Bildungsroman
n. a type of novel that describes the formation of the leading character’s self in the course of development (usually through a series of stages) from childhood to adulthood. The genre was established in Germany by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–1796) and has remained central to the German literary tradition. It was therefore an essential part of the intellectual climate in which the early psychoanalysts were educated and did their work. It might be argued that the classic “stage theories,” such as Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages, Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages, Carl Jung’s process of individuation, and Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, grew out of this tradition. [German, literally: “education novel”; coined by German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) in a
biography of German philosopher Friederich Schleiermacher (1768–1834)]