Bildungsroman- Representative authors

Charlotte Bronte¨ (1816–1855)
Charlotte Bronte¨ was born in Yorkshire, England, on April 21, 1816, the third of six children.
Her two older sisters died in childhood, and Bronte¨ became very close to her remaining younger siblings, brother Branwell and sisters Emily and Anne. In 1846, Bronte¨ and her sisters
published a collection of poetry under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, and
although the collection was not well received by critics and readers, the three women continued
to write. By 1849, Bronte¨ had lost her three beloved siblings—Branwell from complications
of heavy drinking, and Emily and Anne to tuberculosis. Her writing career, however, was taking
off with the success of Jane Eyre (1847), an excellent example of the female Bildungsroman.
She married Arthur Bell Nichols, her father’s curate, in June 1854 and died less than a year
later, on March 31, 1855, either from tuberculosis or from complications caused by pregnancy.
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
One of the greatest British writers of all time, Charles Dickens was a Victorian novelist who
chose the Bildungsroman form for at least two of his most famous works: David Copperfield
(1849–1850) and Great Expectations (1860– 1861). Born in Portsmouth, England, on February
7, 1812, Dickens grew up in London. His father was a navy clerk who went to debtors’
prison when Dickens was twelve. Forced to go to work in a shoe dye factory, Dickens lived
alone in fear and shame. These feelings led to the creation of his many orphan characters and
his sympathy for the plight of the working class that made him the first great urban novelist.
Although he was able to return to school and eventually clerked in a law firm, Dickens found
his first success as a journalist and comic writer of the Pickwick Papers (1836–1837). However,
his deep social concerns found expression in a rich intensity and variety in his later works. By
the time of his death from a paralytic stroke at age 58 on June 9, 1870, Dickens had written
many novels, including A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities.
James Joyce (1882–1941)
As a poet and novelist, James Joyce brought marked change to modern literature. Born in Dublin, Ireland, on February 2, 1882, Joyce moved frequently as a child because of his
father’s drinking and financial difficulties. Joyce’s classic Ku¨ nstlerroman (novel of an artist’s
development), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, portrays a hero who is a character blend of
Joyce and his father. Despite the Joyce family situation, the novelist received a good education
at a Jesuit school. But like his hero in A Portrait, Joyce later rejected religion, family, and his
home country, living most of his life on the European continent. However, he wrote almost exclusively
about Dublin. Joyce felt that being an artist required exile to protect oneself from sentimental
involvements and that he could not write about Dublin with integrity and objectivity
unless he went away. A Portrait established the modern concept of the artist as a bohemian who
rejects middle-class values. It also set the example for a number of modern Irish Bildungsromans
in which heroes achieve their quest when they come to believe that alienation from society,
not finding one’s place in the social order, is the mark of maturity. Joyce died in Zurich on
January 13, 1941, when he was only 59fifty-nine years old, but his innovations in literary organization
and style, particularly his use of stream of consciousness technique, secured his unique
place in the development of the novel.
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
Mark Twain is known as one of America’s leading realists, native humorists, and local colorists.
He was a master in the use of folklore, psychological realism, and dialects. Born Samuel
Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, on November 30, 1835, he died of heart disease in
the city he had long made his home, Hartford, Connecticut, on April 21, 1910. Twain produced
not one but several classics, including what some believe to be the greatest American novel, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a picaresque and satirical Bildungsroman. Probably
more than any other writer, Mark Twain provided a uniquely American, and usually comic,
portrayal of the Bildungsroman hero. Sadly, Twain’s satire became bitter as his personal tragedies
and financial reverses led to the disillusionment and depression that cloud his later writings.