Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (in German, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre) was a 1795 novel by Goethe. While his The Sorrows of Young Werther, his breakthrough success the previous year, featured a hero driven to suicide by despair, the hero of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship went through quite the opposite journey: he went through a journey of self-realization that led to an actualized adulthood. The story centers upon Wilhelm's attempt to escape the restrictions placed upon his life and find life as a writer and actor. Stories of this kind became very influential, and later books created upon this pattern are called Bildungsromans (stories of growth).

Goethe wrote an 1821 sequel, titled Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Travels ).

External links

• online text of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship at Bartleby.com