"What is a Bildungsroman?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers

What is a Bildungsroman? What are its origins and characteristics? What are some common examples of the Bildungsroman?

In this short lesson, Senior Lecturer Sam Schwartz answers these questions through popular examples and Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. The video is designed to help high school and college English students identify examples of the Bildungsroman and analyze features of the genre within and beyond their literature classes.

A transcript of the video is available here: https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/w...

Spanish subtitles are now available for this video. To access these subtitles, click on the settings icon in the video.

The video is sponsored by the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University. For more discussions of literary topics and essay writing tips, please subscribe to the free SWLF YouTube Channel or visit https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:19 Word Origin
2:47 Genre Origin
4:52 Bildungsroman Examples
5:37 Conclusions