Bildung in "Campo Geral"

Abstract

“Campo Geral”, first of the seven narratives of João Guimarães Rosa’s Corpo de Baile, tells the story of Miguilim, an eight year-old boy who undergoes a formative process. To put it like that feels insufficient — this essay tries to show the ways by which Rosa’s novella uses constitutive elements of Bildungsroman’s tradition. To this end, a brief exposition of the concept of Bildung — more than just ‘Formation’, the german word carries a historical load that also burdens the history of literature — will serve as an introduction on what characterizes Goethe’s novel, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, as a prototypical Bildungsroman, so that we can arrive at Miguilim’s formative trajectory.