bildungsroman
noun
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Bildungsroman is the combination of two German nouns: Bildung, meaning "education," and Roman, meaning "novel." (Nouns in German are always capitalized.) Fittingly, a bildungsroman is a novel that deals with the formative years of the main character, and in particular, with the character's psychological development and moral education. The bildungsroman usually ends on a positive note, with the protagonist's foolish mistakes and painful disappointments over, and a life of usefulness ahead. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's late 18th-century work Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is often cited as the classic example of a bildungsroman. Though the term is primarily applied to novels, in recent years some English speakers have begun to apply it to films that deal with a youthful character's coming-of-age.
Examples of bildungsroman in a Sentence
David Sims, The Atlantic, 25 June 2025
Spanning a single summer on a struggling Malaysian farm, this bildungsroman, set in the nineteen-nineties, follows a romance between two young men: Jay, whose family owns the farm, and Chuan, the son of the farm’s longtime manager.
—The New Yorker, New Yorker, 2 June 2025
And the rest of the novel—the part that is pure bildungsroman—is a delight.
—Adelle Waldman, New Yorker, 31 May 2025
Porter deftly combines a bildungsroman with the story of a midlife crisis to deliver a cathartic resolution.
—The New Yorker, New Yorker, 5 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Bildungsroman.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bildungsroman. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
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