Publications [#286175] of Thomas Pfau

Articles in a Collection

1. Pfau, T. "Of ends and endings: Teleological and variational models of romantic narrative." . Informa UK Limited, Spring, 2007, 231-241. [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/18)

   Abstract:
   This essay sketches the antithesis between a teleological and a variational model of development (Bildung) in nineteenth-century thought, with a particular focus on narrative. I argue that, in the course of that century, the initially dynamic logic of Bildung is gradually vanquished by an institutional model that shifts away from Goethe's contingent, open-ended logic of development and towards a notion of Bildung as the virtual and soon canonical property of information.