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

查尔斯狄更斯的一些小说经常被描述为成长小说的标本。然而，这种通过歌德的《威廉·迈斯特》被卡尔·狄更斯翻译而从德国引进的体裁概念，在评估狄更斯小说的复杂基础时几乎没有启发性，甚至没有用处。在这项研究中，学徒小说，一个由苏珊娜·豪使用的相当于成长小说的术语，被重新定义为一种可以追溯到英国小说本身诞生的体裁。如果学徒小说被简单地重新定义为代表学徒形象的小说，那么它的起源可以追溯到中世纪的城市喜剧。学徒有一个特别分裂的性格。他是新兴资本主义社会不可或缺的一部分，牢牢地融入了城市商人阶级的行会结构。另一方面，他经常被那些在他体内起作用的颠覆性力量所吸引。他通常是一个来自农村的年轻人，容易受到城市的诱惑，如放荡的女人，喝酒和玩耍。他可以爬上社会阶梯，成为市长，但他也可能坠入堕落的深渊。总之，学徒是巴赫廷狂欢节的一个形象，在这个狂欢节中，文明和颓废的力量都在努力占主导地位。在这个意义上，女主角也可以被视为学徒。通过追溯学徒的形象，通过拿破仑、拿破仑和复辟时期的戏剧，到小说的兴起，很明显，学徒小说位于英国小说伟大传统的核心。

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.