(Trans)formation and representation of women in the contemporary female Bildungsroman

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to present the contemporary female Bildungsroman, written by women and published since 1970, whose main character is a woman (child, teenager or adult). Firstly, we observed the German social-historical context in which the Bildungsroman was originated. Secondly, we focused on the female authors from 19th century who adopted that formal-thematic structure, and their update according to the social, political and cultural events in the history of occidental women. We also present examples of contemporary female Bildungsromane in order to verify the existence of a theoretical and terminological discussion inside the genre. Finally, we noticed that the specificity of female Bildung, the redefinition of social/sexual roles and the female authors’ point of view changed the literary representation of women in the female Bildungsroman.