bildungsroman means A novel tracing the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character, usually from childhood to maturity. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 86 out of 100.
Why this word is great
BILDUNGSROMAN — [Noun] A novel that traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character, usually from childhood to maturity. From the German Bildung ("education, formation") + -s- + Roman ("novel"). Unlike a "coming-of-age story" (which sprawls across any medium and may settle for mere milestones) or a "picaresque novel" (which delights in roguish escapades without the burden of growth), the bildungsroman is a slow, deliberate excavation of the self. It is the ink-stained fingers of a young writer copying out his first clumsy verses, the quiet humiliation of a provincial girl at her first ball, or the moment a man realizes—too late—that the ideals of his youth have hardened into compromises. We read them not to see who the character becomes, but to measure the distance between who they were and who we are.
noun
- 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 novel—respectively, the Bildungsroman and the novel of adultery.”