English Bildungsroman in the first half of the 20th century

The present thesis, entitled English Bildungsroman in the 1st Half of the 20thCentury, has its starting point in our view of the Bildungsroman as an importantfictional tradition, whose thematic and narrative elements allow this type of novelto be considered a patterned literary system. In English literature theBildungsroman reached its consolidation and flourished as a fictional pattern inVictorian Age, in the realistic novels of the period, yet in the present thesis we haveattempted at revealing the 20th century connections of the pattern by focusing on anumber of novels by Joyce, Wells, and Lawrence.Chapter 1, entitled The Rise and Consolidation of the Bildungsroman inEnglish Literature, brings into discussion the general theoretical and criticalconsiderations of the Bildungsroman as the novel of character formation, itsdefinition, major thematic and structural characteristics, the Bildungsromandevelopment history, and the Victorian realistic Bildungsroman as the climax ofliterary development of this type of fiction in English literature.Chapter 2, entitled The Bildungsroman in the 20th Century EnglishLiterature, discloses firstly the status and characteristics of the Modernism andEnglish novel in the 1st half of the 20th century, as to concentrate eventually on anumber of representative 20th century English Bildungsromane, discussing Tono-Bungay as the formation of a scientist, Sons and Lovers and the psychologicalinsights into formation, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as theformation of the modern artist.