Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (in German, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) is the second novel by Goethe, published in 1795. While his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, featured a hero driven to suicide by despair, the eponymous hero of this novel undergoes a journey of self-realization. The story centers upon Wilhelm's attempt to escape what he views as the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theater, Wilhelm commits himself to a mysterious Tower Society comprising enlightened aristocrats. A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ... The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther, originally published as Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. ... Rather than surrender to US soldiers, the Mayor (Bürgermeister) of Leipzig, Germany, committed suicide along with his wife and daughter on April 20, 1945. ... An eponym is a person (real or fictitious) whose name has become identified with a particular object or activity. ... Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ... See aristocracy (social studies; social classes). ...

Further books patterned after this novel have been called Bildungsromane ("novels of formation"), despite the fact that Wilhelm's "Bildung" is ironized by the narrator at many points.^[1] A Bildungsroman (IPA: /, German: novel of personal development) is a novelistic form which concentrates on the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the protagonist usually from childhood to maturity. ...

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre ("Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years"), the sequel, was Goethe's fourth and last novel. Its first edition appeared in 1828, and substantially reworked second edition in 1829. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder Die Entsagenden (Wilhelm Meisters Journeyman Years,[1] or The Renunciants), is the fourth novel by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the sequel to the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), published in 1795. ... Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder Die Entsagenden (Wilhelm Meisters Journeyman Years,[1] or The Renunciants), is the fourth novel by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the sequel to the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), published in 1795. ... Year 1828 (MDCCCXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

See Also

The opera Mignon by Ambroise Thomas is based on Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Mignon is an opera in three acts by Ambroise Thomas to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethes story Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. ... Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (August 5, 1811 - February 12, 1896) was a French opera composer. ...

References

1. ^ See: Sammons, Jeffrey L. "The Mystery of the Missing Bildungsroman; or, What Happened to Wilhelm Meister's Legacy?" Genre 14 (1981): 229-46.

External links

• Online text of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship at Bartleby.com