Philosophy of Care and the Bildungsroman : Words and Facts in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre

Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–1796) is inextricably tied to the birth of the Bildungsroman and stands at a critical moment in the history of European philosophy of education. The concept of self-care permeates Goethe’s theory of the self-formation, insomuch as he displayed the latter as the consequence of one’s knowledge of the self and the world. In particular, the novel materializes in its threads the main features of what Foucault described as the historical turning point in the European idea of the care of the self. The paper aims to highlight this topic through the examination of three characters and the representation of their dealings with self-knowledge and self-care.