New Perspectives on the European Bildungsroman [Paperback]

New Perspectives on the European Bildungsroman reflects the change in direction of research on the Bildungsroman, focusing on more psychological, authorial and feminist contents.

Departing from the father of the prototype of the genre, Goethe, the authors trace imperative pathways to its French, British, and Italian counterparts, examining spiritual and female Bildungsromane. A wide-ranging analysis provides fresh insights into the genre through comparative analyses of Bildungsromane both diatopically and diachronically, while critical analysis of novels such as Voltaire's Candide, Charlotte Bront?'s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, Collodi's Pinocchio, Aleramo's Una donna present new readings of the characters, plots and purposes of the most famous European novels.

Presents new critical approaches to the Bildungsroman by analyzing spiritual, feminist, historicist and modernist perspectives.

Introduction \Part I. SpiritualityGiovanna Summerfield\1. Mastery and Apprenticeship(s): Departing from Goethe's Turm \2. The British Master: Defoe, Dickens and Kipling \3. The French Fellow Craft: Voltaire, Pr?vost, Stendhal \4. The Italian Apprentice: Foscolo, Collodi \5. From Bildungsroman to Bildungsreise \Part II. GenderLisa Downward\6. The Dissolution of Gendered Plots: Wilhelm Meister and the Beautiful Soul \7. Female Developments in the Nineteenth Century: Neera'sTeresa,LydiaandL'indomani, George Eliot'sMiddlemarch, Charlotte Bront?'sJane Eyre\8. Female Developments in the Twentieth Century: Sibilla Aleramo'sUna donna, Susanna Tamaro'sVa' dove ti porta il cuore, Virginia Woolf'sTo the Lighthouse\9. The Bildungsroman as Spectrum \Conclusion \Bibliography \Index

Giovanna Summerfield is Associate Professor of Italian and French at Auburn University, USA.

Lisa Downward is Assistant Professor of Italian at Marist College, New York, USA.