This invaluable study of turn-of-the-century German thought and literature examines the causes of Verbildung as revealed in the cultural, social and political climate of Wilhelminian Germany. It traces the early philosophic admonitions of Nietzsche and Langbehn, how they gave rise to the Verbildungsroman and Schulliteratur and analyzes the life and prose fiction works of Otto Julius Bierbaum, the only German author who made the issue of Verbildung the focal point of his life and work.