.., ,.

:
:~:

CHAPTER TWO

LUKACS'S THEORY OF REALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF IDEOLOGICAL DECAY

This chapter attempts to review the basic tenets and philosophical

principles of the Marxist Leninist mode of criticism as elaborated in George

Lukacs's literary theory of realism and his practical criticism and to evolve

a critical framework based on his philosophical categories, particularly that

of realism, fur an analysis of the working class fiction of Sillitoe and

Storey.

"It is not men's consciousness that determines their being but

their social being that determineB their consciousness".

"The basis for I,lny correct cognition of reality, whether of

nature or society, is the recognition of the objectivity of the
external world, that is, its existence independent of human
consciousness. Any apprehension of the external world is
nothing more than a reflection in consciousness of the wor~d
2
that exists independently of consciousness". Lukacs

Literature does not operate in a va~uum; it is preeminentl y a social act as

well as a social product, veiling innumerable processes which have

contributed to its creation. It is rooted in and grows out of society, that

is, it is influenced in subject matter a~, well as in form and technique by

the dominant climate of ideas in a givHn historical period, and in turn

31
influences the society it addresses. ThElrefore, the study of literature, like

any other cognitive pursuit, can be meaningful only In terms of the total

picture It provides of Man and society.

However, the relationship between literature and society Is not a

correspondence between two extraneous domains but one of social historical

conditioning of the literary object itself; it is a symbiotic, dialectical

relationship. Since literature stands in a conspicuous relation with society,

criticism can atleast reveal that connection. With this in view, this study

attempts to situate the works of art in their social historical determinants

and to evaluate the quality of 'reflection' of the social reality In them.

This quality rests largely on the writer's approach to reality and on his

creative method. The question is: Is the writer's approach to reality (as

manifested in his art) mechanical and static or dialectical and dynamic?

The superiority of the dialectical approach to reality lies ,in its ability to

recognise its material basis and conceive it as a process.

Since artistic reflection of essential reality is one of the main ,'equisites

of good fiction and since it is in the Marxist-Leninist mode of criticism that

we find the application of the dialectical theory of reflection to the study

of aesthetics, the Marxist-Leninist mode of criticism becomes useful for a

study of working class fiction, which is characterized by its closeness to

social real ity. Infact, the enti re development of working class fiction

reflects the development of history itself. Hence the relevance of the

historical-materialist approach (i.e. the Marxist approach) to the study of

working class fiction.

32
 II

Interestingly, though Marx and Engels never wrote a special book on

aesthetics or even a particular essay on literary questions, according to

Lukacs:\ one can evolve an organic and systematic view of aesthetics from

their letters and notes of conversation and In part from isolated quotations

extracted from books on various subjects. Lu kacs's friend MI khall lifshitz,

the Russian scholar, was able to compile from their writings whole books

of excerpts that deal with art and literature. The chief contribution of

Lifshitz proved to be The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx", a book In which

all the remarks of Marx and Engels relevant to art are collected, arranged

and interpreted by the author.

Though some early attempts were also made by the German, Franz Mehring

(1893) and the Russian, G.V. Plekhanov to develop Marxist aesthetic theory,
/
it Is only In George Lukacs we find a consolidated theory of Marxist

aesthetics based on Marx's and Engels's philosophical precepts. Referring

to this, Peter Oemetz in his book Marx, Engels a.nd the poetf! concludes
/
that It Is Lukacs "with whom a systematic development of Marxist aesthetics

commences". By using Marx's method, and by drawing upon Marx's and

Engels's views on various writers and their works, and on their

comprehensive analysis of the interconnections between material and

,-
spiritual phenomena, Lukacs has constructed a theory of realism In relation

to fiction.

The thoughts, opinions and Incidental comments offered by Marx and Engels

33
for the most part in their correspondence accumulate in several pungent,

distinctly original contributions to literary theory. For example, Marx's

and Engels's comments on Ferdinand Laselle's Sickingen (Marx to Lasselle -

19 April, 1959, Engels to Lasselle 18 May, 1859)15 elaborate Marx's and

Engels's thesis concerning the representation of historical phenomena in

literature. Engels's letters to both Minna Kautsky and Margaret Harkness

form the genesis of the Marxist theory of aesthetic realism. In a letter to

the novelist Margaret Harkness, commenti ng on her novel A city girl

written In April 1888, Engels Implies that the artist should strive for

realism and explains what he means by this term: "Realism", he says,

•.• "implies besides truth of detail the truthful rendering of typical

characters under typical circumstances:,7 The notion of type also appears

in the other of the two letters mentioned, written to the authoress Minna

Kautsky on 26 November, 1885. Complimenting Frau Kautsky on her

characterization, Engels remarks, "Each of them is a type but at the same

time a determinate individual, a Dieser [a 'this'] as old Hegel would say ... 8

The concept of realism, and the concept of type which Is an integral part

of It, are of '~·undamental Importance in subsequent Marxist criticism, and

in Lukacs's works in particular. Lukacs's studies on realism in literature

are the principal exegesis of Engels's statement. The explanation of the

Marxist notion of literary realism only begins with this statement.

Another important statement made by Engels when writing to Miss Harkness

and which is of equal importance in Lukacs's literary theory is the one

about Balzac's triumph of realism 9 • The distinction that is drawn here

between the conscious political attitudes of an author and the world-view

34
 '.J . • :
", .

"
that is implicit in his work is of great importance In Lukacs's literary

criticism.

Basing his approach to literatur.e on Marx's and Engels's comments on

Balzac and Lenin's on Tolstoy, and by developing a theory of realism using

the concept of refffcation derived from Marx's general theory of commodity

'"
fetishism, Lukacs has developed a theory of fiction which in Its scope not

only explains and evaluates the eighteenth and nineteenth century

literature but also accounts for later modernist trends.

Therefore, for the purpose of this study, which Is to evaluate the quality

of realism In the fiction of Sillitoe and Storey, we propose to er :;~,. ".he aid

of Lukacs's theory of realism, rooted as it is in the ·CI,.,1~i(,,~· I ',\rxlst'

principles and philosophical tenets.

III

PART ONE

./
Before we proceed to Lukacs's theory of literary realism it Is necessary to

examine two Important aspects of the Marxist system which form the

philosophic basis of his aesthetics.

/
Lukacs's essay Marx and Engels on Aesthetics (MEA) provides a succlnt

account of this system. In it, Lukacs states, "First, the Marxist system,

in contradistinction to modern bourgeois philosophy. never departs from

35
the concept of a total historical process".(p.61) According to him, there

Is only one comprehensive science: the science of history. "This view does

not imply - and this is the second characteristic of thei r system -

historical relativism under any circumstances".(p.52) The essence of the

dialectical method, which Is central to Marxism, lies In Its encompa~sing the

indivisible unity of the 'absolute' and the 'relative': "absolute truth has Its

relative elements; relative truth ... so far as it reflects reality in a faithful

approximation, has an absolute validity." (p.62) Consequently, the Marxist

view doep not admit the separation and isolation of individual branches of

knowledge. "Neither science nor art has an autonomous, immanent history

arising exclusively from a peculiar inner dialectic:' (p.52) Their

development is determined by the movement of history, of social production

as a whole. Changes and developments in individual areas are to be

explained in a truly scientific manner only In relation to this base.

However, Marx and Engels never denied the relative autonomy In the

development of particular areas of human activity; they deny only that It

is possi ble to explain the development of science or art exclusively vr even

primarily within their own Immanent contexts. These Immanent contexts do

exist in objective reality but merely as aspects of the historical contexts,

of the totality of historical processes within which the primary role In a

complex of interacting factors Is played by the economic.

A consequence of this approach is that the existence, substance, rise and

effect of literature are explained within the total historical context of the
/
entire system. Lu kacs states:

35
 liThe generalized principles of Mar.dst aesthetics and literary
history are to be found in the doctrines of historical
materialism. Only with the aid of historical materialism can we
understand the rise of art and literature, the laWB of their
development and the varied directions they follow in their
advance and decline within the total process" .(p.63)

. ~

Lukacs also states that historical materialism, which sees the basic

determinant of historical development In the economic base, should be

distinguished from the vulgar marxist ap;>roach which draws a mechanical,

,
distorted and misleading conclusion that there exists a simple causal

relationship between economic base and ideological superstructure. What

distinguishes historical materialism from 'vulgar materialism' is the principle

of dialectics which is the essence of genuine marxism. "Dialectics rejects

the existence of any purely one-sided, cause and effect relationship; It

recognizes in the simplest facts a complicated Interaction of causes and

effects. And historical materialism Insist~; that in a process so multlleveiled

and multi-faceted as the evolution of society, the total process of the social

and historical development emerges in the form of an intrlc~te compiex of

interaction$. "(p.64) Marxist aesthetics and literary and art history, then,

form part of historical materialism and represent an application of

dialectical materialism.

Therefore, the concept of dialectics is essential to the historical materialist

approach and the concept of historical materialism Is the core of Marxist

thought. Marxist aesthetics Is the application of these philosophical

concepts to art and Lukacs's aesthetic theory Is an extension and

elaboration of' these basic philosophical premises.

37
 "
Lukacs's greatest contri butlon to Marxist thought and literary theory Is

the fertile idea and concept of relflcation. This is a synthesIs of his

critique of capitalism and the Marxian analysis of commodity fetishism.

Luk~cs's Innovation here is to extend Marx's theory of alie~atlon from the

sphere of production to the realm of consciousness, and to construct from

this a major theory of ideology; and then to extend this theory of Ideology

to the field of literary debate, that is, the concept of reification is carried

over into his literary criticism. Since his theory of realism consists of the

application of this critique of ideology to literature, Its basic principles are

the philosophical categories of Marxism. Therefore, an examination of these

categories is essential to comprehend the epistemological basis of Lukacs's

theory of realism.

The philosophical categories are derived from the dialectical method of Marx

and are discussed in depth In his book History and Class Consciousness1o

(1923), Lukacs' major philosophical work as a Marxist. In this book he

argues that "Marxism is essentially a method, and not a dogma." (p.1) The

underlying premise of this book is the belief that "in Marx's theory and

method the true method by which to understand society and history has

finally been discovered:' (p.xiii. preface)

According to Lukacs, Marx's dictum: "The relations of production vf every

society form a whole) is the methodological polnt of departure and the key

to the historical understanding of social relations (p.9). The "all-pervasive

supremacy of the whole over the parts" ·1eflnes 'totality'. It also designates

the ensemble of social relations that go to form the world we inhabit. The

38
 ';" " , ,r'.

Idea is that all social phenomena-facts-are Interconnected to each othar and

can only be understood relationally and historically. For the knowledge

of 'facts' to lead to a knowledge of reality, isolated facts of social life

should be seen and revealed as being interconnected, as' aspects of a

totality - only then can the immediacy of a phenomenon be transcended

leading to a 'conceptual reproduction of reality'. Totality is thus not a

starting pOint, but the ultimate result of the process of reasoning. It Is

the origin of perception and Imagination. Integral to totality Is the

concept of mE:ldiation - a central category of dialectics, which in a literal

sense refers to establishing connections between facts or parts by means

of some Intermediary or mediation. Through mediation the interaction

between socio-hlstorical processes of society and the individual Isolated

phenomena is revealed. Mediation is thus a process which enables one to

./
see a phenomenon as an aspect of totality. Lukacs writes: "True

mediation Is possible only if the objects of the empirical world are to be

understood as aspects of a totality i.e. as the aspects of a total social

situation caught up in the process of historical change:' (p.163.HCC) These

are the philosophical categories that Luk~cs uses in his critique of

philosophy, politics or art.

In History and Class Consciousness Lukacs discusses the issue of the

subject-object dialectic and their relation to concrete material reality and

~

the phenomenon of reification. Lukacs, following Hegel, advocates monism

as against dualism. He develops the theory of realism into a critique of

fetishism. He understands the dualism, (the subject-object dichotomy of

European philosophy upto Kant), historically, by relating it to the

39
emergence of capitalism. It is seen by him as arising from the impact of

"commodity logic" on consciousness. Marx saw the capitalist process of

production (division into several details) as fragmenting human personality

and man's perception of the universe. As a result of this, In capitalist

society, human and social relationships and institutions take on the

appearance of relationship between things.(p.83)(HCC) Marx termed this

phenomenon as 'Commodlty fetishism' which is the basis of Marx's theory

of alienation!1 While Marx applied the concept of alienation to the sphere

of produGtion, Luka'cs extends it to the sphere of consciousness and uses

the term reification to denote fragmented consciousness engendered by the

commodity logic. (Luk&cs' innovation here Is to extend Marx's analysis

beyond the market place and to apply it to the institutions and forms of

thought of capitalist society. This is the first real attempt to elaborate

Marx's own suggestive but fragmentary Insights, and to construct from

them a major theory of ideology.)

'" relates relfied and dereified consciousness to class interest.

Next, Lukacs

By doing so, he develops a theory of ideology. Lukacs argues that

'bourgeois' consciousness precludes a total ising vision of reality. It is not

in the class-interest of the bourgeoisie to face reality in all its soclo-

economic totality for that would be tantamount to surrendering Its class

power. The working class consciousness is also trapped within the same

reified reality but it stands to gain by adopting a totalising view point

which Is a prerequisite to overcome alienation/reiflcatlon.

Lukacsian realism, then, involves a critique of fetishism which is then

40
constituted into a theory of ideology. .rt is infact an extension of this

critique to literature. What follows is a brief discussion of Lukacs's theory

of literary realism.

Lukacs's theory of realism is predicated on a reflectlonlst epistemology

based on Lenin's views in Materialism and £mpirio-Criticlsm 1,2 (1908) In

Chapter Two of his book, Lenin sets up three propositions which form the

foundations of a dialectical materialist epistemology. They are: 1) 'Things

exist ind~pend;?ntly of our consciousness', 2) Objective reality is not an

unknowable in itself but is, in principle, knowable and 3) Marxist

epistemology repudiates any attempt to locate knowledge within the sphere

of surface appearance. Lukacs's article Art and Objective Truth'$

(AOT)(1934) clearly demonstrates the InfllJence of Lenin's epistemology over

his thought during this period. Lukacs begins his essay by endorsing

Lenin's precepts stated above.

"The basis for any correct cognition of reality whether of

nature or society is the recognition of the Objectivity of the
external world, that is, its existence independent of human
consciousness. Any apprehension of the external world is
nothing more than a reflection in consciousness of the world
that exists independently of .
GOnSCIOusness "• (p.25)(AOT)
(quoted earlier)
This basic fact of the relationship of consciousness to being also serves

for the artistic reflection of reality. The theory of reflection provides the

basis for all forms of theoretical and practical mastery of reality through

consciousness. Thus it is also the basis of the theory of artistic reflection

of reality.

41
 /
Lukacs's discussion of artistic reflection of reality begins with this

statement: "The theory of reflection is nothing new in aesthetics".

(p.74)(MEA). Whether It was called mimesis, Imitation or sometimes

representation it has been held to be important by a long line of theorists

since Aristotle. The term "reflection" conjures up the image of the mirror,

hence a photographically faithful portrayal of life, even "the slice of life"

theory of the nineteenth century. However, in Marxist system, the term

"reflection" does not have a mechanical meaning with implications of

'copying'. or 'photography'. It refers to a 'dialectical' reflection of

objective social reality. Dialectically, 'reflection' does not rest in the

moment of perception, nor is it mere sensation; it is man's confrontation

with his environment, it is synonymous with the knowledge of the essence

of a phenomenon. The Marxist Category of reflection is thus different from

the empi ricist and the sensual ist concept of the 'image' because it takes

into account the mediation of the object by the perceiving subject.

Therefore reflection in art would mean the reflection net of "immediately

perceptl bit: superfice of the external world, not simply of accIdental,

ephemeral, contIngent phenomena" (p,75)(MEA) but of the indivisible

dialectical unity of appearance and essence. "True artistic reflection thus

aspires to maximum profundity and comprehensiveness, at graspIng life in

its all-embracing totality:' (p.34)(AOT)

Therefore, integral to the concept of aesthetic reflection are the categories

of 'totality' 8,nd 'mediation'. Totality in art would mean the reflection of

all important factors of society. Lukacs writes: "The work of art must

therefore reflect correctly and In prop.:r proportion all important factors

42
 . " .. .. :'....

objectively determining the area of life it represents. It must so reflect

that this area of life becomes comprehensible from within and from without,

that it appe:;;rs as a totality of life. This does not mean that every work

of art should strive to reflect the objective, extensive totality of life ••••

The totality of the work of art is rather intensive.... In this sense the

briefest song is as much an intensive totality as the mightiest epit;". (p.38)

(AOT) What Luka'cs means is that though 'totality' of reflection Is essential

to art, what is important is the quality of comprehension.

'True realism' then can be defined as d method which presents Man as a

whole and society as a whole, that is, while it emphasises the completeness

of the human personalities it also attempts to clarify the essential, human,

socio-historical factors determining men and times. "It examines in depth

the reality behind appearance and presents the dynamic)dlalectical process

in which reality is transformed into appearance and is manifested as a

phenomenon and reveals the other side of the process in which the

phenomenon in motion discloses its own particular reality. Furthermore,

these individual aspects not only contain a dialectical movement.•. but also

stand in continuous interaction as elements of a continuous process. Real

art (True realism) thus represents life In its totality, in motion,

development and evol ution." (p.77)(MEA)

The category of 'type' is fundamental to this interaction. Marx and Engels

refer to this concept first In defining true realism. Engels writes: "In

addition to accuracy of detail, realism rrleans ..• the faithful representation

,-
of typical characters in typical situations" (quoted earlier). Lukacs,

43
following Marx and Engels considers th£~ 'type' as a central category in

aesthetics. H'e writes: "What characterizes the type is the convergence and

intersection of all the dominant aspects of that dynamic unity through

which genuine literature reflects life in a vital and contradictory unity .....

"Through the representation of a type, the concrete, universal and

essential qualities, what is enduring In man and what is historically

determined and what is individual and 'f,hat is socially universal combine

in typical art". (p.78)(MEA)

The concept of the type has Its basis in the philosophical category of

mediation. It rests on the recognition that man is both an individual and

a member of a society/class. He has a dual history, a personal and social

one which may seem to conflict but which are ultimately a unity because

in the final analysis it is the class to which a man belongs which

determines the direction of his life. Thr'ough a 'typti the artist presents

the organic inner connections between essential inner traits and conflicts

of man and social and historical factors. He achieves this organic unity

by endowing the character with a clear-cut ideology. According to Lukacs,

"the elaboration of a distinct dynamic intellectual physiognomy Is decisive

to the representation of a type because a protagonist's consciousness of

his own destiny on a high intellectual level is a prerequisite for eliminating

the extremeness in situations depicted and for exposing the universality

underlying these situations, that is for representing contradictions on their

highest and purest level;' (p.160 IP) The 'type' is a key concept in

Lu kacs's aesthetics for the determi nation of those elements (action,

situation, character) which best mediatE! between the Individual and the

44
universal. In creating the typical, the artist embodies In the destinies of

certai n concrete men the most important characteristics that best represent

the specific age, nation and class to which they belong. The 'type'

therefore, is a 'central category' in Lukacs's theory of literary realism

because "it permits a resolution of ":he dialectic between reality and

appearance; It provides a link to the social and historical process of which

the best realistic art provides an accurate reflection:' (p.79)(MEA)

To create 'types' and to achieve profound realism, passionate"commltment"

from the artists is essential, says Lukacs. "Without commitment towards

social reality, the artist will never be able to distinguish the essential from
/
the Inessential". (p.83)(MEA) Here Lukacs distinguishes between

'objectivity' in reproducing reality 'vlhlch, in Marxist view, Is the

definitive Quality in great realism and 'non-partisanship' towards social

development. Lukacs writes that since the artist represents not static

c)hJocln t,ul 'pIC-H.ot.no:,', "ho muol 'JI (\:.1' III IIln (\1 I II,C) (IInr nelo! ur tHJ<..:h

a process; and such understanding itself presupposes taking a stand". He

considers the concept of an artist as an uncommitted observer "an illusion

or self-deception; an evasion of the basic Issues of life and art".

(p.81 )(MEA)

Closely associated with Lukacs's views on 'commitment' in literature are his

comments on 'perspective/ideology' and its importance in literary

composition. Lukacs uses the word 'r,'eltenschauung or 'world-view' to

/
refer to the writer's ideology or perspective, By world-view, Lukacs does

not mean the conscious world view/ideology of the writers but the world-

45
view which emanates in the work of art. He attaches great importance to

the writer's ideology and its relationship to artistic creation. He says

"compositional principles of a poetic work are a manifestation of an

author's view of life" (p.140) and "without Ideology there is no

composition :,1 '" According to Lukacs, a writer must possess a firmly

established, vital ideology in order to see the world in its contradictory

dynamics, and to present the contradictions of life In a fruitful ordered

context; the world-view plays an important role in artistic creation in that

it enables thE! artist to understand the essence of social realities and to

choose between the Important and the superficial, the crucial and the

episodic. Perspective or world-view is crucial to a writer's art since it

acts as a principle of selection, as the criterion by which a writer selects

the details which are necessary for the depiction of 'totality' and orders

them in accordance with their significance in the work of art. However,

the interaction between world-view/ideology and composition is not a direct

or simple one in Lukacs's view. (p.307)(HN) The world-view' of a writer is

influenced, among other things, by his personal and social history, that is,

by his class - position and the Ideological climate and the socio-politlcal

forces of his age; its manifestation in literature depends largely on his

imagination and his ability for abstraction and concrete presentation.

Therefore, the relation between world-view and literature is mediated,

complex and dialectical.

Another important criterion for producing 'types' (and realism) is the

,.
writer's involvement with life and society. Lukacs writes with reference

to Gorky that "real types can be created only by writers who have rich

46
practical experience of life, who have themselves led a rIch life~5" The

implicatIon is that a wrIter should be passionately involved wIth the people

he has chosen to depict, and should possess a 'sense of community'. Only

then would he be in a position to create social-historical types.

The question of community is crucial to a writer's vision; whether by

community the writer identifies a small unproductive minority or sees the

community of humanity as a whole; it is important because, it determines

whether ,his attitude to life is contemplative or active and practical. The

writer's sense of community, his capacity to create types, the connection

between the evolution of the community and the typical problems and

characters that spring into being in the process are elements of

considerable importance in the Marxist approach. For the Marxist

perspective, knowledge itself assumes a practical character and truth is

something that can be grasped only through practical activity. The

\"riter's grasp of reality will thus depend on his Involvement with the

community.

The discussion in this part of the section foregrounds the significance of

the philosophical categories - Totality, Mediation, Reflection, and Type-in

. / ~

Lukacs's theory of realism. Other than these, Lukacs considers a well-

defined ideological position and a sense of community as essential for

creating genuine realism.

PART TWO

So far we have examined the philosophlcal basis of Lukacs's theory of

47
realism. Let us see how he develops it into a critique of fetishism.

Luk~cs writes: "The evolution of bourgeois society after 1848 destroyed the
/
subjective conditions which made a great realism possible':16 Here Lu kacs

elaborates tt:e Marxist thesis on realism that realism Is the literary faith

of the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary phase and that with the development

of the proletariat, realism begins to givE! way to trends that are distinctly

modern, that Is, to naturalism, psychologism and other forms of modernism.

Referring to this development Lukbcs writes: "Most present-day writers

and readers ... are swinging to and fro between pseudo-objectivism of the

naturalist school and the mirage subjectivism of the psychologist or

abstract-formalist school. And in as much as they see any worth in

realism at all, they regard their own false extreme as a new kind of new-

realism or realism .... 17 " The consequence of this is that modern literature

shows clear signs of decline of realism. Luk~cs accounts for this decline

in terms of increasing relfication. He says that with the permeation of

reificatlon into the consciousness of men, the representative sphere of the

novel contracts leading to 'reductionism'. If reificatlon is responsible for

the decline of realism, It is not an autonomous process. It also finds an

/
explanation in ideological terms in Lukacs's thesis on realism. This thesis

is present in The Historical Novel (p.203) but is clearly elaborated in his

essay Marx and the problem of ideological decay (MPIO)'8 in which he

delivers a searching critique of bourgeois thought after 1848, and of the

contradictions which result from the bourgeoisie's Inability to transcend

the ideological limitations which arise from its role as the prime cause of

Capitalist rei'fication. Since an understanding of this critique is crucial for

48
 .' ..... .
: .. - ....
? ,'.

grasping Lukacs's critique of the development of literary realism In

present times, it would be useful to examine this essay.

The essay, as Its title suggests, Is rooted I n Marx's critique of the

ideological decay of the bourgeoisie which is found in works like Capital,

Eighteenth Brumaire, to name just a few. As a critical historian of

classical economics, Marx was the first ~o perceive this decay in classical

economics. Marx writes In Capital Vol.! that the decay set In with the

bourgeol$ie's seizure of political power, with the shift in class struggle

that brought the conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat to the centre

of the historical stage. This struggle, wrote Marx, "sounded the knell of

scientific bourgeois economics. It was thence forth no longer a question

whether this or that theorem was true, but whether it was useful or

harmful, expedient or inexpedient. In place of disinterested inquirers,

there were hired prize-fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the

bad conscience and evil intent of apologetic". (Capital, VOI.I, Moscow, 1961,

p.19)

This critiqu€ '>'las preceded by a splendid and comprehensive critique of

the political decay of bourgeois parties in the revolution of 1848. "In

Germany, the bourgeois parties betrayed the broad interests of the

bourgeois - democratic revolution in which the interest of the people was

represented, to the Hohenzollern dynasty, while in France they betrayed

the interests of democracy to Louis Bonaparte:' 19 Directly linked to this

critique, after the defeat of the revolution, came Marx's critique of the

social-scientific reflections of this betrayal. Summing up the change In

49
bourgeois ideology and Its effect upon all spheres of bourgeois Ideological

activity Marx \yrites: "The bourgeoisie had a true Insight into the fact

that all the weapons which it had forged against feudalism turned their

points against itself, that all the means of education which it had produced

rebelled against Its own civilization, that all the gods which It had created

had fallen away from it". (Marx and Engels, Collected works, vol. II.

p.141-2)

Luk~cs's ~ssay is an elaboration of this critique and an extension of it to

modern literature. The essay (MPID)can be roughly divided into two parts.

In the first part, Luk~cs discusses the chief characteristics of this decay

with reference to economics, history and sociology and In the second part

he relates the features of this Ideological change to art and literature. At

the outset, LIJk~cs clearly states that "in the present essay ... we shall

simply emphasize a few important perspectives, deliberately selected from

the standpoint of the connection with literature of those social, political

and ideological tendencies that called this turn into being", (p.115)(MPID)

The chief charactert.stic of this ideological change, according to Lukacs Is

"flight from reality, the flight into the realm of 'pure' Ideology,

(metaphysics), the liquidation of the spontaneous materialism and

spontaneous dialectics of the representatives of the 'heroic period' of

bourgeois development." (p.115) The thinking of the apologists was no

longer fertilized by the contradictions of social development. On the other

hand they sought to liquidate all earlier attempts by significant bourgeois

ideologists tc grasp the dynamic forces of society. [The events of the

50
class struggle in 1848 presented to the ideologists of the bourgeoisie so

threatening a prospect for the future of their society and class that the

contradictions of progress were bound to disappear:]2o The apologists,

consequently, took "flight" and "preferred to concoct the most blatant and

absurd mysticisms" rather than look the fact of the class struggle between

bourgeoisie and proletariat straight In the face and grasp its causes and

nature scientifically. [In History, this change resulted in the

disappearance of the idea of 'progress'; there was a 'regression' in so far

as the rt;lost unhistorical tendencies of the Enlightenment were revived.

The Enlighteners had started to investigate the natural conditions

surrounding soclal development and attempted to apply the categories and

results of the natural sciences to the knowledge of society. After 1848,

this tendency was revived and manifested itself in 'Positivist' philosophy

and 'naturalism!]21 This turn In bourgeois ideology is evident, writes

Luka'cs, in all fields, in the writings of Guizot the historian, in the works

of Mill and Malthus, and in the works of Carlyle, just to name Ii few.

Luk~cs quotes the example of Guizot first. Marx and Engels, as early as

1850 had criticized a pamphlet by Guizot on the differences between the

English and French revolutions. Before 1848, Gulzot had exposed the role

of class struggle in the emergence of bourgeois society. After 1848, he

sought to prove at any cost that the preservation of the July monarchy

was a command of historical reason and 1848 simply one great mistake.

Marx and Engels show how Guizot, out of fear of a proletarian revolution,

nullifies all the achievements of the French school of historians, how a

vulgar evolutionism cancels out ali concrete differences and problems of

development In English and French hlstory.(p.116) Then, in a discussion
/
of Carlyle's latest works they find another evidence of this turn. Lukacs

writes that before 1848, Thomas Carlyle was a courageous critic of

Capitalism; however after the storms of 1848, he became a 'mendacious

apologist for Capitalism'. In the events of 1848, Carlyle saw not the

weakness, division and cowardice of bourgeois democracy, but simply chaos,

delirium and catastrophe. The ideological result of this panic is that

Carlyle's 'hero' was now replaced by 'captains of Industry', his romantic

anti-capitalism transformed Into a philistine apology for the capitalist

system.(p.122)

Thus we see how the problem of the contradictory character of progress

was trlvialized by the ideologists of this period. "This flight from reality

and history into an Ideologically adjusted, superficially conceived,

subjectively and mystically distorted pseudo history marks the general

tendency of this ideological decay." writHs Lu ka'cs. (p.116)

Lukacs roots this ideologicai decay in the Capitalist diVision of labour,

which results in Increasing specialization; the fate of our epoch.

Specialization drives deep into the soul of every person and· brings about

far-reaching deformations, which subsequently appear in various forms in

the various modes of ideological expression. Specialized professional

activities acqul re autonomy from the overall process. "In this way, the

average citizen perceives his profession as making him a tiny cog in a

tremendous machine, with no inkling of its overall movement. And if this

connection, this necessary social charact(~r In Individual activity Is simply

52
denied, anarchist-fashion, the division still remains with a pretentiously

negative and pseudo-philosophical foundation. In both cases, society

appears as an incomprehensible mythical power whose fatalistic objectivlt}'.

devoid of any humanity, threatens the individual" he writes. (p.129)

Next, Lukacs analyses the effects of this ideological decay on the literature

of the period. True realism results from a complex,dialectical Interaction

between the writer and reality. However, with the onset of the period of

decay and its increasing 'reification' and 'specialization', this Interaction

becomes eve:- more difficult, piaclng great demands on the intellectual and'

moral personality of the writer. Luktics writes: "The entire world outlook

of the period of decay, remaining stuck as It does on the unconsidered

ideological surface, with Its tendency towards flight from the major

problems of social life, and its self-Important but sorry eciecticism, is more

suited to make more difficult the writer's attainment of an unconfirmed and

profound treatment of reality.... The inhibiting effect of these tendencies

in world outlook is further reinforced by the way that the aesthetics of

the period of decay ever more strongly presents anti-realist tendencies as

the essence of art". (p.139) Given conditions that are 60 unfavourable,

both socially and ideologically, the writer succumbs increasingly to

apologetic decadence of class Ideology leading to loss of realism. The

modern writers find it increasingly difficult to overcome the prejudices

which the ideology of the decadent epoch "spreads over man and world".

"The prejudices of the period of decay divert people's attention from

perception of the really important phenomena of the epoch. Even if these

phenomena are experienced, these prejudices operate In the direction of a

53
· ;'.

misleading 'deepening', and away from investigation of the real underlying

causes of the phenomenon in question ". (p.140) The break through to an

understanding of the deeper causes underlying issues is essential for

realism. It Is evident that a writer can only produce 'realism' if he has

managed to overcome the distortions of prejudice in his own case, "a

prejudice which the ideology of the decadent epoch spreads over man and

his world, individual and society - the inward and outward life of the

human personality, in the most diverse of forms". (p.144) In order to

,
overcome these prejudices, a writer, says Lukacs, must have pass/on - the

passion not to accept anything on surface value or as 'dead experience',

but to resolve the human world into a living Inter-relationship between

/
human beings. However, Lukacs states that whenever the prejudices of

class society are too strong in a writer for him to do this, and he

abandons the literary resolution of society into human relationships, then

the writer CHases to be a realist.

Does this mean that true realism is not possible in the era of general

decay? Luk~cs says It is possible (p.144) if the writer is able to self-

critically dissolve the capitalist Illusion in his own psyche and If he makes

a 'special intellectual effore to depict reality. [Lukacs . the examples

" Cites
of Tolstoy, Ibsen, Romain Rolland, Shaw, Thomas Mann, who were able to

confront complex contradictions in society and present them. He says they

were talented and had the intellectual and moral personality not to

succumb to apologetics. -I hey retained their own world-view and were able

to impress it on their works.] Apart from intellectual effort, love for life

and human beings is necessary. Lukacs states: "Without such a love for

54
 ·.,,: .. '

.. .r:.

humanity .•. something that necessarily involves the deepest hatred for a

society, classes and their representatives who humiliate and deform human

beings, It Is Impossible for any genuinely major realism to develop today

In the capitalist world;' (p.148) In ord03r to possess this love of life the

writers must have experienced life in all its richness. But those writers

who have not, and depict the given world of capitalism as it directly

appears to them - even if they take a ~;oclo-politlcal position against it -

/
are capitulating before the reactionary forces of history. Lukacs regrets

that intellectual honesty, passion for truth, love of life which the great

realists had, has been torn to shreds and destroyed In the Intervening

period. The writers today are being increasingly co-opted Into the system

as propagators of the system, and this leads to ever lower level of

literature designed simply to maintain the system and Its ideology, a 50-

called literature for the broad masses. (p.143)

The question here is: What are the main tendencies in this ideology that

divert writers from the struggle against the Capitalist system? According
,-
to Lukacs, one of the most important and influential theories of the times

which views literature as a kind of science has been Positivism. This

'scientific' conception of social life, which saw human beings as a

mechanical product of environment and inheritance, expelled from literature

the most pr01'ound conflicts of human life and great eruptions of human

'"
spirit, writes Lukacs. "Genuine portrayal of the human being is now

replaced by the wealth of superficial detail. Instead of the great eruptions

of the human spl rit against the inhuman aspects of social development, we

have flat depictions of what Is elementary and animal In man, and instead

55
of human greatness or weakness in conflict with society, we have flat

descriptions of external atrocities". (p.151) As the decadent epoch further

progresses, this false objectivity of a 'scientlficity' that stifles literature

is repeated in 'new objectivism' of the postwar period. The objectivity here

is very often a clear and overt attenuation of the social conflicts in human

life, a capitulation before the inhumanity of postwar Capitalism that Is

scarcely any longer concealed. In literature, there were reactions against

this objectivity - but In so far as it was of an equally "abstract"

subjectivity the "result is same", that is, in both cases, the conflicts of

real human life are eliminated from the literary work. This is In Lukacs's

view - a symptom of objective Capitulation to the reactionary forces In

history. Both these tendencies are marked by relativism, which, according

~
to Lukacs, Impoverishes the human being, both the writer and his

characters. [In Luk~cs's wor-ds "Relativism impoverishes, living dialectics

enriches" (p.166)] Luk~cs attributes this general loss of standard In

realism to the writers' lack of criticism of the surface appearances of

capitalism, to their uncritical capitulation to this superficiality and to their

uncritical Identification of 'immediacy' with 'reality'. With the loss of this

literary standard the living interrelation between the private and the

social, the individual and the typical, gets lost.

~
Lukacs concludes by stating that in the era of ideological decay, true

realism perishes giving way to apologetic anti-realism and pseudo-realism

of the literature promoted by the reactionary bourgeoisie. He further adds

that the tendency of literary decay is not a "predestined fate of a single

individual writer, but rather a question of the normal social situation".

56
 " :
• j -' '

c :~. '

Therefore, as the ideological decay progresses, a writer has to make "a

special Intellectual effort", if he seeks to tread the path of genuine

realism. (p.166)

Luk&cs's essay, as our discussion demonstrates, derives its arguments from

Marx's comprehensive critique of bourgeois ideology. This essay highlights

two important features of Lu ka'cs's thesis on real ism discussed earlier: its

close affinity with classical Marxist thought and Its application of the

critique of fetishism to literature.

Since Lukacs's thesis on realism is, in essence, a critique of 'naturalism',

'psychoiogism' and other forms of modernist literary trends with which this

study is closely linked, it Is necessary now to Isolate and present the main

features of these literary trends. What foilows is a brief account of the

;-
salient features of naturalism and modernism based on Lukacs's

descriptions of these trends found In his theoretical essays and In his

practical critk;lsm: 2

Luk~cs considers 'naturalism' as the form into which reallsm deolined after
1848 due to increasing relfication and the ideological decay of the

bourgeoisie. The defining features of a naturalist narrative are the

sundering of the subject-object dialectic and the 'thing' like apprehension

of social relations and Institutions. Naturalists present immediate empirical

reality as an objectified "given" abstracted from individual and historical

change.

57
Naturalism has its roots in Positivism which meant pragmatism, materialism

and the triumph of observation. The positivists applied 'scientific laws and

methods'to art. The cognitive model of positivist thought had' relinquished

the subject-object dialectic. Positivism centres the source of meaning

within the worldly locus, that Is, the empirical sphere within the locus of

things. So 'naturalism', the literary manifestation of Positivism, also claims

to be scientific and concentrates on the superficial vitality of the objective

sphere. It fOCIJSeS on a detailed description of average everyday life. The

naturalist ,narrative is thus crowded with dry, pedantic, encyclopaedic

details and thick descriptions. lacking an inner life. The naturalist

narrative can sometimes achieve an extensive depiction of major Issues and

events of the day but since its mode of presentation is static) it fails to

achieve the enlivening quality of realism. 'False panorama Is no substitute

for art'.23

Naturalism also focuses on average characters; they are no longer

presented in their unity of thinking and feeling. The idea of the hero is

rejected as there are no truly superior human beings that the artist can

portray. The individual traits of these average characters are purely

accidental and do not detern;i ne the course of the novel. All contradictions

are, blunted in the process and preoccupation with details replaces the

delineation of the 'essential' features of social reality. Thus, <;oncentration

on the surface texture of life or on the outward trappings of history

without any attempt to relate it to its social basis. a failure to transcend

the immediacy of emotion or event. and denial of causality, are the features

that distinguish naturalism from realism.

58
" :.,,"" "", :.:

If "Naturalism" has Its origins In the late nineteenth century In the works

of writers like Zola, "Modernism" emerges in the period of Imperialism. It

relinquishes the representative as well as the evaluative function of art,

there by resorting to experimentalism as the end of all art. Art becomes

esoteric and solipsistic with growing relfication in an era of acute class

conflict, specialization and fragmentation of labour processes. The

Ideology of modernism also displays a certain sense of hostility to the

realities of eve,ryday life and to the common man. The writer, in a gesture

of social defiance, deliberately cultivates the bizarre and the eccentric.

A major feature of modernism is Its ahistoricity. In it, Man Is shown to be

solitary J asocial and Incapable of forming human relationships. Lukacs

attributes this trait in modernism to its underlying philosophy - namely

existentialism, that is, to the Heldeggerian description of human existence

as a "thrownness Into being". (Man is thrown into being) "This implies that

Man Is constitutionally unable to establish relationships with things or

persons outside hlmselt;'24 Man, thus conceived, is an ahlstorlcal being.

This negation of history takes two different forms in modernist literature.

First, the hero is confined within the limits of his own experience.

Secondly, the hero Is without any personal history. He does not develop

through contact with the world; he neither forms nor is formed by it.

By destroying the complex Issue of man's relations with his environment,

modernism furthers the dissolution of his personality. The oonsequence of

this Is an obsession in all modernist literature with psychopathology. In

naturalism, the interest In psychopathology (as In the works of Zola)

59
sprang from an aesthetic need - It was an attempt to escape from the

dreariness of life under capitalism. 'filth modernist writers like Musil,

psychopathology becomes the goal of art. This Interest In psychopathology

is the result of 'relflcation'. The principal expression of 'reificatlon' in the

case of writers Is that existing reality appears to them as 'mechanical'

'soulless'. To this vacuous reality the bourgeois writer counterposes the

'Ufe of the soul', which is 'alone decisive'. This life of the soul then

becomes the centre of gravity, and sometimes the sole content of his

portraya!,. The creative method that arises on this basis Is psychologlsm.

As a result of its ahistoricity and obsession wIth psychopathology,

Modernism apprehends reality as 'static'. Lukacs roots this static approach

to reality In modernism to 'existentialism' and to Its belief In the condition

humaine. Existentialism, ih Lukacs's view, whether it Is Heidegger's

abstract duality between subjective and objective In the form of "a rigid

and exclusive contrast" of the human personality and the social baing, or

Sartre's "being without reason" is an arbitrary, anti-social philosophy.

Both naturalism and modernism are marked by Immediacy, that is, their

conception of the essential character of human existence is simply received

from a surface, fetishized appearance; both extract Immediate experiences,

portrayed a.s objects or as fervent emotion, from the historically changing

social totality. In both we find the disjunction of the subject-object

dialectic, leading to a static, ahistorical approach to reality. A major

requl rement of realism Is a historical outlook. It Is the lack of historicism

which vitiates completely the naturalist and modernist approac/"eS·

60
< :,'

Lukacs's rejection of anti-realistic literature's partial view point Is a

judgement which essentially conforms with his analysis of the mere

cognitive falsity of everyday thinking engendered by the process of

reification. In History and Class Consciousness, Lukacs writes: "Reification

makes a given social formation appear natural and permanent~ solidifying

time Into space and so denying process, upheaval, change." (p.9S) He also

states that reiflcation stamps Its Impr;llt on the 'whole consciousness of

man: (p.100) In his criticism of 'anti-realist' or 'modern' literature, this

/
concept 9f relfication is carried over into I iterary criticism. Thus, Lukacs's

thesis on reoJism is in essence a critique of fetishism.

IV

This section a.ttempts to examine Lukacs's practical criticism to see how his

philosophical categories and principles operate In his criticism of the

bourgeois novel. Part One focuses on Lukacs's evaluation of Balzac,

Tolstoy and Walter Scott, In Studies in European Realism(SER) and The

'"
Historical Nove/(HN). Part Two examines Lukacs's critique of naturalism and

later realism with particular reference to Zola and discusses very briefly

his critique of the Ideology of modernism with reference to his views on

Kafka.

PART ONE

The first step in Lukacs's approach to a work of fiction is to examine the

social basis of the work, the period presented in it, the social forces that

61
shape the events and mould the writer's worldvlew. These factors being

primary, he places the writer in the social-historical perspective. ~e then

looks at the writer's intention, his creative method; he analyses the manner

in which they contribute to the concreteness and realism of the \'~ork in

question. This approach Is clearly demonstrated In Lukacs's criticism of

both the 'true realists' and the naturalists or the 'new realists'.

BALZAC 25

Luk~cs begins his critical analysis of Balzac's Pea.sants with this statement:

"In this novel. .. Balzac wanted to w rite the tragedy of the doomed landed

aristocracy of France ... What he depicted was not the tragedy of the

aristocratic estate but of the peasant small-holding".(p.21) This statement

has its roots in Engels's comments on Balzac. Engels showed that though

Balzac was politically a royalist, he had the true realist's craving for

truth, which made him set aside his own prejudices and describe what he

really saw in the nascent French Capitalist society and not what he
/
preferred to see. Lukacs echoes this when he writes thus: "Balzac's

greatness lies precisely in the fact that insplte of all his political and

ideological prejudices he yet observed with incorruptible eyes all

contradictions as they rose". (p.38) Lukacs's statement elaborates an

important aspect of Marxis+ aesthetics, the relationship between world-view

and literature, discussed earlier.

The primary emphasis in Lukacs's criticism Is always on the writer's

capacity to grasp broadly the total process of the historical evolution of

62
 · ",
..
,' ,,:.

society. Luk~cs writes with reference to Balzac that he had the ability to

grasp and present the total process of the historical evolution of society

in all Its contradictions, as clashes between social classes, "as a struggle

raging around the aristocratic large estate not merely as a duel between

landowner and peasant, but as a three - cornered fight between three

parties ... the small-town and village usurper - capitalist takes the field

against both landowner and peasant".(p.28) Here, Lukacs shows how well

Balzac depicted the specific traits of the three warring factions and how

well he un~erstood the peculiarities in the development of all classes In

France since :fJe revolution of 1789. "The overall conception of the

process of capitalist evolution enabled Balzac to uncover the great social

and economic forces which govern historical development".(p.25) This

capacity which contributes to the 'totality' so important in Lukacs, is a

fundamental requirement of realism. Balzac is able to achieve It because

of his ability to focus attention on the principal factors of the social

process in their historical development and show them In the specific forms

in which they manifest themselves in different individuals. That is why

he can demonstrate concretely in any detached episode the social process

and the great forces underlying it.

Thus for Lukacs, the writer's capacity to achieve concreten9SS derives

from his ability to abstract and grasp conceptually the overall world

process and its determining factors - and then to present them In concrete

specific forms. That Is how even a single detached episode can become a

paradigm of the whole. It is this capacity for concreteness which helps

him to see social forces and depict them as they are without presenting

63
them as fantastic symbols. In fact, Balzac dissolves all social relationships

into a network of personal clashes of Interests, objective oonflicts between

Individuals. Lukacs writes: "'Each participant in these conflicts of interest

Is, Inseparably from his own purely personal interest, the representative

of a certain class, but It Is in these purely personal Interests and

indivisibly from them, that the social cause, the class basis of these

interests fInds expression. Thus .. by stripping the social institutions of

their apparent objectivity and seemingly dissolving them into personal

relationships, the author contrives to express what is truly objective In

them, what Is really their social raison d'€Jtre: their functions as bearers

of class interests and as the Instruments of enforcing them". (p.41-42)

The capacity to demonstrate the social quality of personal life Is central

to realism. This is achieved through a deep understanding of the social

interconnections and ability for abstraC'~ion. Luk~cs says: "The concrete

presentation of social interconnections Is rendered possible by raising them

to so hi gh a level of abstraction that from it the concrete can be sought

and found as a "'unity of diversity"', (as Mar'x says).(p.44) This means that

a writer must not only have a grasp of the 'total' historical process of

society and its laws, but must present them through concrete characters;

the characters and situations that he portrays must not be mere

illustrations of some abstractly conceived general law; instead, the writer

must create characters and situations which Lukacs (following Engels) calls

types. LukB:cs stresses that when he speaks of a 'type' he does not have

in mind a mere average, a grey statistical mean. A 'type' Is not something

devoid of Individual traits; neither, on the other hand, Is It something

64
'.', , ".

purely individual, with no relation to what is universal. "The type binds

together the general and particular, in the sense that through the

character and the events In which the character is involved the author

presents the universal laws that govern society" .(p.62) The author does

not simply state these laws; he brings them home to the reader through

the medium of the concrete Individuals whose lives he portrays.

Thus type is the literary equivalent of the philosophical category of

mediation: In revealing the organic union between the particular and the

general the function of the type in literature becomes In effect the

/'
function of mediation. Lukacs sees Balzac as the creator of 'types'. He

poi nts out how in Peasants the three-cornered fl ght Is brought out

through a "great variety of types". These types are Introduced to

represent each warring camp and they bring Into play every economical,

political, Ideological and other weapon in support of their cause. Thus the

whole social process is Illuminated and the balance of power and the

various phases of the struggle become clear through t~se types -

(Montcornet, Rigou-Gaubertin etc). (p.28)

Lukacs also shows In his analysis that 8alzac not only differentiates and

presents particular Individual traits that are typical of a class but also

common traits which are shared by people belonging to different classes

of capitalism. "By stressing these common traits - which he does very

sparingly and only on crucial points - Balzac clearly demonstrates the

intrinsic unity of the social evolutionary process, the objective social bond

between apparently quite dissimilar types".(p.43) This capacity for

65
;"'. "

presenting concretely the social Interconnections through their manifold

mediations makes Balzac an unsurpassed realist.

Salzacs's capacity to create 'types' is further evident In his novel Lost

Illusions. In his analysis of this novel, Lukacs shows how the theme -

that Is, the commodification of literature or the penetration of Capitalism

Into literature is unfolded through the problems of Individual characters

II ke Lucien de Rub(;mpre. The transformation of literature Into a commodity

Is painted In great detail by Balzac. He uncovers every stage In the

concrete process of "capitalization" In every sphere, together with all the

factors governing the process. The objective tensions inherent in the

theme are expressed through the human passions and Individual aspirations

of the characters. This method of composition, according to Lukacs, shows

a deep under'standing of social Interconnections and a correct evaluation

of the trends of social development.

In Lost Illusions Balzac focuses his story on Lucien de Rub$mpre's fate

and with it the transformation of literature into a commodity. This method

of composition is "extremely skilful both from the artistic point of view and

from the angle of social criticism" says Lukacs. It Is artistically skilful

because the rich diversity of Lucien's changing destinies provide a

colourful picture of provincial capitalism... It is skilful from the point of

view of social criticism because Lucien's fate Involves In Its entirety the

question of the destruction of culture by capitalism. This method of

characterization Is not only true to type, it also provides an opportunity

for unfolding the contradictions en!~endered by the penetration of

66
 · ."': ..
,". " ~

Capitalism Into literature. Lucien's brilllant rise and Ignominious fall Is

shown to be the result of his poetic talent and his erratic ambition In an

age of commodification. "Balzac never serves up his heroes with a sauce

of morality; he shows the objective dialectic of their rise and fall, always

motivating both by the total sum of their own natures and the mutual

Interaction of this with the total sum of objective circumstances, never by

any Isolated value - judgement of their 'good' and 'bad' qualities". (p.53)

Luk&cs ~hus points out that Balzac firmly roots the failure of his heroes

In the contradictions arising In their own consciousness, as a result of

their own class position, never portraying them as "Innocent victims of an

inexorable fate." The Marxist emphasis In this lies In the refusal to locate

the catastrophes in a man's life In transcendental forces outside human

agency. Nor does It consider them as rewards and punishments for

abstract vices and virtues.

/
According to Lukacs, In Lost Illusions, the Integrating principle Is the

social process Itself and Its real subject Is the advance and victory of

Capitalism. Lucien's personal catastrophe Is the typical fate of the poet

and of true poetic talent in the world of fully developed capitalism.

However, Lukacs Is also quick to point out that this Is not a novel with a

theme relating to one sphere of society alone - but here the general social

fabric is present in Its totality - though never directly shown on the

surface. The characters and situations are always determined by the

totality of the socially decisive forces, but never simply and never

directly. For this reason, the novel is at the same time the story of one

particular individual. The general is thus always concrete and real

67
because it is based on a profound understanding of what Is typical In each

of the characters figuring in it. Thus Balzac's characters live and act

within a concrete, complexly stratified social reality and It Is always the

totality of the social process that is linked with the totality of the

character.

Lukacs's discussion of the element of 'chance' Is another Instance of his

Imaginative and creative extension of the Marxist approach. Centrality Is

given to Totality here. Pointing out how Balzac makes the element of

chance artistically productive, LukB."cs adds that most writers see chance

and causality as mutually exclusive. Explaining that only a necessity that

consists of an intricate network of causal connections can nullify this

grotesqueness of chance, Lukacs defines poetic necessity as that which Is

determi ned by the agg regate necessity of an entl re trend of events.

The normal conception of cause and effect can only grasp one aspect or

another of the total process; therefore It simplifies It. A preliminary

attempt to grasp causality Involves Isolating a specific aspect and

examining It. But the same aspect, when seen in relation to totality reveals

that there is no clear distinction between cause and effect. What Is cause

In one Instance becomes an effect In another. Similarly, cause and

necessity are blind only to the extent to which they are not understood.

Once the writer has grasped the totality of the soclo-hlstorlcal processes

and the principal determinants, the incidents he chooses to further the

action of the novel and the frequency of Incidents become unimportant.

The Improbability of these devices is transcended by poetiC necessity.

68
 /
(Here, Lukacs derives his arguments frorn Engels's discussion of chance

and necessity in Anti-Duhring)28.

/
To Lukacs, poetic necessity Is that which Is determined by the aggregate

of an entire trend of development. As long as a writer does not lose sight

of this poetic necessity, the choice of the actual Incident Is a matter of his

personal discretion. He gives examples from Shakespeare's Romeo and

Juliet and from Balzac. "The true necessity In Lost IIIu310ns Is that Lucien

must perish In the end. Balzac therefore develops each Incident as a step

In that direction, although each single happening, while hetplng to reveal

the underlying necessity, ! s In Itself accidental. The social necessity Is

revealed by actions, by forceful concentration of all events moving towards

the catastrop he. The catastrophe Itself occurs suddenly but Its

suddenness Is only apparent for the traits suddenly Illuminated by the

catastrophe are the traits which have been built slowly at a much lower

Intensity:' (p.57)

The significance of this analysis lies In its emphasis on the Indissoluble

connections between poetic necessity and social reality. The criterion for

poetic truth or artistic excellence is not Isolated; it Is determined by the

moment of forces in the social framework and the artist's freedom is a

result of his recognition of laws of nature and society. As long as he can

uncover and portray the essence of human reality, he Is completely free

In his method of selection/portrayal.

In Lukacs's analysis of Balzac's works we find a creative application of the

69
 /
philosophical categories of totality, mediation, and type. Lukacs's critical

method Is visible in his examination of the social basis of the period and

the content of the work. This critical method Is further elaborated in his

criticism of Tolstoy.

TOLSTOY

Luka-cs's chief work on Tolstoy is a iong essay called Tolstoy and the

development of realism.(TDR)27 This essay Is based on Lenin's evaluation

of Tolstoy's work and clearly follows Lenin's analysis and assesment of

Tolstoy's greatness, as Lukacs considers Lenin's views as the 'only correct

view'.(p.128) Following Lenin, Lukacs sees Tolstoy's art as the mirror of

the revolutionary peasant movement that occurred between the liberation

of the serfs in 1861 and the revol utlon of 1905. "

Like Lenin, Lukacs

regards the peasant movement as something Independent, but as an aspect

- a 'moment' of a bourgeois revolution.(p.138) What makes Tolstoy a great

realist for Lenin is that his works were written during the second half of

the nineteenth century, when capitalism had become 'rigid' in Russia and

conditions were difflcuit for 'true realism' in comparison to the conditions

In which Western realists like Balzac were placed in the first half of the

nineteenth century.

Lenin, says Lukacs, rightly regarded Tolstoy as the poetic mirror of the

peasant revolution and found in this the explanation why Tolstoy could

develop Into a realist writer as great as the greatest realist classics,

although in his time realism in Europe was al ready in Its decline.

70
 ./
Let us now examine those ,aspects of Tolstoy's works which Lukacs,
./
following Lenin, considers as truly realistic. According to Lukacs, the

great realists always regard society from the viewpoint of 'a living and

moving centre' and this centre Is present visibly or Invisibly, In every

phenomenon. While in Balzac, this 'centre' was 'finance capital'; In

Tolstoy's lifework the exploited peasant Is this visible-invisible ever-

present protagonist who Is never absent from the consciousness of the

characters themselves. (p.146) Whatever Tolstoy wrote, he always depicted

the Inexorable division between the 'two nations' In Russia, the peasants

and the landowners, and the revolt of the peasants against their

exploitation by both landowner and capitalist. These observations on

Tolstoy show that Tolstoy had the true realist's 'total' grasp of the society

of his times; In depicting the two nations of the Russian scene he could

become the last great bourgeois realist of the age.

Luk~cs considers Tolstoy's great novels II ke Anna KtJrenlna and War and

Peace as "genuine epics" (p.149) because they present a 'total' picture of

life and society. In them, he finds an epic presentation of the totality of

life which includes the presentation of the externals of life and an eplc-

poetic treatment of the most typical aspects of human life. Hegel calls this

first postulate of epic presentation the totality of objects.(p.151)(TDR) It

refers to every important object. event and sphere of life belonging to the

theme. Lukacs says that every novelist aspires to the achievement of this

'totality of objects' but 'the crucial difference between the genuine epics

of the old realists and the newer literature Is manifested In the way in

which this 'totality of obj~cts' Is linked with the Individual destinies of his

71
characters. Tolstoy's works are great because In them the 'totality of

objects' is rich and complete. Luk8'cs cites examples from War and Peace

and Anna Karenina. In War and Peace, every little detail of the war Is

shown, from the court and the general staff down to the guerilla fighters

and prisoners of war and every phase of peaceful life from birth to death;

and In Anna Karenina, the dances, clubs, social-life and horse races are

described in detail. However, Lukacs adds, "these pictures of Tolstoy are

never merely scenery, never mere pictures and descriptions contributing

to 'totall~y of objects'" (as In modern realists). "The christmas fancy-

dress procession In War and Peace marks a crisis In the love of Nikolai

Rostov and Sonla. •. the horse race is a turning point In the relations

between Anna and Vronskl"o (p.153) Each such separately presented

section of the 'totality of objects' contains some decisive point which makes

it a necessary factor In the evolution of one or more of the characters In

the novel. Such points of contact between objective happenings i\nd the

subjective experiences of the characters, mark the turning points of the

whole story 0

Every phase of such crises, every thought and emotion of characters Is

closely linked with the turning point. For instance: "When It Is alr.ady

inevitable that a crisis In the relationship of Anna and Vronskl to Karenln

should arise, the race and Vronskl's accident Is nevertheless not merely

an opportunity for the crisis to become manifest, It also determInes the

nature of the crisis. It reveals traits In each of the characters which In

other circumstances would not have manifested themselves In the same way

and with the same typicality. Because of the Internal threads which link

72
the horse raCE, with the characters and the plot, the race entirely ceases

to be a mere picture - It grows Into the fateful culminating scene of a

great drama". (p.153-154) Through this analysis Lukacs shows how totality

as a principle helps a writer In expressing in an Immediate, spontaneous

and palpable form the close bond between individual destines and the

surrounding world.

Such a manner of presenting the 'totality of objects' Is a condition sine

qua non of depicti ng truly typical characters, according to Luka:cs. He

states that Tolstoy was able to create types despite the fact that he wrote

in a period of declining realism because of his true understanding of the

nascent Russian Capitalist society. Russian capitalism, as It developed

during the s(~cond half of the nineteenth century had a specific feature

which Lenin termed its 'Asiatic' character. In it, the worst features of

Tsarlst autocracy survived; it was merely adapted to Capltailst Interests,

turning aristocrats into bureaucrats. This Increased the deadness of social

structures and accounts for the fact that Tolstoy presented social

structures as much more lifeless and inhuman than Balzac, Stendhal. But

despite this, Tolstoy's novels were different from such novels of

disillusionment as Flaubert's L 'Education Sentimentsle. Though Tolstoy

portrayed the finished and lifeless character of social Institutions In

Russia, he did not regard this state of affairs as fixed for ever; like all

realists, he saw reality not as static, b'.Jt as in motion.

Tolstoy's understanding of the Capitalist process of 'dehumanization' and

bureaucratization of Russian nobility helps him In creating 'superb types'

73
 /
in Anna Karenina. Lukacs considers Oblonski, Vronsky, Karenln as 'types'

who embody the social forces of the times. He says that Tolstoy depicts

the world of divided labour, oppression and exploitation of working masses

with bitter kony and understanding. He considers Tolstoy as 'great' 3.nd

as a 'universal genius' precisely because Tolstoy presents the whole

process of 'reification' as it affects all classes; he reveals its inner

dialectic - ar.d its dehumanization.

./
In his analysis of Tolstoy's creation of 'types' Lukacs show6 clear

understanding of the socio-political conditions of the times and It~ effect

/
on the creative method of writers. Lukacs observes that the development

of Russian society in the second half of the nineteenth century drove

Tolstoy Into making his characters more like the 'average' commonplace

figures of the naturalists. Nevertheless, Tolstoy was ahle "to swim against

the stream and create genuine types~ (p.170) He did it by placing his

characters if) an extreme situation that tears away the mask of every day
,-
life. Lukacs Quotes clear examples in the character of Ivan IlIyich and in

the figure of Anna. Anna lives with a husband whom she does not love

and has married for conventional reasons and wlttl a lover whom she loves

passionately, a life just like the life of other women of her own sphere.

Here, Anna appears a typical •average'. (p.173) What Is outside the

average in Anna Karenlna's figure and fate is not some Individually

pathological exaggeration of a personal passion, but the clear manifestation

of the social contradictions inherent in bourgeois love and marriage. By

placing her in an extreme situation, that is, by making her break through

the limits of the commonplace, Tolstoy brings to surfacr.> in "tragically clear

74
";'" .
"':."'-,
.; .... :,"

Intensification the contradictions latently present In every bourgeois love

and marriage" .(p.176) Thus Anna becomes a superb type. (p.113)

This connection (mediation) between all the human traits and destinies of

his characters and the great social and historical background raises

Tolstoy's realism far above the level of the commonplace, asserts Lukacs. "
(p.177) "He has the same richness and the same natural, organic unity

between man and fate which Is found in the old realists and none of the

meagreness smothered In a spate of superficial and unconnected detail that

is character j stic of the new realists" .(p.177)

/
Lukacs's analysis of Balzac's and Tolstoy's art, that is, their creative

method, demonstrates the creative application of philosophical categories of

totality. mediation and type to literary criticism. It shows that 'great

literature, that is, True realism penetrates the surface appearance of

things and portrays the 'dynamic' contradictions of society In Its totality

,-
through the creative use of 'typical' situations and characters. Lukacs's

analysis also validates his contention that "True great realism depicts man

and society as complete entities, Instead of showing merely one or the

other of their aspects". (p.6)(SER) In his analysis of Balzac and Tolstoy

/
Lukacs shows how these writers portrayed the 'Inner life' of man, Its

essential traits and essential conflicts In organic connection with social and

historical factors. (p.8)

On the basis of his analysis, we conclude that realist literature attempts

a synthesis of appearance and essence, of individual and society through

75
the creation of 'types'. It presents man and society In such a way tha.t

it uncovers the di rection in which society develops.

/
A major aspect of truly realistic novel, according to Lukacs, then, is the

presentation of society in motion. He st·ates: "The essential aim of the

novel is the representation of the way society moves".(HN p.169) He also

says that 'society should be presented in a larger historical context and

historical trends should be crystallized around the fictional elements of

,,-
plot and characters'. These principles are discussed at length by Lukacs

In his richest book of Marxist literary criticism, namely The Historicsl Novel

(HN). Let us now examine the application of these principles In Lukacs's

analysis of Walter Scott.

WALTER SCOTT

Luk~cs states: "With Scott real historical novel begi ns"; Waverley, the fi rst
.,-
of Scotts' historical novels was published In 1814. Lukacs argues that it

is no mere coincidence that the historical novel should have originated at

the time of the fall of Napoleon. The French revolution lind the rise and

fall of Napoleon had made history a mass experience on a European scale;

the war had been fought by mass armies; the nature and purpose of the

wars had to be explained to the masses, which involved an explanation of

,/
the historical circumstances of the struggle. Lukacs sums up by saying

that during this period there were concrete possibilities for men to grasp

their own existence as historically conditioned and this gave rise to

'historical consciousness' .(p.19)

76
It is in the context of this newly arisen historical consciousness that

Luk8.'cs places the historical novels of Scott. He considers Scott's novel

truly 'historical' because In it 'history lives'; the past is seen as

prehistory of the present and Scott gives poetic life to those historical,

social and human forces which have made the present day life. (p.57)

The implications of this assessment 'for true realism' are that a sense of

history, that is a 'historlclsed' attitude to life and times and an

understanding of the historical forces of the age in terms of the past,

present and future trends and tendencies, are essential for 'true' realism

to be possi ble.

Luk8'cs finds this 'true realism' embodied In Scott's attitude to history, in

his portrayal 0f historical events and characters, and in the- honesty of his

'social vision'. Engels had spoken of the triumph of realism in Balzac, by

which he meant that Balzac as an artist went beyond his own cor.sciously
/'
held political opinions to portray reality. In the same way, Lukacs argues

that Scott was a realist despite his own political and social views .(p.59)

As a patriotic, conservative petty aristocrat, Scott approved of the

progress that Capitalist Britain had made but It necessarily Involved much

social ruin - "wrecked or wasted heroic, human endeavour, broken social

formations". (p.58) Scott the artist, saw and portrayed this, displaying his

sympathy with the past social formations, in particular. the Soottlsh clans

that had been destroyed. He was able to portray the rui nation of Scottish

clans honest:y, as well as, thel r heroic Qualities. "In a larger hlstorlca!

sense, he saw at one and the same time 'cheir outstanding qualities and the

77
historical necessity of their decline". (p.59)

"
Lu kacs consi ders Scott as a great realist because he had deep

understanding of the social and historical trends of his age and 'honesty'

of vision to portray the contradictions of the age as $erles of 'conflicts'

between groups. But an artist must do more than simply grasp the nature
/
of reality; he must bring it home to the reader. As Lukacs puts It, the

historical novel must bring the past close to us and allow us to experience

Its real ~nd true being'. (p.57) Scott achieves this objective by creating

"types" in whom the historical trends are manifested In perceptible forms•

./
Lukacs's analysis of Scott's 'types' provides a brilliant example of how a
./
'type' works In literature. Lukacs says: "Scott endeavours to portray the

struggles and antagonisms of history by means of characters who, In their

psychology and destiny al ways represent social trends and historical

./
forces". (p.33 HN) What Is particularly Interesting Is Lukacs's account of
/
how Scott was able to portray a 'totality' through his types. Lukacs

draws attention to the fact that Scott's heroes are always more or less

mediocre average gentlemen, but the mediocre hero has a more Important

artistic function: "as central figures they provide a perfeot Instrument for

Scott's way of presenting the totality of certain transitional stages of

history". (p.35) By standing between warring extremes, the hero .nables

Scott to portray the totality of the social forces in their Interrelationship.

/ .
Lukacs cItes the examples of Waverley and Old mortality. He writes that

in the middle of the action of these novels, Scott places the moderate hero

who maintains a neutral stand on the great political questions at Issue.

7B
 - '. ~ .
\..;.

What does Scott achieve by this device? The indecisive hero stands

between both camps - in Waverley between the Scotts rebelling In favour

of the Stuarts and the English government, in Old Mortality between the

Puritan revolutionaries and the supporters of the Stuart restoration. Thus

the hero can become Involved alternately with the leaders of each of the

opposing parties, who are then portrayed not merely as representatives of

social and historical forces but also as men In human relationships.

/'
Thus Lu~acs talks of Scot~s ability to present Individuals In terms of

historical necessities, but at the same time they are nev.r mere

representatives of historical movements, ideas. Scott's great art consists

precisely In individualizing his historical heroes In such a way that certain

purely individual traits of character, quite peculiar to them, are brought

into a complex, live relationship with the age in which they live. For

example: Vlch Ian Vohr in Waverley, Burley in Old Mortality, Rob Roy and

so on. Thus Scott represents simultaneously the historical necessity of

this particular Individual personality and the Individual role which he

,-
plays In history, thereby fulfilling Lukacs's criterion of a 'type'. [A

'peculiar synthesis of the general and particular'.] (p.6)(SER)

Through such human-historical portrayal, Scott makes "history live", says

'"
Lukacs. He admires "Scott's extraordinarily realistic presentation of

history, his ability to translate the new elements of economic and social

change I nto human fates", (p.63) that Is, his ability to present 'mediated

totality' through the creation of authentic 'types'.

79
 /
Thus, Lukacs regards the works of Balzac, Tolstoy and Scott as peaks of

'critical realism' since they embody totallsing vision, typIcality, and

authentic realism.

PART TWO

./
In this part, we propose to examine Lukacs's critique of the development

of realism or naturalism as manifested in the works of Zola and other

'newer realists'; the discussion of this critique Is based Qn his essays

Tolstoy and the development of realism and Narrate or Describe.

One of the seminal statements which forms the point of departure for
~
Lu kacs's critique of later day realism or the 'decline of realism' Is this:

"The evolution of bourgeois society after 1848 destroyed the

subjective conditions which made a great realism possible".
(p.140)

/
By this statement, Lukacs does not mean that these revolutions were the

direct cause of the decline, (rather they manifest the increasing power of

the proletariat and a decrease In the power of the bourgeotsle), but what

Luk8:cs implies is that, with the revolution of 1848, the bourgeois Ideology

turned Into 'mere apologetics' and the writers either became 'apologists' for

the system or turned away from it In 'hatred and disgust'. (p.141) They

withdrew increasingly from public life in order to preserve the integrity

of their aesthetic ideals in the face of a society which they felt was hostile

to art. Consequently, they turned into mere spectators and observers of

80
the social process in contrast to the old realists like Goethe, Balzac etc

who had themselves experienced these "processes" and participated In them.

There were gifted bourgeois writers even after 1848 upheavals, but they

were not able to support any social or Ideological trend wholeheartedly and

hence they remained onlookers. The result of this change in writer's

relationship to social reality, that is, the result of this alienation was that

the writers increasingly began to fill the place of the "missing essentials"

with "literary substitutes" (I.e. unmedlated details, descriptions, and

"immediate surface phenomena" rather than "total reality"). Therefore,

/
after 1848, Lukacs argues that realism is gradually supplanted by

naturalism, a newer realism".

This transition is complete by the time of Zola and It Is In the person of

Zola that naturalism can most conveniently be studied. It should be

stressed however that naturalism Is by no means a purely French

phenomenon nor is It restricted to the nineteenth century. Lukacs regards

it as a fundamental trait of European 'modernist' art of the twentieth

century.

Luk~cs contrasts Zola's creative method, naturalism, with dialectical

thinking. The central idea in dialectics is that of concrete totality, or

'interrelationship' between things and events. Zola's world, 'however, Is not

controlled by 'dialectical principles'; his is the 'scientlflc' method (p.91)

rooted In Positivism, which, he argues, seeks the average, 3.nd the surface

81
phenomena of things and presents them in a 'photogr!tphic', abstract way

and not as parts of a concrete whole. Another feature of dialectics Is the

emphasis that It lays on change, and contradiction as the principle 01

change. But Zola, on the other hand, seeks the 'grey statistical' mean, the
/
point at which all contradictions are blunted, says Lu kacs.

The naturalist's failure to connect particulars with general laws Is

manifested in Zola's failure to create types.(p.92) In place of the type,

the naturalist substitutes the merely average character. If, like Zola, he

has an urge to go beyond the mere average, he turns Into a "romantic';

~
(p.93) adds Lukacs.

/
In spite of this, Lukacs is far from denying Zola's greatness as a writer;

as a writer, he says, Zola was conscious of the greatness of the life of his

epoch and he was able to produce genuinely realistic episodes, b'Jt these

were merely single episodes, mere outward trappings of modern life

because they are not closely related to human destinies. "Man and his

surroundings are always sharply divided In all Zola's works", (p.93)

To Illustrate this flaw in Zola's creative method, Luk8'cs contrasts it with

/
Tolstoy's superior dialectical method. Lukacs compares the two horse races
.-
in Zola's Nana and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.. Lukacs argues that where as

Tolstoy's 'portrayal' of the race Is thoroughly Integrated Into the total

action of the novel in that it represents a crisis in a grea.t drama -

(Vronsky's fall represents a turning point in Anna's life) - Zola's

'description' of the race, despite its virtuosity, Is a 'mere filler' In the

82
novel and is loosely connected to the plot; If the horse race Is a turning

point in Anna Karenina It is just one among many events in Nana. If

Tolstoy maintains organic unity through selection and proportion, Zola

describes events for 'accuracy'. Therefore, while Tolstoy's narration

establishes proportions, Zola's description merely levels.

"
Lukacs gives one more example of the contrast in the naturalist's and

realist's approaches to reality by comparing the description of the theatre

,,-
in Zola's Nana with Balzac's Lost Illusions. Lukacsar'gues that In Zola's

novel the emphasis is on meticulous details and they are not related to plot

or character, w here as, I n Balzac the theatre and performance serve as th9

setting for an inner drama of his characters; Lucien's success, Coralie's

theatre career, their passionate love etc.(p.110-113)(ND)

A distinguishing feature of realism as embodied in Tolstoy's works Is the

ability to present the 'totality of obJects'. Writing of Tolstoy, Lukacs

states: "there is perhaps no other modern author In whose works the

'totality of objects' Is so rich, so complete as In Tolstoy".(p.153) In the

,,-
works of Zola too, Lu kacs observes the presence of 'totality of objects'.

Luk8:cs writes: "So far as the encyclopaedic character of his contents and

the artistic quality of his descriptions Is concerned, Zola, too, possessed

this 'totality of obJects'. (Lukacs refers to Zola's markets, stock exchanges,

under world haunts, theatres, race tracks etc.) "But these objects have

a being entirely independent of the fate of the characters. They form a

mighty but indifferent background to human destinies with which they

have no real connection; at best they are more or less accidental scenery

83
among which these human destinies are enacted", (p,152)

What then distinguishes Zola's 'naturalism' from 'true realism' Is the lack

of mediation between the objects described and human fate with which they

are linked. Hence Zola falls to depict 'mediated totalities'. Consequently,

the 'details' in Zola's works remain, in Hegelian terms" a bad infinity"

unconnected to the development of plot or character.(p.142)(TDR)

/
Though ,Lukacs's comments on the works of other 'newer realists' like

Maupassant are very brief, they are significant in that they capture, in

one stroke, the basic flaw of 'new reallsm'- that is, Its Immediacy and its

tendency for Isolating events and themes from Its social-historical

foundations. Referrl ng to Maupassant's Une vie which Is set In the period

of the July revolution of 1848, Luk~cs writes that though this novel Is set

in such an ir:lportant historical period, the reader Is never made aware of

the fact that the July revolution has come and gone because Maupaussant

poses the problem of love, marriage and motherhood separately from the

historical and social foundations on which alone they could be realistically

depleted. "For Maupaussant society was no longer a complex of vital and

contradictory relationships between human beings, but only a lifeless

setting", (p.143)

/
Following this, Lukacs summarizes the principal negative traits of

naturalism or newer realism. In It, he says, real dramatic and epic

movement of social happening disappears and Isolated characters of purely

private interest stand stili surrounded by dead scenery, and details

84
meticulously observed and depicted with consummate skill are substituted

for the portrayal of the essential features of social reality and the

description of the changes effected in the human personality by social

influences." (p.143-144)

To sum up: lack of social mediation, mere description of milieu, and the

substitution or the average for the typical characterize naturalism - the

form Into wh'ch realism declined after 1848.

If 'naturalism' ushered in the process of decline In realism, another related

literary trend, which further hastened the process of literary decadence,

according to Luk(cs, Is Modernism. In his controversial book The Meaning

of Contemporary realism, (MCR)29 Lukci'cs writes of the 'Ideology of

modernism' and Its effects on modern literature.

Writing in the late 1950s, Luktics said In the above mentioned book that all

avant-garde literature was basically naturalistic in character. This may

seem a wildly paradoxical assertion. What is there in common, 0 ' ~ may ask,

between a novel by Zola and (say) the last chapter of Joyce's UlysseS?

Luka'cs would reply that of course there are differences In style, between

the 'naturalistic novel' and 'avant-garde' literature, but these differences

are superficial. What is Important Is what Lukacs calls the 'Immediacy' of

naturalism. Such 'Immediacy', (the failure to relate to a concrete whole the

particular persons, and events which it describes) according to Lukacs,

is a basic feature of the avant-garde literature of this century. It Is, for

example, typical of expressionism, symbol ism, 'new objectivism' and

85
surrealism. What he has In mind here can be illustrated by what he says

about Joyce's and Mann's use of 'interior monologue'. In comparing the use

of this in both, he says, "In Thomas Mann the interior monologue !s simply

a technical device, which he uses to go beyond the immediacy of Goethe's

.~ensations and to relate them to his social and intellectual environment.

In Joyce, on the other hand, 'the technique of free association is an

aesthetic principle which governs the construction of the work'. For

Mann, there is an objective reality to which the flux of Goethe's thoughts

and feelings is related; for Joyce, the flux is the reality. (p.17-18)(MCR)

Apart from i'~s 'immediacy', another characteristic of 'modernism' which

Luk~cs finds as a serious problem is Its lack of perspective. "

To Lukacs,

perspective is of overriding importance In any work of art. It determines

its course and content, draws together the threads of narration, enables

the artist to choose between the important and the superficial. 'The more

lucid the perspective - the more economical and striking the selection' he

w rltes.(p.33) However, he adds, "Modernism drops this selective

principle.... A naturalistic style Is bound to be the result", [That is why

he speaks of the basically naturalistic character of Modernist literature.]

However, the particular form this principle of naturalistic arbitrariness may

take differs in different schools of modernism. "These schools have in

common a basic8.liy static approach to reality. This is closely related to

thei r lack of perspective:' (p.34) As the Ideology of modernism asserts

the inalterability of outward reality, human activity is, apr/or! rendered

impotent and robbed of meaning. The comprehension of reality to which

this leads is most consistently and convincingly realized In the work of

86
Kafka in Tht? Trial, where Josef K has angst-ridden view of the world

"from the perr,pective of a trapped and struggling fly", (p.36) This angst

has Its emotional origin in the experience of a disintegrating society. But

it attains its effects by evoking the disintegration of the world of man,

/
Lukacs's views on Kafka, in the book The meaning of contemporary realism,
/
are interesting in one respect. Here Lukacs argues that among the avant-

garde, Kafka stands between the two extremes of naturalism and realism.

It has already been pointed out that Luka'cs considers the lack of

connection between the particular and the universal as a major failure of

naturalism, One aspect of this Is that, the naturalist falls to distinguish

between sl gni flcant and Insl gniflcant detail. However, Kafka, according to

"
Lukacs, has a 'selective' attitude to detaii, and in this respect he

resembles the realist. But when one considers the nature of the world

Kafka has conceived, and the principles that govern his selection, then It

becomes clear that he Is not a realist. Kafka's world Is coloured by a

feeling of Angst in the face of strange and hostile realities. This feeling

about Man's impotence In the face of modern Capltailsm, this attitude of

existential despair In the face of reality, is life-denying, and hence 'art-

denying'. These, in a nutshell, are Lukacs's views on Kafka.

This non-realistic side of Kafka Is reflected in his artistic methods - in the

use of allegory which is ideally suitable for presentation of transcendence.

Lukacs considers allegory as ideally suited for describing Man's alienation

from objective reality since allegory rejects the assumption of an immanent

meaning to human existence. The essence of allegory lies In transcendence,

87
which Implies the negation of any meaning Immanent in the world or life

of man.

Drawing a distinction between realism and modernism, Lukacs writes that

In 'realism' each detail is both individual and typical, where as the modern

allegory, and modernist ideology, deny the typical. By reducing the

coherence of the world, they reduce detail to the level of mere

particularity. (Once again the connoctlon between Modernism and

Naturalism is obvious.)

In the above discussion we have been considering what Lukacs regards as

the declIne of bourgeois literature. But he does not regard the story of

Western Literature after 1848 as one of unrelieved decline. He finds.

examples of 'o::;ritical realism' in Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Shaw,

Dreiser, Wilhelm Raabe, Theodor Fontane and Gottfried Keller. (Studies In

European realism) (p.466, 517-554, 559)

But the 'critical realist' for whom Lukacs had the 9reatest regard was

Thomas Mann 3o • Writing about Mann, Lukacs says that his works do not

display the timmediacy' that Is typical of modernist literature; neither,

,-
again, do they display the transcendence of Kafka. Mann, says Lukacs, is

always of this world. The place and time of his novels present In a

concentrated form the essence of a concrete socio-historical situation. The

consequence of this is that Mann never treats the present in isolation; It

always appears as part of the life process of humanity. In other words,

Mann (like such critical realists as Scott and Balzac) has a firm grasp of

88
the historical nature of reality and indeed in The Historical Novel (P.343-
,
344) Lukacs says of Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain that they are

much more historical than many historical novels written In this century.

However, he writes, a 'totalislng' perspective of social reality Is not

immediately accessible to a contemporary writer; the penetration of the

fetlshised categories of appearance in established Capitalist society

requires a special intellectual effort and honesty. The assumption is that

'true realism' is beyond the reach of writers with severe intellectual and

artistic limitations. It is accessible onl y to the greatest and most

persevering genius.

/
An attempt was made in the previous sections to demonstrate how Lukacs

uses the conceptual apparatus developed in History and Class Consciousness

to forge a theory of realism. His thesis on realism (which is an elaboration

of the Marxist thesis discussed in the essay Marx and the problem of

ideological decay) that 'realism' is the literary faith of the bourgeoisie In

its revolutionary phase and that with the development of the proletariat,

it turns in the direction of naturalism, symbolism, psychologlsm and such

other forms of modernism forms the main framework of this study.

What is of particular relevance to this study is his critique of 'modern

realism', that is ;newer realism', as elaborated In his long essay Tolstoy

and the development of realism and discussed variously in other essays

like Narrate or describe ~and Marx and the problem of ideologIcal decay.

89
Some of his pronouncements on the state of realism in modern times, on

newer real ists like Zola and Flaubert who are referred to as Solitary

Observers, and his views on the relationship between Ideology and

literature (given below) constitute a strong basis for the arguments put

forth in the subsequent chapters. The key statemen:s are:

"The entire world outlook of the period of decay, remaining

stuck as it does on the unconsidered ideological surface, with
its tendency towards flight from the major problems of social
life, and its self-important but sorry eclecticism is more suited
to make more difficult the writer's attainment of an
unconfirmed and profound treatment of reality .... ,,31

"The significance of ideology is that it provides the possibility

of viewing the contradictions of life in a fruitful- ordered
context.. .• " and

"Without an ideology a writer can neither narrate nor

construct a comprehensive well-organized and multifaceted epic
.,. ,,32
compoSl(.lon .

These statements highlight the problem of fetishism of everyday thinking

in Capitalist society which makes the creation of 'true realism' difficult and

emphasize the importance of world-view to artistic creation respectively.

The discussion on the philosophical categories (in section III part one of

this chapter) serves the purpose of providing insight into the concepts of

'Total ity', 'med iation', 'type', 'worl d-view' and historicism and the pri nci pie

of dialectics ..,hich are the essential strategies/tools used in our analysis

of Sillitoe's and Storey's fiction in the following chapters.

90
 ,/

Operating within the Lukacsian framework of realism and deriving

arguments from his critique of the anti-realistic literary trends of the

age,and extending It to the working class fiction, we hypothesize that the

works of Sillitoe and Storey show both in outlook and content, a "turning

away" from realism and a "movement towards" the anti-realistic trends of

the age, namely naturalism and modernism, which coexist in their works.

(Therefore, their works manifest charactert'stlcs of the decline of realism.)

The main argument is that distinctive traits of naturalism and modernism,

that is, obsession with descr.-Iptlve details, 'Immediacy' in the reflection and

treatment of social issues and phenomena, static approach to reality,

negation of history, involvement with psychopathology and existential

despair characterize the working class fiction of both Slllitoe and Storey;

these 'traits' affect the quality of realism. This eclectic pinning together

of the elements of naturalism and modernism results In the emergence of

a 'synthetic' realism in their works; here synthetic refers to the

combination or synthesis of different styles of composition and to

something which is artificial and not natural or genuine. The term hybrid

realism is used in this study to capture this phenomenon, which involves

the 'grafting' together of seemingly disparate styles of composition, which

in reality, are similar in their creative approaches.

The assumption underlying this hypothesis Is that both naturalism and

modernism, despite their superficial differences in style, share similar

features: they have no dialectical understanding of capitalism's laws of

motion, and the contradictions that move it. They can only recognize

certain isolated facts or groups of facts, never the contradictory unlty.ln-

91
process of the totality which characterizes 'true realism'. Fetishistic

dismemberment of reality and Immediacy characterize modernism and

naturalism. Therefore, It is possible for a work of art to embocly both

naturalist and modernist traits.

The working class fiction of Sillitoe and Storey exhibitS a faithful

reproduction of immediate social realities, and a 'slice of life' approach to

reality, but an incapacity to conceive reality as a "unity in motion". The

investigation of social phenomena is limited to merely "superficial" aspects;

they do not probe into the roots of the emptiness and Inequality of life

under Capitalism and do not seek to depict artistically the struggles and

contradictions of society with ideological understanding; hence their works

bear the traits and characteristics of naturalism and modernism - the forms

into which 'realism' has declined in contemporary times.

This study also attempts (as a logical corollary to the above hypothesis)

to account for this 'deviation' from realism or decline in realism in terms

of a complex set of factors/ influences both subjective and objective, which

obtain in the social-historical conditions of the age. They are:

- the ambivalence in the writers' class-position and their 'alienation' from

thei r 'roots',

the contradictions in thei r· worl d-vlew and/or thei r ideological

bankruptcy,

the decadence in the bourgeois philosophy of the times,

- the process of 'reification' leading to fragmentation of consciousness and

subsequently to 'reductionism' in literature,

92
- the influence of modernism and its ideology on the literature of the age,

and

- the limitations (both intellectual and artistic) of the writers concerned.

For the purpose of this study, the novels of SlllItoe and Storey are placed

in relation to the socio-political and ideological climate of the times.

Simultaneously, along with contextual analysis, the ingredients of the novel,

like plot, theme, characterization, style, are also examined. Such an

approach. enables us to steer clear between the scylla of the New Critical

approach, (which treats the text as an autonomous entity divorced from its

social origins), and the charybdis of the Vulgar marxist approach, (which

treats the work of art as a sociological tract!)

The emphasis in the historical - materialist approach to fiction which we

propose to adopt is on the priority of being over consciousness. The

fundamental premise of this approach Is that: any attempt to isolate

personal experiences and conflicts from their social basis or to delink the

relationship between social realities and individual destinies is bound to

result in trivialization of realism and a negation of the function of art and

criticism, which is to enlarge the boundaries of consciousness.

93
 NOTES

1 Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy (London:

1971), p.20-21.

2 " in the essay 'Art and Objective truth', In The Writer

George Lukacs

and the Critic and other essays (London: Merlin Press, 1970;.

3 Ibid., p.61.

4 Mikhail lifshitz, The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx, Translate; from

the Russian by Ralph B Winn (London: Pluto Press Ltd, 1973).

5 Peter Demetz, Marx, Engels and the Poets (Chicago and London, 2nd

edition, 1967).

6 Marx and Engels, On Literature and Art (Moscow, Progress

Publ ishers, 1978), p. 98-107.

7 Ibid., p.90.

8 Ibi d., p.87.

9 Engels !Says that Balzac, for example, gives In La Comedie h'umaine

a realistic picture of French society, describing the ever-inc, easing

inroads of the rising bourgeoisie upon the society of nobles tl at had

been reconstituted after 1815. Now, Balzac was politically a

legitimist, and his sympathies were with the nobles; yet, as an artist,

he went against his own class-sympathies and political prejudices,

in that he saw the necessity of the downfall of his beloved nobles

and saw the real men of the future. This, says Engels, is onE:: of the

greatest triumphs of realism.

10 George Lu kacs, History and Class Consciousness, translated by

Rodney Livingstone (London: The Merlin Press, 1971).

11 In Economic and Philosophical manuscripts (1844) Marx say£:" .. The

94
 worker becomes a cheaper commodity the more commodi ~ies he

creates. The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion

to the increasing value of the world of things" (p.68). It arises

because Capitalist production alienates the worker from his product,

his own facultiesias well as his species being. The sundering of the

subject-'object relation Is an instance of a fetishized or fragmented

consciousness induced by the Capitalist mode of production. By

using the concept of commodity fetishism to criticize the lin.itations

of .Kantian Philosophy, Lukacs's theory of realism rediscoverf' Marx's

concept of alienation. (Interestingly, Lukacs did not have r~course

to Marx's early philosophical manuscripts; but he was .ible to

construct a theory of reification based on commodity fetishl3m from

his readings of Capital. Lukacs was able to reconstruct from the

Marxist philosophical tenets a valid scientific theory of literature

because he was schooled in Classical German philosophy before he

turned to Marxism and Marxism grew out of the disintegration of

German philosophy.)

12 Lenin, Materia/ism and Empirio-Criticism, trans. Fineberg (Moscow:

Foreign Language Publishing House, 1947), p.99.

13 This essay appears in The Writer and the Critic, p. 25-60.

• .r <

14 These statements appear In Lukacs's essay 'Narrate or Describe', in

the book The Writer and Critic, p.142.

15 Lukacs, Studies in European rea/ism (London: The Merlin Press,

1978), p.225-226.

16 Ibid., p.140.

17 Ibid., p.6.

95
18 The essay 'Marx and the Problem of Ideological decay' appears in
/
Lukacs's, Essay on realism. edited and introduced by Rodney

Livingstone, translated by David Fernbach. (Cambridge:

Massac'1ussets, The MIT Press, 1988).

19 Cited in the above essay. p.115.

/'
20 Lukacs discusses this change in bourgeois ideology resulting in the

loss of a progressive conception of history In Chapter - Three of

The Historical Novel (London: The Merlin Press, 1962), p.206.

21 Ibid., p.207.

22 The theoretical essays are 'Narrate or Describe', 'The Intellectual

physiognomy in Characterization', which appear in the book The

Writer and Critic and the essay 'Marx and the Problem of Ideological

decay'. The other essays in which his critique of naturalism and

modernism appear are 'Tolstoy and the development of realism' in

Studies in European realism and 'The ideology of modernism' In his

book The Meaning of Contemporary realism (London: The Merlin

Press, 1963), p.17-47.

23 Karl !vlarx and Engels, On Literature and Art (Moscow: Progress

Publisher, 1978), p.105

24 Lukacs, 'The ideology of modernism', p. 20-21.

/
25 Lukacs's essays on Balzac's Peasants and Lost Illusions appear in

Studies in European Realism (SER).

26 Engels, Anti-Duhring (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1947), p.30.

Engels's discussion of chance and necessity is also relevant here.

Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation

between freedom and nece8sity. To him, freedom
is appreciation of necessity. Necessity is blind

96
 only in so far as it is not understood. Freedom
does not consist in any dreamt of independence
from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these
laws, and in the possibility this gives of
systematically making them work towards definite
ends.... Freedom of the will therefore means
nothing but the capacity t.o make decisions with
knowledge of the subject. Therefore, the freer a
man's judgement is in relation to a definite
question, the greater is the necessity with which
the content of this judgement will be determined.
Anti Duhring - p.132.

27 This long essay (pp.126-206) which appears in Studies in European

rea/ism. discusses at length Tolstoy's creative method and contrasts

it with the creative method of later-day realists.

28 Lukacs discusses Zola's creative method In the following essays:

'The Zola Centenary' in SER.

2 'Narrate or Describe' in The Writer and Critic and br-iefly !n

the long essay 'Tolstoy and the development of reali~m'.

29 This book published in 1963 looks closely at the ideology and traits

of modernism with particular reference to Kafka. It also discusses

In detail the other trends in modern literature namely socialist

realism and 'critical realism' manifested in Mann, Conrad and Shaw.

30 Lukacs discusses Mann in his book Essays on Thomas Mann, 1964.

This book is a collection of articles, and does not claim to give a

complete or systematic account of Mann's writings; nevertheless, It

shows clearly enough why he valued them.

/
31 Lu kacs, 'Marx and the problem of Ideological decay', p.139.
/'
32 Lukacs, 'Narrate or Describe', p.143.

97