It was at the dawn of the 19th century that Goethe's Wilhelm Meister conventionally marked the birth of the Bildungsroman, the novel of formation, although Redfield repeatedly emphasized the difficulty of defining this literary category in a clear and rigorous manner. This does not detract from the charm and significance of the many expressions of the Bildungsroman, which, in addition to the pleasure of reading itself, also offer the experience of challenge, growth, and transformative learning.
The pedagogical value of this form of writing is evident, as is its transformation in response to social, cultural, imaginal, and, above all, media changes. This defines the scope of interest for the new issue of MeTis, which invites reflections and contributions that can interpret the pedagogical value of narrating stories of formation both traditionally and innovatively. It seems clear to us that we are on the threshold that unites and separates classic and avant-garde narratives of formation, an issue we consider important to explore from a pedagogical perspective.