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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2020
Oftentimes, honorable listeners, when stepping before you at this time and place I have not found it altogether easy to choose a theme that without leading too deeply into science and literature would nevertheless move beyond the outer chambers of knowledge and that might furthermore attract a mixed audience without merely touching on commonplaces. Today, before we proceed to the joyous principal occasion for our festive gathering, I wish to speak about the most exquisite of all the many types of novel; you will permit me to call it by a name that has to my knowledge never been used before—namely, the Bildungsroman.a Some of you have so far been content to refer to it as the family novel [Familienroman]—a name that in no way touches on the essence of the question at hand.
1. Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life, pt. 3, vol. 14.
2. See the contributions of Körner (the father of Theodor K.), Fr. Schlegel, Jenisch, Schubarth, and several others to various literary journals. I have principally drawn on the first of these (often retaining his own words) whenever my feelings after several readings of a work corresponded with his analysis. We are often in agreement, but not always—not, for example when he counts Wilhelm Meister among those human beings who are called to rule in the world, nor when he attributes to Natalie a slowly growing passion for Meister, since her soul may be capable of deep and ardent empathy, but surely not of passion. My earliest opinions on Wilhelm Meister, written immediately after the publication of the first two volumes of the book and thus only partially correct, can be found in a letter dated 28 August 1795 that has been printed in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und freien Künste, vol. 51, pp. 59–70.
3. Wilhelm Meister, vol. 7, ch. 7.
4. See Fr. Schlegel's History of Ancient and Modern Literature [Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur (1812)], pt. 2.