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 No.10828>>10834 [Watch Thread][Show All Posts]

So, a Bildungsroman is the generic category for novels about "coming of age" stories. It's not really a genre since it crosses so many genres, but I would think they mostly feature in adventure-type stories. It's things like Austin's "Emma", Dickens' "Great Expectations", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and apparently even 'Arry of the clan Potter is tossed about as Bildungsroman. I guess it fits.

Okay, so that's Bildungsroman, but we ALSO have Entwicklungsroman ("development novel"), a story of general growth rather than self-cultivation; Erziehungsroman ("education novel") which focuses on training and formal schooling (Potter?); and Künstlerroman ("artist novel") the development of an artist that shows a growth of the self.

Is there a sub-category of Bildungsroman novels focused on religious or spiritual "development" that anyone is aware of? I know Bildungsroman is about the "'moral and psychological" development, but that's different. I'm not asking whether the term exists so much as can you even think of novels that fit this bill?

 No.10829>>10842 >>11189

Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse) fits the bill, and is a classic of this genera.

"I am, if you will, the opposite of a mystic. I feel myself radically broken off from the Universe, and I know the ragged and intricate edges of that break in the same bodily way in which the mystic knows his oneness with the cosmos. Nevertheless (call it political, if you like) that knowledge is denied me and (call it sour grapes, if you will) seems, in most of the manifestations that I’ve encountered it, somewhat cheap and tawdry." ~ Samuel R. Delany

Probably not what you would like to hear. I am sympathetic with Delany's position. This is a part of why I love Graham Greene's works, where religion plays a central part, but sanctimonious and cartoonish presentations of it do not. I mention all this so that my next two oddball suggestions do not come across as trolling. At least you are getting something more than the bog standard replies I expect are coming.

Grendel by John Gardner.

Messiah by Gore Vidal.


 No.10834>>10835 >>10842 >>10856

>>10828 (OP)

why all the german names?

some seminal literary critic work that introduced them or just pretentiousness?


 No.10835

>>10834

*critique


 No.10842>>10853

>>10829

>Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)

Good work!

Ever heard of a suitably German word ending in -roman that classifies such books?

>>10834

>why all the german names? … pretentiousness?

>The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Karl Morgenstern in his university lectures

>Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern was a German philologist in Livonia, the first director of the library of the Imperial University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia). He coined the term Bildungsroman.

The Germans were the go-to guys for philosophy during the late 18th, early 19th centuries.


 No.10853>>10854 >>10866

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>>10842

Why do you give a shit about classifying a sub-category of novels with a German classification? Call it a 'Spiritual-Growth Novel,' or some shit. If you are really worried about impressing your pretentious friends--and you must have a German classification–just call it a Geistlicher-Wachtumroman.


 No.10854>>10855

>>10853

>Class of novels has a perfectly good German name that loses much of the subtlety through translation

>Obviously people only use the German name because of pretentiousness

>If people really want to be pretentious they could use a worse version of the perfectly functional German name

Even kids in highschool understand the term Bildungsroman. Its not like its some secret level of pseudery, its just a term that doesn't translate well.


 No.10855>>10856

>>10854

I didn't say the term 'Bildungsroman' was pretentious. But this sub-category autism within it is.

>If people really want to be pretentious they could use a worse version of the perfectly functional German name

He was asking for a specific type of Bildungsroman dealing with spiritual growth specifically neger, so I gave him what he asked for.

>Even kids in highschool understand the term Bildungsroman.

I highly doubt that.


 No.10856>>10866 >>10870

>>10855

My bad, I thought you were >>10834 and was mostly making fun of you for the original question.

Although I maintain that Geistlicher-Wachtumroman is pretty silly. Maybe it could be called Erlosungroman or something like that.

As to OP's original question, I doubt there's a technical term for a Bildungsroman about spiritual development because there aren't many novels that would fit the bill, unlike the Bildungsroman itself, which has all too many examples.


 No.10866>>10874

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>>10853

>If you are really worried about impressing your pretentious friends

I so lol'd

Thank you, mirth achieved.

That ISN'T why I'm asking. It's because I am looking for novels that are like Siddartha, and wondered if there wasn't an easy classification or name by which I could search for them. That's all.

>>10856

>Erlosungroman

Noice word invention!

Though I think it would be "Erloesungroman" with the umlaut "e" thrown in, but very nice nonetheless!

>I doubt there's a technical term … because there aren't many novels that would fit the bill

Yeah, this is what I thought, and this is why I wasn't particularly hopeful and, additionally, why I was surprised someone managed to think of Hesse's novel.


 No.10870

>>10856

i'm that guy and neither i said bildungsroman was pretentious.

i have familiarity with the term and with several examples of the genre since they were most of the kind of reading my middle school teacher would require us to read.

i was just curious with the flurry of subgenre names in the op.


 No.10874

>>10866

I'm ashamed of my poor German skills. It should be Erloesungroman.

I've been thinking about the concept and have a few ideas. If we're counting Harry Potter as a Bildungsroman then surely most of the Narnia books would fit the "Erloesungroman" subgenre. Till We Have Faces (also by Lewis) might be more like what you're looking for, but I can't speak from experience with that one. Some earlier works like Pilgrim's Progress and The Faerie Queen have the character arc you're looking for but they're more heavily allegorical (and the Faerie Queen isn't a novel). Finally you might check out A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys or one of Charles Williams' novels; they're both interesting reads in a similar thematic realm.


 No.10877

File (hide): 1471544548104.jpg (68.48 KB, 249x353, 249:353, The Power and the Glory.jpg) (h) (u)

I'll make one more suggestion that fits what you are looking for from an unexpected direction. See pic.

>where religion plays a central part, but sanctimonious and cartoonish presentations of it do not.

That's not exactly correct. Greene does include such presentations, yet he is lampooning it when he does. At the least, it is clear his sympathies stand against such aspects found in religion.

Also, Greene could be described as a part time punch-clock Catholic. This characterization is understandable as seen by people who are more traditionally religious in their thinking, and outlook. For them, a book like Siddhartha can be a profound, even life changing, experience.

There are others who find Greene to be more serious, sincere, and dedicated to religion than those of a more traditional outlook are easily able to perceive. In this case, something like Siddhartha makes not even the least impression on them, spiritual or otherwise.

It should be obvious I fall into the latter camp.


 No.11189

>>10829

>"I am, if you will, the opposite of a mystic. I feel myself radically broken off from the Universe, and I know the ragged and intricate edges of that break in the same bodily way in which the mystic knows his oneness with the cosmos. Nevertheless (call it political, if you like) that knowledge is denied me and (call it sour grapes, if you will) seems, in most of the manifestations that I’ve encountered it, somewhat cheap and tawdry." ~ Samuel R. Delany

Absolute heresy.

It sounds to me this GREEN fellow have never done a psychedelic. You know, it might be AN IDEA, if one wants to know about MYSTICAL phenomena.




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