Novels of ripening: The maturation of the bildungsroman
Date
2023-06-29Author
Schrage-Frueh, Michaela
O'Neill, Margaret
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Recommended Citation
Schrage-Frueh, Michaela; O'Neill, Margaret (2023) 'Novels of Ripening: The Maturation of the Bildungsroman' In: Sarah Falcus, Heike Hartung, Raquel Medina(Eds.). Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film. London : Bloomsbury.
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Abstract
This chapter explores how the Bildungsroman, originally associated with young protagonists’
coming-of-age, has been revised in recent fiction to incorporate the continuing development
and growth of characters well beyond their youth and into old age. We provide a brief overview
of the development of the genre, including sub-genres such as the midlife progress novel, the
Reifungsroman and the Vollendungsroman, as well as these sub-genres’ significance within
critical ageing and gender studies. Our readings of Reifungsromane from recent Anglophone
and European literature, arguably the predominant sub-genre, show how narratives of older
characters’ development are informed by new perspectives on age and ageing, including the
insights that perceptions of age are culturally constructed, and identity formation is a life-long
process, as exemplified by the central motif of the journey. Just as growing older is not only a
temporal process but also an inner experience involving a backward and forward gaze on one’s
life course, recent Reifungsromane disrupt linear time through narrative experimentation,
including interior monologue, life review and reminiscence. In so doing they are well suited to
narrate the complex, subjective experience of ageing in specific contexts, and thus to
counterbalance the cultural narrative of ageing as decline.