«Wilhelm Meister» by I.V.Goethe as a novel of upbringung: accordance to genre

The novel «Wilhelm Meister» by I.V.Goethe is regarded in research works as a novel of upbringing. The author of the article does not deny this tenet, but substantiate it in a new way: the evolution of the hero is traced through the change of chronotopes, through the sequence of initiation ceremonies (initiations) and the pyramidal-concentric model of the way of life. This approach allows revealing that in the novel, despite the typical of the genre discreteness, the theme of upbringing is consistently developed, and the hero is not transferred into the nominal one: in both of the books of the novel the metamorphoses of the hero's mind become an integral part of the narration that show his spiritual insight.