A Historical Study on the Origins of the Apprentice Novel of Charles Dickens

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Some novels of Charles Dickens have often been described as specimens of the Bildungsroman. However, the idea of the genre that was imported from Germany through the translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister by Carlye can hardly be illuminating, even useful, in assessing the intricate substrata of Dickens's fiction. In this research the Apprentice Novel, a term used by Susanne Howe as equivalent to the Bildungsroman, is redefined as a genre dating from the birth of the English Novel itself. If the Apprentice Novel is redefined simply as fiction representing the figure of the apprentice, its origins can go back as far as the city comedies of Elizabethan era. The apprentice has a peculiarly divided character. He is an integral part of the emergent capitalist society, firmly incorporated into the guild structure of the merchant class of the City. On the other hand, he is often attracted to those subversive forces that are at work inside his body. He is usually a youth coming from the country and is susceptible to the lures of the city such as loose women, drinking and playing. He could go up the social ladder and be a Lord Mayor, but he could also fall into the abyss of decadence. In short the apprentice is a figure of Bakhtinian carnival in which the forces of civilization and decadence are striving to dominate. In this sense female protagonists can also be regarded as apprentices. By tracing the figure of the apprentice through Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration drama to the rise of the novel, it has become apparent that the Apprentice Novel is located at the heart of the great tradition of the English Novel.