Un Bildungsroman americano? Sull’evoluzione di un genere

As the codified genre pivoting on the formation and social integration of young protagonists, the Bildungsroman has long been viewed as alien to the American literary tradition. The essay focuses on this critical controversy, arguing that the current widespread use of the term Bildungsroman in relation to US literature depends on two key factors: a wider and more flexible understanding of “Bildung” and a focus on the refashioning of the genre’s aesthetic and ideological codes in ethnic literature. The essay highlights the tendency to posit the existence of as many “Bildungs” as there are gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual differences, a conspicuous legacy of the 1970s “identity politics” in the literary debate. Finally, by turning attention to the special issue, it points out the two main interpretive trends of the featured essays: while the first three analyze examples of anti-Bildungsromans (a long-lasting presence in US literature), the last three essays concentrate on the ways in which contemporary works of ethnic literature revive the Bildungsroman genre, retrieving and simultaneously rewriting its conventions.