a foundational work in the history of the genre—perhaps the first Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story focusing on the growth and self-realization of the main character. The story centers on Wilhelm, a young man living in the mid-1700s who strives to break free from the restrictive bourgeois world of his upbringing and seek fulfillment as an actor and playwright. Goethe’s novel had a huge impact on the Romantics. Hegel, Schelling, Novalis, and Schopenhauer considered it one of the most important novels yet written. Schlegel famously called it one of the “three tendencies of the age,” along with the French Revolution and the philosophy of Fichte. And Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann composed songs to poems from the novel. It also had a major influence on nineteenth-century British writers, including Thomas Carlyle, who was its first English translator, and George Eliot. Drawn from Princeton’s authoritative collected works of Goethe, this is the definitive English version of a landmark of world literature.

The first detailed reader's commentary on one of the seminal works of world literature. Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is commonly acknowledged to have played a pivotal role in founding the genre known as the Bildungsroman. Although a wealth of critical material has accumulated since its publication in 1795-96, a detailed commentary in English on this novel of `apprenticeship' has been lacking from the corpus. Jane V. Curran's full-length commentary fills this gap. In her analysis, Curran presents the standard material familiar from traditional commentaries, but includes passages hitherto neglected, presenting new insights in a new form. Curran stresses the importance of narrative techniques, traces the development of the characters, and draws the reader'sattention to the intertextual echoes, the use of symbols, and the many instances of irony. Curran also points out parallels between Wilhelm Meister's experiences and Goethe's life, and illuminates contemporary issues that are touched on in the novel, particularly the development of the German theater. The book provides notes with additional information for the interpretation of Goethe's work, including factual details of general interest, scholarly sources, and background information. This is a vade mecum not only for students of Goethe and of German literature, but also for all those interested in the development of the Bildungsroman. Jane V. Curran is chair of the German Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel, first published in 2004, provides a broad ranging introduction to the major trends in the development of the German novel from the 1890s to the present. Written by an international team of experts, it encompasses both modernist and realist traditions, and also includes a look back to the roots of the modern novel in the Bildungsroman of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The structure is broadly chronological, but thematically-focused chapters examine topics such as gender anxiety, images of the city, war, and women's writing; within each chapter, key works are selected for close attention. Unique in its combination of breadth of coverage and detailed analysis of individual works, and featuring a chronology and guides to further reading, this Companion will be indispensable to students and teachers.