Recent work in Victorian studies and the bildungsroman

This article evaluates recent work in Victorian Studies on the Bildungsroman, with particular attention to how scholars negotiate the legacy of Franco Moretti’s bravura reading of the form, The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (1987). It concludes by suggesting that Georg Lukács’ discussion of the ‘Novel of Disillusionment’ in his Theory of the Novel (1914-5) offers a means of moving beyond the critical impasse that the bildungsroman has come to represent.