Talk:Bildungsroman

message: Why is the word inconsistently capitalized? Should it be capitalized or not? I don't think it should be, but I'm not sure. Spectralancer (talk) 04:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It should not be, per MOS:CAPS. ENeville (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It is capitalized by the Oxford English Dictionary. See: . 32.218.33.5 (talk) 04:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The link leads to: "the book is a bildungsroman of sorts". This seems to be US usage (see link address above) and "The word Bildungsroman is typically capitalized because of its German origin (in German, all nouns are capitalized)"(). The full OED online, that I accessed from a Canadian university library, capitalizes the word. Rwood128 (talk) 00:32, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: How the word is capitalized in German (and the spelling of its plural) is not relevant to this page on English Wikipedia.  It is common for English words that were taken from other languages to not follow all the grammatical and other rules of their parent language.  The Encyclopaedia Britannica does not capitalize it, nor does the American dictionary Merriam-Webster.  Also crucially, the relevant Wikipedia guideline specifies that literary genres are not capitalized. --Noren (talk) 23:54, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization 

message: After looking at the german version (I'm a native german speaker), I think that the english article uses the wrong translation for "bildung".
Instead of "education", the meaning in this case is most likely "formation"/"forming".  http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&p=GI6fAA&search=Bildung
It's a hard one to translate, but I think the ideas and connotations of the word "Bildungsroman" are better expressed by "novel of formation".
A "Novel of education" would be the "Erziehungsroman", which deals with the ideal way to educate a person. The "Bildungsroman", however,
doesn't deal with the education of the charachter, but instead with his "forming" and development. TheTrueRandomness (talk) 00:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: German, with others, is perhaps my second; and I can assure Kbrewer, that a valid and common standard meaning of "Education" in English is often a subset of the larger phenomena he refers to. A subset of "Education" is indeed "formation", and many generations of literary critics have not been off-base by using Bildungsroman to represent in the individual depicted, a portion of education, and/or formation of personality and perspective.Sidney Orr (talk) 17:11, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

text: Could "Construction Story" be an alternative translation? I also wonder if "novel" is adequately qualified here. A novel is a book containing a (single, book length (...)) story. I wonder if that is captured in "story" if what is meant is both the physical book and the story it contains?173.189.76.88 (talk) 16:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation to German possibly incorrect?

message: Really?  REALLY???  I think every example in that list that isn't cited should be removed.69.250.117.1 (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harry Potter 

message: Is Catcher in the Rye a bildungsroman?
Most definitely so.
Not really. I had to smile at the notion that Harry Potter is a bildungsroman. Very funny. When one talks about an education novel, one does tend to mean a character's sentimental education, not his literal one. Ah well. James James 09:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: just reverted my removal of Catcher in the Rye, and I don't want to get into an edit war over this, so I'm bringing it here for broader attention... is this an accurate example of a bildungsroman? -- nae'blis (talk) 04:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Salinger 

message: OK. Harry Potter definitely looks like a Buildungsroman.The evolution of the hero is complete in the seven volume collection.But does Buildungsroman have to be the tale about a single hero undergoing metamorphosis or can One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez be termed as Buildungsroman?Olipou.kk (talk) 06:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  DOES IT HAVE TO HAVE ONLY A SINGLE PROTAGONIST? 

message: The headline says it almost. This article is not good! The articles in french and german are much better. The easiest way to make this one better is to look at the other and learn from them. I cant do it because I am german and my english is not so good. I would suggest that someone, who is native english speaker but can understand german or french, does this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.52.32.206 (talk) 14:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to second this motion.--Awaler (talk) 19:26, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Make the article better by looking at the german and the french article 

message: I'm wondering if only sourced samples, samples that have an attached ref from a useable source that says this work is an example of Bildunsroman, should be kept on the examples list.  I noticed that there are a bunch of unsourced examples on that list and it seems improper to call something Bildunsroman just on the opinion of an editor although I can't remember the policy that backs that off the top of my head. Cat-fivetc  ---- 03:26, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed all unsourced samples after I saw that there was already an HTML note giving fair warning that they'd be removed at any time.  There's a few major works that I removed that should be added back if a source canb e found that confirms that they fall under Bildunsroman.  The edit is [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bildungsroman&diff=526824677&oldid=526782650 here, if anyone wants to go back and see what was removed. Cat-fivetc  ---- 05:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

text: This issue has come up again since Cat-five's last comment and edit, even though the 'Examples' section explicitly asks for sources when it is edited, and several discussions on this Talk page and the Archive page seem to have resulted in a consensus to cut down the list and always provide sources for examples. I have provided sources for some of the major examples and removed all uncited ones. Charlios (talk) 03:08, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced examples 

message: Would it be applicable to give examples of how the Bildungsroman works within the texts rather than just giving links to the page? Would anyone be opposed to extensively expanding the examples section to convey how the Bildungsroman functions within their respective stories? For example, if I expanded how important the Bildungsroman concept/genre is within Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (with reputable scholarly sources of course). Perhaps this would invite others to expand on the other examples listed on the Bildungsroman and raise the class of the article? Sleepvertical (talk) 00:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with this is that there are too many examples and new ones keep getting added, so the expansion might get a bit too extensive. However, a brief discussion of some of the most notable ones, such as the one you mention, might be a good idea. Harold the Sheep (talk) 22:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

text: Thank you for responding Harold the Sheep! I think that is a fair compromise. Possibly creating a section of the most notable examples of the Bildungsroman. I certainly believe that Jane Eyre is one of the notable examples for various reasons (the novel is well read, has a lot of scholarship written on it, its major place in feminist literature, and so on...). I'd also love and encourage if others were willing to bring up what other examples they thought were most important. Perhaps the start of section that is 3-5 notable examples would work? With Jane Eyre being one and possibly the start. Thank you for your help and do you have any other suggestions? 
Sleepvertical (talk) 00:10, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Jane Eyre is a good suggestion. Emile or Candide might be good as an early example of the genre. Maybe Great Expectations and a couple from the 20th and 21st centuries. I guess it doesn't particularly matter which ones, as long as they are well known and good for demonstrating the qualities of the article subject. Harold the Sheep (talk) 04:30, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I question the inclusion in 21st century examples of Words of a Shaman, by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu (2019). All the recent examples have an independent source as reference to explain why they can be considered examples of Bildungsroman. Words of a Shaman links to a Goodreads page with one review, and no mention of the word "Bildungsroman". (Also the book and author have no Wikipedia page). RameausNiece (talk) 16:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expanding Examples? 

message: Why the term is Italic? — Hamid Hassani (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I would guess that it is because the Wikipedia Manual of Style demands that foreign terms that are not in common usage in English are italizisedhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting#Foreign_terms. Charlios (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Except that it further clarifies what it means by common usage and the English word bildungsroman qualifies - "Rule of thumb: do not italicize words that appear in multiple major English dictionaries." --Noren (talk) 00:20, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italic? 

message: If anyone know what Engel citation should exist here, please help by adding it. Note a and Reference 5 both refer to Engel but there is no citation template or any other Engel on the page. —¿philoserf? (talk) 07:09, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to be have been resolved. The note and reference both refer to the Engel text in the bibliography. Charlios (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Engel 

message: How is a novel about a 14-year-old girl becoming a teenage prostitute a good example of a Bildungsroman??  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.34.147.100 (talk) 10:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There is, in fact, scholarly criticism describing Fanny Hill as a Bildungsroman, though I could not find many sources, so this might be disputed. I just added sources to the article. Charlios (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fanny Hill?? 

message: Described as a bildungsroman or novel of education in several articles 177.18.213.205 (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anne of green gables