8/6/23
Bildungsroman vs. Künstlerroman
This is number twenty-two in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
I’M TRAVELING THIS WEEK and confess this post was not finished in time to be reviewed by my fine editor. If he reads it now and changes something, I’ll update the post. In the meantime, I’ll just hack away at my own thoughts without benefit of review.
My major distributor of erotic books is Bookapy.com. According to it, I have forty-four titles published. I know there are six more that I’ve overlooked releasing on that platform. Of the forty-four, I’ve classified thirty as ‘coming of age’ stories. The six I will eventually release could also fall under that classification.
But I’ve more recently discovered another term that applies to many of the stories and a second term that might overlap it and be applied to other stories. Oddly enough, the literary terms for these genres are all German words of thirteen characters (and other terms that are even longer).
Many of my works fall under the classification of Bildungsroman. I first used the term to refer to my Nathan Everett novel, A Place at the Table.
Courtney McColl, a former AP Lit/Language teacher blogged her definition on SmartBlogger just a couple of months ago. I’ve found other compatible definitions, but this one is easy to follow.
In its simplest form, a Bildungsroman novel is a coming-of-age story. And it’s fiction rather than a biographical or autobiographical narrative. The writer covers the formative years of the protagonist’s life. Our main character experiences loss, struggles, acceptance, and growth (phew!).
Right. I already said it was a coming of age story, but McColl goes on to describe other requirements.
And it can’t be just a series of childhood adventure tales told by an adult for kicks and giggles. The child must evolve and grow with evidence of reflection and maturation. Society must also be present as an obstacle and/or catalyst for our young character’s growth.
In essence, the literary genre focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood in which character change is important. In writing erotica, it is easy to focus on the ‘event’ of becoming a man or a woman. In other words, sex. But just having sex—even repeatedly—doesn’t explore the protagonist’s psychological or moral growth. It’s actually a physical thing, like having a birthday or growing from five feet to six feet in height. The event does not imply the kind of growth that the Bildungsroman requires.
I’m capitalizing and italicizing the word because it’s German and they capitalize nouns. The meaning is literally ‘an education or forming novel.’ This is very much like what I described a few weeks ago in the post “Character Arc,” in which I discussed the Hero’s Journey.
Imagine my surprise in finding that some of my most popular books belonged to a kind of sub-category of the Bildungsroman. I sort of fell into it with my first story on SOL. People liked my stories about artists! In fact, it was listed as one of the features that people liked most in the survey I took some time ago.
Enter the term Künstlerroman. It means ‘artist’s novel’ in English. Like the Bildungsroman, it is a narrative about the artist’s growth to maturity. It differs, though, not only in the profession of the protagonist, but in that the protagonist in a Bildungsroman typically settles for being an ordinary citizen once he or she has come to grips with the society in which they live. The hero of a Künstlerroman typically rejects the everyday life society demands and continues to run counter to the mainstream.
I think of my ‘Strange Art’ series, starting with Art Something, where Art is definitely on the autistic spectrum and sees the world differently than other people. This emerges in his art, in his multiple polyamorous relationships, and in his relationship with his sister.
In the ‘Model Student’ series, Tony continues to battle with depression and anxiety, all the way through The Prodigal, letting it influence his artwork in ways that he can’t let others see, even while he enjoys a family with four ‘wives’ and children. And we are seeing the same thing appear in the ‘Photo Finish’ series, currently running with book four, F/Stop, as protagonist Nate Hart finds and nearly loses his photographic art as he attempts to conform to a system he does not completely believe in.
According to Oxford Reference, the difference may lie in a longer view across the Künstlerroman hero’s whole life, not just their childhood years. Though it takes six books to get there in the ‘Photo Finish’ series, the story extends years beyond Nate’s college years.
We could continue to classify kinds of novels according to the German literary terms, commonly used in literary criticism.
The picaresque novel (Schelmenroman) follows the life of a rogue or picaro, a clever and amusing adventurer of low social status.
The Abenteuerroman or adventure novel recounts the adventures of the hero in an entertaining and humorous way, but often incorporates a serious aspect. An example from my works would be Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon.
A French term, roman à clef (Schlüsselroman), or novel with a key, has the extraliterary interest of portraying well-known real people more or less thinly disguised as fictional characters. See my blog post of two weeks ago on “Naming Names.”
In the educational novel (Erziehungsroman), the emphasis is on the description of the pedagogical influences and effects on the person described.
An epistolary novel (Briefroman) is a novel written as a series of letters between the fictional characters of a narrative. I’ve often seen this done by two authors, each taking one of the roles.
And, of course, we have the good old romance novel (Liebesroman), which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.” In fact, my first foray into the world of erotica, The Art and Science of Love, emerged from a deep need to write a romance with a happy ending.
To wrap up this rambling thought piece on literary genres, any of these can be erotica. Mine certainly are and I’ve identified several of my stories in different categories. But if it is good erotica, it involves not only the titillating sexual aspects, but it also develops as a good story—something that shows growth of the character.
I’m going to depart from the literary posts next week and write a little bit about “Fitting into the Industry.” Of course, I’m referring to the sex industry. It’s been an interesting ride. So to speak.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
