On the Nature of the Bildungsroman

124.2 ]

criticism in translation

Introduction karl morgenstern The term Bildungsroman has long been one of the most prob- lematic entries in the lexicon of literary studies. Although it is often used innocuously, to refer to almost any novel that focuses on the development of a young protagonist, matters look rather different in the more secluded world of academic German departments. Here, the Bildungsroman is the object of fierce debates that illustrate how even such arcane fields as classificatory genre studies tenuously float on ideological undercurrents. The word was introduced to popular usage by Wilhelm Dilthey in Poetry and Experience (1906), though he had already used the term in the earlier Life of Schleiermacher (1870), a book that fittingly appeared on the eve of German unification under Bismarck. In Poetry and Experience, Dilthey ar- introduction and gued that the Bildungsroman was a distinctively German achievement, a translation by tobias boes product of unique political circumstances and an antithesis of the French and English novels of social realism. This claim was repeated with increasing nationalistic fervor by Thomas Mann and others during the time of the First World War and became, in due course, an ideological commonplace of the Third Reich. After 1945, a younger generation of scholars eager to break with the sins of the past drew conclusions that were the inverse of Dilthey’s but retained his basic premise: suddenly, the Bildungsroman was regarded as a literary symptom of the German Sonderweg, the separate path into modernity that had paved the way for fascism.1 This is the background that one needs to keep in mind if one wishes to understand the importance of Fritz Martini’s 1961 discovery that Dilthey, though he popularized the term, by no means invented it. This honor belongs, rather, to Karl Morgenstern (1770–1852), a professor of aesthetics at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu in Estonia), who first used the new name in public in 1819, in a lecture called “On the Nature of the Bildungsroman” tobias boes is assistant professor of (“Über das Wesen des Bildungsromans”).2 This lecture, delivered at a pro- German at the University of Notre Dame, vincial university and then published in an equally provincial journal a year where he also teaches in the PhD in Liter- later, had little immediate impact, and, while Martini argues that Goethe ature program. He is working on a book to be titled Children of Their Times: The Above: Lithograph of Karl Morgenstern by Josef Kriehuber (1828). Bildungsroman as a Metahistorical Genre.

may have known of Morgenstern’s coinage (242), bulk of his lecture is devoted, unsurprisingly, to an the term all but fell out of use from 1820 to 1870.3 analysis of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprentice- But Morgenstern’s investigation into the nature ship, he on several occasions includes encomiums of the developmental novel nevertheless remains on the already shopworn novels of his friend and

translation significant because both its premises and its con- colleague Friedrich Maximilian Klinger.

in clusions directly contradict Dilthey’s. Any modern If Morgenstern in some respects appears to

study of the genre that hopes to extricate itself be behind the times, this can surely be explained from entrenched ideological debates would thereby the vicissitudes of his biography.6 Born in fore do well to reevaluate Morgenstern’s place in Magdeburg in 1770, Karl Morgenstern early on

criticism the genealogy of Bildungsroman criticism. distinguished himself academically and eventually What surprises most about Morgenstern’s became a pupil of the philologist Friedrich August lecture is its sweeping scope and almost utopian Wolf at Halle. He thus participated in the birth of enthusiasm. Dilthey sees the developmental novel the modern specialized university, yet he rejected as historically and nationally delineated: a literary academic specialization after merely four years of expression of the “individualism of a culture whose service at the University of Danzig, from 1798 to sphere of interest was limited to private life” be- 1802. Morgenstern instead accepted a call to the cause “governmental authority . . . in the small and newly founded University of Dorpat, which Tsar middle-sized German states confronted the young Alexander I was aggressively staffing with Western generation of writers as alien” (335). Morgenstern, academics. With him traveled Klinger, who would by contrast, regards the Bildungsroman as a univer- eventually become the university’s founding cura- sal subcategory of the modern novel and supports tor. Dorpat at the time must have seemed like the his definition with references to an astounding vari- end of the world, but Morgenstern delighted in ety of novels from a number of national traditions. the opportunity to teach in a generalist curricu- And while Dilthey’s approach spawned a long tradi- lum, becoming university librarian, curator, and tion emphasizing the genre’s concern with “inward- even botanist in the process. In this outpost at the ness” and “personality” at the expense of social fringes of modernity, Morgenstern could thus prac- concerns and interpersonal relations, Morgenstern tice a holistic approach to pedagogy, of which his insists, in the most famous lines in the lecture, that lecture on the Bildungsroman is a logical offshoot. “this depiction promotes the development of the In other and more important regards, how- reader to a greater extent than any other kind of ever, Morgenstern shows himself to be a child of his novel.” For him, in other words, the Bildungsroman times. The conclusion of his lecture especially is full gazes not inward, at the development of its fic- of the optimism that flourished in Germany during tional protagonist, but outward, into the real world the years after the fall of Napoleon. In distinct con- and toward the development of its audience.4 trast with many other writers on the Bildungsroman, Morgenstern’s insistence on the pedagogical Morgenstern does not content himself with adula- values of the developmental novel and his trust in tion of Goethe’s model but instead demands new the ability of literary works to shape and cultivate forms of the novel that might do justice to these the whole individual are frequently interpreted as changed and promising times. For him, in other relics of an eighteenth-century mind-set.5 And in- words, the developmental novel does not repre- deed, parts of his lecture, especially the section sent a turn away from the public sphere but rather in which Morgenstern tries to differentiate the captures, as he puts it earlier in the lecture, “the novel from the epic, bear a distinct resemblance most beautiful aspects of modern European man’s to Friedrich von Blanckenburg’s Essay on the Novel development and of the age that [is] coming to be.” (1774), a foundational text of narrative theory in More than a hundred years after Morgenstern, and German. Morgenstern’s choice of literary examples in complete innocence of his work, Mikhail Bakhtin also reveals a conservative mind-set: while the defined the Bildungsroman as a kind of novel in 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 649 criticism which “man’s individual emergence is insepara- discovery of the previously forgotten critic. More recently, bly linked to historical emergence” (23). The same digital facsimiles of most of Morgenstern’s published texts viewpoint can already be found in this lecture. (but not of this lecture) have been made available to a scholarly public worldwide at EEVA: Digital Repository for

A related characteristic of Morgenstern’s in-

Older Estonian Literature (www.utlib.ee/ekollekt/eeva/). in

vestigation is his unabashed argument for the Bil- 4. Kontje has made this claim the basis of his Private dungsroman as a tool of realist mimesis. He thus Lives in the Public Sphere, an innovative investigation of translation proclaims that Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship the role that the German Bildungsroman played in the formation of cultural communities from 1770 to 1820. “presents to us German life, German thought, and 5. Martini and Selbmann take this view—Martini in the morals of our time through its hero, its scenery the original article outlining his rediscovery of Morgen- and environment” and thereby shows that Thomas stern and Rolf Selbmann in the editorial remarks that Mann, after the First World War had cooled his na- accompany the volume in which Martini’s article was tionalist fervor, was far from the first person to later reprinted. 6. Wilhelm Süss’s long essay in cultural history is by postulate a link between the Bildungsroman and far the most comprehensive biographical resource on the Zeitroman, between the narrative of individual Morgenstern, full of insightful primary documents. development and the socially panoramic novel. To the contemporary critic, Morgenstern’s essay, despite all its archaisms, thus offers an ap- Wo r k s Ci t e d proach that would connect the classical Bildungsro- Bakhtin, M. M. “TheBildungsroman and Its Significance man to many of the broader intellectual currents in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typol- of its time: the move toward social realism in lit- ogy of the Novel).” Speech Genres and Other Late Es erature and the arts, the yearning for the shared says. Trans. Vern W. McGee. Ed. Caryl Emerson and experiences of a national community, and not Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1986. 10–59. least the search for an adequate way to represent Print. Dilthey, Wilhelm. Poetry and Experience. Ed. Rudolf A. the dynamic forces of history. Far from isolating Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi. Princeton: Princeton UP, the Bildungsroman as the symptom of a German 1985. Print. Vol. 5 of Selected Works. 5 vols. 1985. Sonderweg, Morgenstern’s work eloquently affirms Kontje, Todd. The German Bildungsroman: History of a it as a central category of modern literature. National Genre. Columbia: Camden, 1993. Print. ——— . Private Lives in the Public Sphere: The German Bil dungsroman as Metafiction. University Park: Pennsyl- vania State UP, 1992. Print. Martini, Fritz. “Der Bildungsroman: Zur Geschichte des Wortes und der Theorie.”Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift No t e s 35.1 (1961): 44–63. Rpt. in Selbmann 239–64. 1. For an overview of the changing vicissitudes of Bil Morgenstern, Karl. “Über das Wesen des Bildungsro- dungsroman criticism, see Kontje, German Bildungsro mans.” Inländisches Museum 1.2 (1820): 46–61; 1.3 man, as well as Sammons. (1820): 13–27. Rpt. in Selbmann 55–72. 2. Technically, Morgenstern had first used the term a ———. “Über den Geist und Zusammenhang einer Reihe decade earlier, in a lecture entitled “On the Spirit and Co- philosophischer Romane.” Selbmann 45–54. hesion of a Number of Philosophical Novels” (“Über den Sammons, Jeffrey L. “The Bildungsroman for Nonspe- Geist und Zusammenhang einer Reihe philosophischer cialists: An Attempt at a Clarification.”Reflection and Romane”) that he delivered in 1809 and self-published Action: Essays on the Bildungsroman. Ed. James N. in 1817. But it was only in the 1819 lecture that he set out Hardin. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1991. 26– to offer a coherent definition of what he now clearly re- 45. Print. garded as a new genre; indeed, the opening paragraph Selbmann, Rolf, ed. Zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bil of the later lecture makes clear that he did not expect his dungsromans. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buch- audience to have any knowledge of his earlier usage. gesellschaft, 1988. Print. Wege der Forschung 640. 3. The text of Morgenstern’s lecture was later reprinted Süss, Wilhelm. “Karl Morgenstern: Ein Kulturhistorischer in an important volume edited by Rolf Selbmann, which Versuch.” Acta et commentationes Universitatis Tartu also contains the article in which Fritz Martini outlines his ensis (Dorpatensis) Ser. B 16 (1929): 1–160. Print. 650 On the Nature of the Bildungsroman [ PMLA On the Nature of the Bildungsroman

hand and from the heroic epic on the other. Oftentimes, honorable listeners, when It will be my privilege here to present and ex- stepping before you at this time and place I have plain at least the major differences between not found it altogether easy to choose a theme the novel and these two genres. that without leading too deeply into science First we will look at the way it differs and literature would nevertheless move beyond from drama. Here we shall start with an the outer chambers of knowledge and that episode from the fifth book of Wilhelm Meis might furthermore attract a mixed audience ter’s Apprenticeship. One evening, the acting without merely touching on commonplaces. company that Wilhelm is temporarily a part Today, before we proceed to the joyous princi- of disputes whether novel or drama might pal occasion for our festive gathering, I wish to deserve preference. Serlo, the director of the speak about the most exquisite of all the many company, remarks that both can be excellent types of novel; you will permit me to call it by in their own right, only they have to remain a name that has to my knowledge never been within the confines of their proper genre. “I used before—namely, the Bildungsroman.a am not sure I understand this,” replies Wil- Some of you have so far been content to refer helm. “And who does?” replies Serlo, “and yet to it as the family novel [Familienroman]—a it would be worth the effort to further clarify name that in no way touches on the essence of the matter.” They converse together for a long the question at hand. time, and the following finally is the approxi- To begin with, it will not be superfluous mate result of their discussion: to speak of the genre of the novel in a general sense, especially since not every one of you will In the novel as in drama we can see human be completely clear how to place it amid the nature and action. The difference between the various kinds of fiction and of literary works two kinds of fiction does not lie merely in their external form: that is, not in the fact that the in general. Theorists of poetry customarily persons in the one speak, whereas in the other rank the novel, although it is composed in their history usually is narrated, and so on. prose, immediately after the heroic epic. This In the novel, it is primarily dispositions and is done not without a certain justification, for events that are presented; in the drama, char it belongs amid the epic literatures—that is, acters and deeds. The novel must move forward among those that tell a story—and is like them slowly, and the attitudes of the hero must, by a work of fiction that pretends to be true. For some way or another, restrain the progression many other kinds of fiction we have detailed of the whole toward its full development and treatises that elucidate their theory as it can be conclusion. Drama must hasten, and the main derived from existing examples. No such vol- character must press forward to the end only ume as yet exists for the novel. Blanckenburg’s to be restrained. The hero of the novel must Essay on the Novel, which was published forty- be suffering, or at least not be highly active; in the dramatic hero, on the other hand, we five years ago, would no longer be sufficient look for activity and deeds. Grandison, Cla- even if its theory were more exhaustive than rissa, Pamela, the Vicar of Wakefield, Tom it is. Literature needs a new work, written in Jones himself are, if not suffering, then at least a philosophical spirit and with critical erudi- retarding, characters, and all events are faith- tion. A satisfactory theory of the novel would fully modeled according to their dispositions. demand first of all a more specific articulation In the drama, the hero models nothing ac- of the way it differs from drama on the one cording to himself; all things resist him, and 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 651 criticism he clears and casts away the obstacles or else is of character. Heroes of this kind, of course, overwhelmed by them.b need to be painted in colors entirely different from those that were chosen in Wilhelm

This passage without any doubt contains Meister’s Apprenticeship and in Elective Affini a remark that penetrates deep into the na- in ties—novels in which reflections of an entirely translation ture of the novel and of drama. Goethe ad- different sort are tied to the emotions, disposi- mits that human actions are common to the tions, and actions of the characters, especially novel and to drama, but he wishes the former as regards their striving toward a higher mo- to present primarily dispositions and events, rality. Nevertheless, I believe that while it may the latter primarily characters and deeds. He be possible to declare that the colors chosen demands this because the novel needs to pro by Klinger are inadequate to the nature of gress slowly, drama, by contrast, in a hurry. the novel and that the philosophical doubts, On closer investigation, of course, no sharp views, and encouragements that he ties to his distinction between the two genres can be characters run contrary to the true bearing of discerned in the way they treat dispositions the novel, it is impossible to prove it. For if the and characters. For dispositions are the foun- novel may be called the widest vessel among dation of character, which develops primarily all the poetic forms, in which any flower of from them, and the novel as well as drama the soul has room and air to bud, sprout, and depends on the presentation of character. The bloom, to branch out and spread in all the decisive truth, however, lies in the distinc- abundance granted to it by nature, and if the tion that the novel has more time and space to novel, as we will show by comparison with develop and present its dispositions than the the epic of the ancient Greeks, is suited more drama and, furthermore, that the characters than any other genre to show the inner aspect stand fully formed in the latter, whereas in the of the human soul and to reveal its intima- novel they are supposed to develop before our tions, endeavors, battles, defeats, and victo- eyes. Regarding the injunction that the novel- ries, then there is in fact no reason why the istic hero must be suffering or at least not be forceful, or even the grand and the sublime, highly active, whereas one demands activity should not with equal right occupy its place and deeds from the dramatic hero, we would as do the tender, agreeable, and beautiful, why be well within our rights to demand further that which commands respect or is deep, som- explication from Goethe. For it is impossible ber, and stupendous should not hold its own to see how Grandison, for example, is not just against the lovable, the dear, the cheerful, or as much active as he is suffering or how, in- the harmonic. A theory that measures accord- versely, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear, ing to individual circumstance (even if that or even Sophocles’s Oedipus, aren’t at least as circumstance were the most enviable of all as much suffering as they are active. Further- regards personal happiness) and excludes that more, I can derive no decisive reason from which in another noble and vigorous nature the general conception of the novel that might transcends it would be limited and one-sided. explain why men such as Klinger’s Faust, Ra- I would like to see such old friends as Klinger fael de Aquillas, and Giafar the Barmecide,c to and Goethe discuss this matter in writing or, whom nobody would deny activity and deeds, even better, in oral conversation. I am sure the should not be just as capable heroes of the former would be quick to reply to all charges novels that are named after them as Goethe’s by the latter, and I even suspect that Goethe Werther, Wilhelm Meister, and Eduard, who, would, without hesitation and with his usual for all their richness of sentiment, neverthe- charity toward the excellence of others, widen less incomparably lag behind them in strength the distinctions between novel and drama 652 On the Nature of the Bildungsroman [ PMLA

that he himself has drawn with an all too easy unshakable true and ideal foundations of hu- hand. It is true, of course, that in the novel of man nature as the representation, no matter his life, which is rich not only in fiction but how beautiful, of aesthetically cultivated and also in truth, Goethe says in a passage about accomplished human beings—even if the ma- translation

English poetry that jority of the finer reading public would find

in representations of the latter kind much closer

[t]rue poetry reveals itself by its capacity to to its own image and thus also more pleasing. free us, in the manner of a secular gospel, But let us return from this digression to by its inner cheerfulness and its outer com- the other half of the present observations: to

criticism forts from the burdens of the world that press the differences between the novel and epic us down. Like a balloon it lifts us, together poetry. It seems to me that these can be re- with the weights that cling to us, into higher duced—leaving aside that the latter necessar- regions and spreads out before us the con- voluted errors of the earth in a bird’s-eye ily has to be carried out in meter—to three perspective. The most cheerful and the most main points. serious works share as their purpose to lessen First: in accordance with the spirit of the our passion and pain through their fortunate age in which epic poetry was born, the mar ingenious representation.1 velous is absolutely essential in it. In the novel this is not the case, although it is possible that But is this really the only way by which poetry the marvelous may nevertheless occur in cer- reveals itself? Everywhere, even in the mas- tain cases where reality is connected to the terpieces of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Schiller, realm of ghosts. This happens, for example, Milton, Klopstock—in short, of those poets in Klinger’s Faust the Occidental, in which the who, fully conscious of the transcendental author deemed it necessary to introduce his nature of human beings, strove to explore the spirit of the cold isles in order to pursue his limits of humanity in their idealistic aspira- poetic plan. The Homeric epics contain great tion? Are they for this reason lesser poets? Or deeds connected to marvelous occurrences is the distinguishing feature of the poet not that are produced by what is called the deus ex his ability to pull down Platonic ideas—the machina. Such actions, brought about through ideas of the good and holy as much as those the direct intervention of superhuman beings, of the true and beautiful—into the realm of are merely the product of childish beliefs and poetic representation and demonstration ac- of the overactive imaginations of a poorly ed- cording to the best capabilities of genius and ucated people. Miracles, the belief in miracles, artifice? Could it not be that the only true no- and sensuous depictions of miraculous opu- tion of the ideality of the poet is the one that lence all belong together. We find them only Schiller and Klinger formed in their most main the heroic prehistory of a nation: in the age ture years? According to this notion, the poet of the Trojan War, which Homer sang about, has to have cultivated not only imagination and later in the age of Charlemagne and of the and sense of beauty and reason in the richest Crusades, which Ariosto and Tasso depicted. measure but also moral power and, in short, By contrast, the tranquil, clear language of the highest concept of the human, which is history and the ripe fruit of reason gener- always revealed in morality; he furthermore ally prevail in the novel of the moderns. Its needs to have cultivated it not only reflectively subject is drawn from the spheres of human but also practically in order to be able to mir- activity—preferably, though not exclusively, ror it in his works. If this were the case, ev- from domestic life. Its emotions, dispositions, ery poetic representation of morally firm and and actions are those of the real world as they profound human beings would rest on equally are found in educated [gebildeten] society: 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 653 criticism they have merely been cleansed and purified development was not one of their strengths, of all dross by the mind of the shaping [bil nor is it a strong point of their age: these poets denden] novelist. For this reason, the heroic depict characters directly through their deeds novel, which seeks to depict events from the rather than through idle ruminations about in

heroic age of antiquity in prose, and which them. Their heroic epics depict their nation in translation fortunately is rare, is a hybrid genre that has the virile period of its youth, while it is strug- won little acclaim and deserves even less of it. gling for the great and the magnificent, and The same goes for the prose romance [Ritter they do so in a language of elation that is only roman]. The romance, which emerged in the amplified by an audience—not a readership— Middle Ages and was written in the Romanic that listens even to the most marvelous things language (i.e., in the language of the Franks with a childlike sense of rapture. Poverty in rather than in Latin), and which thereby gave cultural concepts coupled with a wealth of its name to the prose novel [prosaischer Ro natural images, a practically rather than the- man], which at that time was slowly detaching oretically trained intellect, a moral sense that itself both from epic poetry and from histori- has not yet been rendered unnecessarily subtle cal writing—the romance needed to be writ- by the multiplication of social circumstance, ten in meter to be truly effective, as we can together with unrefined customs, moderate see in the works of Ariosto, Tasso, and their needs, and contentment in local pleasures all successors in Italian and other tongues. For combine to produce these sensuously rich de- this reason, epic poetry enters on grounds pictions. But the struggles of such an age pass. that are entirely foreign to it when it chooses The nation reaches a state of greater external modern subjects instead of reaching back to peace, property is secured, the professions a distant past; the elevation of the imagina- and occupations of men become more differ- tion to the marvelous is possible only in the entiated and more interdependent at the same dusk of such a past, not in the broad daylight time, and reason gradually asserts its rights of modern times. Therefore, Lucan was as ill- over what had previously been the domain advised in the choice of subject matter for his of imagination. Miracles vanish, oracles fall Pharsalia as Voltaire was for his Henriad or silent, the gods retreat to Mount Olympus; Jenisch for his Borussias; anyone who tried reality reigns, and the law of objective reason to compose a Rossiad about the marvels of loudly declares its unlimited claims. But even the present time would fare no better.d Ex- now the imagination does not relinquish that perience has confirmed that the allegorical which has nourished and formed it. Together beings that so-called historical poets like to with the products of its fancy it flees into a strew among their works are nothing but an new domain that has room for intricately en- inadequate surrogate. The heroic age, which, tangled chains of events and for the emotions, as we have seen, is the only advantageous one images, thoughts, and reflections that are at- for epic poetry, supplies sensuous grandeur tached to them. This domain borders on the of action in greater measure than it does ex- one side on history, on the other on poetry, amples of subtle character formation. When and as a result the light of the former and men cannot accomplish something, the gods the rosy clouds of the latter cover its skies in help them: if the former need to be goaded on curious mixtures and refractions, while men or deterred, the latter descend from Mount wander across its beautiful meadows. The Olympus, and everywhere the marvelous name of this domain is the novel. Here the and the superhuman are tangled up with the narrator, who dresses everything (or almost natural and the human. The ancient poets everything) in the garb of prose, speaks with gave us vivid characters, but psychological the voice of history and employs its seal to 654 On the Nature of the Bildungsroman [ PMLA

legitimate his deceptive purposes; he uses the the differences between epic and novel that I prosaic disposition in which men ordinarily have just enumerated should not be taken as find themselves to outwit them with an en- strict boundaries in regards to their exten- tertaining piece of fiction designed to make sive subject matter. We might imagine, for translation

them feel at home, while at the same time example, novels that portray the history of a

in introducing them to far-off lands in a most fictional nation, especially for moral-political

pleasant manner. and for satirical purposes. Among these we A second principal difference between might count political novels, such as the Uto epic and novel lies in the fact that the primary pia of Sir Thomas More,The History of the Se

criticism plot of the former can extend, through the varites, and many others, and satirical ones, hero, to the fate of one or more nations, and such as Swift’s Tale of the Tub or Klinger’s even to that of all mankind, while the primary Travels before the Flood.f plot of the latter, in the cases where it even ex- But no matter how far-reaching or nar- ists, extends only to the fate of a single indi- rowly circumscribed the sphere of influence vidual, or to the individuals who are placed in of the hero’s actions in a novel might be, and interaction with him. I say: in the cases where no matter to what extent it might approach the novel contains a primary plot. For this isn’t or stay behind that of the epic hero (since true with all good novels, but only with those this is not something that can be precisely that herein are closely related to both epic and measured), the third and most important drama: The History of Sir Charles Grandison, difference will always lie in the fact that the for example, begins with the hero’s love for epic—in accordance with the historical age in Harriet Byron and ends with their marriage, which it originated and which we described so that in this case the plot is as unified as the above—portrays the hero as acting on the ex- story in the Odyssey of the hero’s eventual re- ternal world and as bringing about important turn to the home he has longed for throughout changes in it. The novel, by contrast, depicts so many adventures. That the principal plot of the influence that men and environments ex- the epic can extend through the hero to the ert on the hero and explains to us the gradual fate of one or more nations, and even to that formation of his inner being. For this reason, of mankind entire, is demonstrated in the first the epic will concentrate on the actions of the instance by the Iliad and by Tasso’s Jerusalem hero and their external impact on other men, Delivered, in the second by Milton’s Paradise while the novel focuses on the internal effects Lost and Klopstock’s Messiah. The nature of that events and circumstances have on a hero the genuine novel, however, does not allow whom we are supposed to see both as what he for something comparable, or else the form is and as what he isn’t. In this way, our general would come to resemble a part of true general inquiry into the boundaries between epic and history. And this would result in an evident novel has led us all by itself to the definition of internal contradiction, since it is commonly the Bildungsroman as the most noble category recognized that fiction belongs to the inner- of the novel, which best expresses the nature of most nature of the novel—a circumstance that the genre and the way it differs from the epic. also casts into disrepute the so-called histori We may call a novel a Bildungsroman cal novels, in which historical and unhistorical first and foremost on account of its content, subjects can never form a harmonious totality, because it represents the development of the even if books such as Meissner’s Alcibiades, hero in its beginning and progress to a cer- Lafontaine’s Aristomenes and Gorgus, and tain stage of completion, but also, second, Fessler’s Marcus Aurelius display desirable because this depiction promotes the develop- traits in their characterization.e For all this, ment of the reader to a greater extent than any 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 655 criticism other kind of novel. The objective and work- relations, especially as regards the deepest encompassing goal of any poet who produces need that the hearts of educated men in mod- such a novel will be the pleasurable, beauti- ern times can feel: love in its higher sense. We ful, and entertaining depiction of the forma- can also find the more generalB i l d u n g s r o m a n e in

tive history of a protagonist who is especially of the unforgettable Wieland, foremost among translation suited to such a development; this goal will them his Agathon, which in my opinion is still be original and, as with every truly beauti- one of the most exquisite of all works in this ful artwork, free of any didacticism. But the genre and all the more happily approaches poet is at the same time a human being who the beautiful ideal of Greek kalokagathia be- (just as he strives in his capacity as poet and cause its poet, who himself possessed much of artist to follow the foundational law of aes- a beautiful Athenian soul, deposited within it thetics and to produce the beautiful) strives the treasure of his own development toward in his capacity as a human being to follow wisdom, derived from a long and happy life the foundational law of morals and to aim as a poet in the public esteem.i But the work for the good in himself and in others. For this that appears to us in gentle radiance as the reason, the novelist will wisely aim to unite most general and comprehensive tendency the purpose of art, which is to please and to of human Bildung is Goethe’s Wilhelm Meis entertain by means of the beautiful, with the ter’s Apprenticeship, which doubly appeals to strictly human purpose to serve, to instruct, us Germans because its poet, just as he did in and to better—in a word, to form [bilden]. the much earlier Sorrows of Werther, presents This fulfills the ancient Horatian principle to us German life, German thought, and the that “Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile morals of our time through its hero, its scen- dulci.” ‘He has carried every point who has ery and environment. Wieland, of course, who mingled the useful with the agreeable.’g lived in an earlier period in which German The kind of formation Bildung[ ] that the Bildung could not yet hold its own against novel, as we saw, is supposed to both depict meddlesome foreign influences, especially and confer will either occupy itself with one those from France, spurned such elements, of the many aspects of man—his intellectual, but Klinger already gave a dignified example moral, or aesthetic sides, each conceived ei- in his History of a German.j Without getting ther as general or in regard to particular pur- lost in exaggerations of the kind that the in- poses—or call on the community of human genious Friedrich Schlegel put forth in his powers and seek to harmonically stimulate Athenaeum, when he declared that the French and form them. Thus are produced philo Revolution, Fichte’s Science of Knowledge, sophical and art novels, as well as some that and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship repre- aim for a general and purely human course sented the highest tendencies of the century, of instruction. We can therefore find philo we may nevertheless say with sober and full sophical novels that have both theoretical and conviction that no previous novel—not only practical purposes, such as those of the hon- of the German people—so successfully and orable men Jacobi and Klinger, and also art to such a high degree and expansiveness at- novels in which the aesthetic purpose to of- tempted to represent and promote the har- fer instruction in the fine arts predominates, monious formation of the purely human. In such as Heinse’s Ardinghello, Tieck’s Franz this, it captured the most beautiful aspects of Sternbald’s Wanderings, and Novalis’s Henry modern European man’s development and of of Ofterdingen.h Still, it should be said that all the age that was coming to be at the time that these works more or less examine the human the book was published in Germany. I would being as a whole and consider also his social love to dwell on a more specific outline of this 656 On the Nature of the Bildungsroman [ PMLA

marvelous work, to name for you the various a world of imagination, presents irresistible characters presented therein, to discuss the charms to a young man like Wilhelm. In richness of its remarks and pronouncements time, however, he discovers that he possesses on life, art, and science, and to develop the no calling to be an actor, even if the theater translation

beauties of its classical language, which per- has awakened many of his nobler sentiments.

in meates it in its moral purity. But since others The unsatisfactory outside circumstances of a

have already preceded me in this, I can only life as an actor move him out of his idealistic recall to your mind the most salient points.2 world and closer to the actual one. A num- The task ofWilhelm Meister’s Apprentice ber of characters full of healthy life, some of

criticism ship appears to be nothing else than to depict them merely charming, some of them truly a human being who develops toward his true beautiful, introduce him to the resplendent nature by means of a collaboration of his inner side of this world. Opposed to these are two dispositions with outer circumstances. The sickly creatures, both from the southern goal of this development is a perfect equilib- realm of Italy: Mignon and the Harper, both rium, combining harmony with freedom. The of them full of a southern fire and depth that nourishment that our minds derive from this give new energy to Meister whenever outside presentation varies in proportion to the inner circumstances wear him down. The countess, disposition toward development of the person endowed with a soft heart and the frailty of depicted and to the formative power in the a woman, is nevertheless not without grace world that surrounds him. In order to accom- and thus a suitable tool to awaken in Meister modate the kind of being given to Wilhelm the desire to please. Aurelie gives a warning Meister by the grace of nature, the poet had example of the destruction that passion and to find a world from which one could expect imagination can cause even in a noble person the formation not of an artist, a statesman, or if the inner forces of the soul are not in bal- a scholar but of a human being. A modern set- ance. Natalie’s aunt, on the other hand, whose ting necessarily made the presentation of this Confessions of a Beautiful Soul we get to read, world more lively than an antique one, of the is filled with a peace brought about by the re- kind that Wieland preferred for his novels, nunciation of the sensual world. Many blos- could have made it, and a German environ- soms had to fall in order to ripen the fruit of ment rendered it the liveliest of all, as well as her contemplative piety. A different kind of most suitable for the purpose of representing a inner peace, this one combined with incessant general formation. Wilhelm Meister possesses action on the outside, is demonstrated by The a highly receptive imagination that had to be resa. Here there are no quarrels and nervous employed and developed in manifold ways. tensions, but neither can we find any ardency This demands freedom from the oppression or imagination. Nevertheless, she possesses of external needs, but in combination with a clarity and perfection—without enthusiasm, position in the real world that isn’t too com- it is true, and always in full conscience, but fortable, so that he might strive to advance nevertheless mixed with receptiveness for himself using his own powers. Mariane, a true nobility. Natalie possesses the same in- young girl who loves him amid circumstances ner peace, clarity, and activity, but here every- that aren’t entirely pure, is his first sweetheart: thing is animated by love. This love ardently she amounts to too little to become his wife, spreads throughout all that she does and re- too much to be left behind without regrets. veals in her the sanctity of a higher nature This necessitates her death, in which she ap- devoid of any oppression, comforting and si- pears in a brighter light than she ever did in lently pleasing. And yet although there are all life. The theater, as a bridge from reality into these lovely characters, it would be impossible 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 657 criticism to find a single fundamentally evil creature in all are connected with free choices sprung the entire book. Even Barbara isn’t malicious, from individual dispositions. In this way, the but merely a base woman who seeks out her whole approaches real life, in which man is own advantage and nevertheless possesses a never merely governed by the external world in

certain devotion to Mariane and Felix. But it but also cannot derive everything from his translation is similarly impossible to find a transcendental own inner being. Two characters foremost ideal; instead, we see everywhere traces of the show the power of destiny—Mignon and the constraints and the frailty of human nature. Harper, both of whom possess tender natures The protagonists instead derive their interest that have to submit to the tremendous pres- from striving toward the infinite. The diver- sure of circumstances. The rest of the novel sity of the characters stems from the various profits from this admixture of the tragic by directions that this striving takes, while one- an increase of wealth and dignity. Besides the sidedness, together with a misapprehension of aforementioned characters there are also spe- forces in some characters, results in the shad- cial circumstances that act on Meister. Among ows of the portrait and in the dissonances these we may count, together with his life as that mar the harmony. Thus, Jarno combines an actor and his stay at the count’s palace, the a clarity and resolution of judgment with the secret society, which exerts a hidden influence coldness and hardness of a man of the world on the formation and direction of men—for- while Philine suffers from an excess of a care- tunately in a benevolent way. A child, finally, less, although attractive, fine sensibility that is helps complete Meister’s formation, for, as not reigned in by any moral cultivation. The Goethe said so wisely, when we pay attention great-uncle of Natalie, the Abbé, and Lothario to them, children cultivate that in us which appear to us as higher and more potent be- even women have left undeveloped.3 ings of a special kind; all three are more fixed It is true that the rapid acceleration of en- in their character than William Meister, who twined events toward the end of the novel is will only later become like them and is pre- often surprising, but it is never unnatural. It sented to us in this becoming. But we learn derives from preceding events, from charac- comparatively little (too little to satisfy our teristic tendencies that have previously been wishes) about them and their prehistory, and, hinted at as if by accident, or from the natu- as a result, the principal figure, Meister, is ral course of the human heart and spirit. The never overshadowed by them. One of the best painful impression left by Mignon’s death is judges of our novel has rightly found a notable balanced by the funeral service: the holy so- artifice in the way characters and fates are in- lemnity that it inspires lifts the soul into the tertwined in it. “Both,” he says, realm of the eternal. When the whole artis- tic edifice stood before the imagination of affect the other reciprocally. Neither is char- the poet and was perhaps already partially acter merely the result of a string of circum- put to paper, it was nevertheless still capable stances, nor fate merely the result of a given of improvement by diverse ornaments, such character. Personality develops from an in- as the interlaced poems or the discussions dependent and inexplicable seed, and this development is merely abetted by external about Hamlet and other aspects of poetic art; circumstances. This is the effect that the pup- the letter of apprenticeship; and many other pet theater has on Meister, and the chest in- exquisite remarks about art, education, and fection on the canoness.k worldly wisdom—all of which were woven into the whole not as random decorations but Thus, Meister’s stay at the count’s palace, the as a necessary part. Up to a certain point, it is robber’s ambush, and the visit to Lothario possible to trace the formative influence of the 658 On the Nature of the Bildungsroman [ PMLA

artist through the novel, and several excel- (speaking, perhaps, in too general a sense lent critics have done so, usually immediately here) to be the appropriate subject of poetry.4 after the first publication of the outstanding The example of Wilhelm Meister has, I work. Beyond this point, however, the genius believe, served as an ample illustration of translation

of the work announces itself only through the what is meant by a Bildungsroman and was

in impact it leaves. A reader with an inclination intentionally chosen as the best of its kind,

toward the arts can be all the more grateful, from our time and for our time. therefore, for a renewed opportunity to read Many other related questions still re- Goethe’s Truth and Poetry and learn from main, such as: Is every good novel a Bildungs

criticism the great author of Wilhelm Meister himself r o m a n ? Can and should every good novel be which threads of his rich life he wove into the a Bildungsroman? Did the ancients know this marvelously intricate tapestry. For regardless genre, and if not, why not? What are other of all talk about poetic gift, and regardless of important modern examples of this type, the heights to which creative imagination is drawn not only from German but also from elevated in our perception, the most lifelike, Italian, Spanish, French, and British litera- powerful, and instructive elements of the ture? Such questions and others like them I novel, and indeed of poetry in general, remain will perhaps answer at another time, assum- those that the poet has himself lived and ex- ing that you, my esteemed listeners, will find perienced, no matter to what constructs of them agreeable. For now I have only one fancy they may otherwise be tied. Without further remark. I just now called Wilhelm such experiences, which are now familiar to Meister’s Apprenticeship a model of its kind, us through Goethe’s own presentation of his from our time and for our time. But Chro- life (not to mention those other significant nos marches quickly, leaving ruins behind ones, which the poet, still richer than his him and gazing toward ever-new edifices that work, understandably had to conceal from his rise up before him. How much has changed readers), we would have neither The Sorrows in Germany and in the rest of Europe during of Young Werther, nor Wilhelm Meister’s Ap the twenty-five years that have passed since prenticeship, nor even, as a continuation of the the publication of the Apprenticeship; how life story would presumably show, Goethe’s much has already changed its shape and how third and final novel, Elective Affinities. And much strives toward new forms that in some we already know from his book how other cases have been foreseen but in others come characters that appear in his works, such as completely unexpected! We have seen the re- Gretchen and even Mephistopheles in Faust, juvenation of spirits that has accompanied the relate to the poet’s lived experiences. We may rise of the German nation against the scan- take from them an example of how a high po- dalous oppression of the former occupiers, etic power recasts the true, idealizes it, and the French, together with their creatures and then presents it to posterity. For this reason I machines and that has resulted in a lawful have to declare that I find Friedrich Schlegel’s and just constitution under the governance of recent loud lament to the effect that Goethe ancestral rulers and elected representatives of wastes (as he would put it) so much artifice duly acquired rights; we have seen the revival on entirely modern subjects one-sided, even of memories of Hermann, the Song of the though Schlegel otherwise is one of Goethe’s Nibelungs, of Luther, of old German might, warmest and most insightful admirers. Of faith, and truthfulness just as much as old course, this has to do with Schlegel’s theory German architecture, painting, and poetry; of poetry, in which he declares the indirect we have witnessed the universally felt need representation of reality and the present age for a deeper and unfeigned religiosity and 124.2 ] Karl Morgenstern 659 criticism for a truly humanistic philosophy that ap- Tr a n s l at o r ’s No t e s proaches Platonic Socratism, a chaste poetry The original text, a transcript of an 1819 lecture, ap- that dedicates itself to higher beauties of every peared in 1820 in Inländisches Museum, a short-lived kind, an art that unites the national with the periodical published by Carl Eduard Raupach in Dor- in

classical; we have seen, finally, the universal pat (now Tartu, Estonia) from 1820 to 1821. Further need for a more thorough scientific method information is available at EEVA: Digital Repository translation in all subjects of knowledge, a finer sociabil- for Older Estonian Literature (www.utlib.ee/ekollekt/ eeva/). ity that is devoid of empty formalities and a. Morgenstern delivered his lecture on 12 Decem- wiser and more fortunate than all previously ber 1819 (24 December according to the Julian calen- practiced life; considering all these things we dar), on the seventeenth anniversary of the founding of may expect many happy developments from the University of Dorpat. The birthday of Tsar Alexan- the current and from the future generations. der I, the patron of the university, also happened to be 12 December. For the same reason, many other marvelous b. This quotation is drawn from bk. 5, ch. 7, of Wil trees with beautiful flowers and ripe fruits helm Meister’s Apprenticeship. shall flourish in the infinitely large garden of c. The heroes, respectively, ofFaust der Morgenländer novel writing. Why should “that noble inciter, (1797), Giafar der Barmecide (1792–94), and Geschichte Comforter Hope,” turn away from the lamp des Raphael de Aquillas (1793), three novels by Friedrich of life?l Joyfully let us turn, instead, from the Maximilian von Klinger (1752–1831), whose play Sturm und Drang (1777) gave a name to the “storm and stress” golden harvests of bygone years to the invigo- movement in German letters. Klinger was then serving rating green of the growing crop! as curator of the University of Dorpat and was a friend of Morgenstern’s. d. Pharsalia (ca. 61–65 CE), by Lucan; La Henriade (1723), by Voltaire; Borussias (1794) by Daniel Jenisch; R o s s i y a d a (1771–94), by Mikhail Kheraskov. No t e s e. Alcibiades (1781–88), by August Gottlieb Meissner; Aristomenes und Gorgus (1796), by August Lafontaine; 1. Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life, pt. 3, vol. 14. Marc Aurel (1791–92), by Ignaz Aurel Fessler. 2. See the contributions of Körner (the father of Theo f. Histoire des Sevarambes (1675), by Denis Vairassel; dor K.), Fr. Schlegel, Jenisch, Schubarth, and several others Reisen vor der Sündfluth (1795), by Klinger. to various literary journals. I have principally drawn on the g. Horace, Ars Poetica (line 343). first of these (often retaining his own words) whenever my h. Ardinghello (1787), by Wilhelm Heinse; Franz feelings after several readings of a work corresponded with Sternbalds Wanderungen (1798), by Ludwig Tieck; Hein his analysis. We are often in agreement, but not always— rich von Ofterdingen (1802), by Friedrich von Hardenberg not, for example when he counts Wilhelm Meister among (Novalis). those human beings who are called to rule in the world, nor when he attributes to Natalie a slowly growing passion for i. Die Geschichte des Agathon (1766–67), by Christoph Meister, since her soul may be capable of deep and ardent Martin Wieland. Kalokagathia refers to the Hellenic ideal empathy, but surely not of passion. My earliest opinions on (espoused, for example, in Plato’s Republic) of a harmo- Wilhelm Meister, written immediately after the publication nious development toward physical, moral, and spiritual of the first two volumes of the book and thus only partially perfection. correct, can be found in a letter dated 28 August 1795 that j. Geschichte eines Deutschen (1798), by Klinger. has been printed in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wis k. This quotation is taken from a review of Wilhelm senschaften und freien Künste, vol. 51, pp. 59–70. Meister that Christian Gottfried Körner published in 3. Wilhelm Meister, vol. 7, ch. 7. Schiller’s literary journal Die Horen in 1796 (vol. 12). 4. See Fr. Schlegel’s History of Ancient and Modern Litera l. From the concluding couplet of Goethe’s poem ture [Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur (1812)], pt. 2. “Meine Göttin” (“My Goddess,” 1789).