Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 
Wilhelm Meister (Book 1&2) 
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship & Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years

The story centres upon Wilhelm Meister’s attempt to escape what he views as the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theatre, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious Tower Society. Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years or His Travels – Consisting largely of discrete short stories and novellas woven together with elements of the epistolary novel, lengthy sections of aphorisms, and several interspersed poems, the sequel is a treat to read! A major theme running through the various parts of the novel is that of ’Entsagung, ’ translatable as ’renunciation.’ The most famous section of the novel is probably the episode in which the protagonist and his son Felix visit the ’Pedagogical Province.’