Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Essay on The Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer, Judith Newman - The Lying Days As Studied

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THE LYING DAYS AS STUDIED

OTHER WORKS SIMILAR BY GENRE

Works that are also examples of the bildungsroman, or novel of formation, genre are many and varied. Since its origin in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795), it has tended to emphasize the interplay of psychological and social forces. The genre embodies ideas of organic growth and originates in the period of the European Enlightenment, with its beliefs in human perfectibility and progress, individual growth and achievement, and social integration. The goal of Wilhelm Meister, for example, is to develop and realize all the physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and moral capacities inherent in his personality. Conflicts and setbacks are understood as necessary phases and growth points, through which the individual passes on the way to harmony and maturity, and it is understood that he will then be able to assume a responsible role in a friendly social...

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1. Introduction
2. Essay: Introduction
3. Themes In The Lying Days
4. Critical Response To The Lying Days
5. The Lying Days In History
6. The Lying Days As Studied
7. Further Reading
8. Copyright

1. Nadine Gordimer