The Historical Novel by György Lukács

The Historical Novel Reviews

• 
  Victoria

  If you must read this, read it with Russian Revolutionary singing in the background. It'll give that extra punch to dramatic sentences like: "Today's historical novel has arisen and is developing amid the DAWN of a NEW democracy."
• 
  Kimberly

  I have yet to read the entirety of this magnificent work of literary criticism. What feedback I can offer is only regarding the first 100 pages or so, notably on his section on Sir Walter Scott, for a course I am taking on American realism.
  
  Sir Walter Scott and the Importance of Historicity in the Novel
  
  Lukács lists various techniques Scott used to make possible the historicity of the modern novel. Knowing some of these techniques may assist one in gaining insight as to why history mattered so much to Lukács: recognizing historicity as era-dependent peculiarity and not “accuracy” within the bounds of his societal context (in the USSR) illuminates the double standard one can see in many of Lukács’s comments while influencing how we approach the term “realism.”
  
  One technique Scott employed was that he made his characters to “represent social trends and historical forces . . . always regarding them socially and not individually” (Lukács 34). This, Lukács comments, greatly differs from literature before the nineteenth century, when novels mainly had only historical milieus, in which the characters’ “manners . . . are entirely those of the writer’s own day” (Lukács 19). Scott’s characters were also “mediocre . . . rather than [the epic] eminent and all-embracing” (Lukács 33, 36). Lukács explains that this is crucial because these characters worked “to bring the extremes [of two sides of anything] whose struggle fills the novel . . . into contact with one another” (Lukács 36).
  
  This portrayal of characters in light of social trends by Scott is important because it helps reveal what history means to Lukács and why it is so important to the novel. First, Scott’s technique demonstrates historicity as peculiarity rather than accuracy. For Scott, historical “authenticity means . . . the quality of inner life, the morality, heroism, capacity for sacrifice . . . peculiar to a given age,” and more specifically, “the genuine hic et nunc (here and now) of [characters’] inner motives” (Lukács 50, 60). The attempt “to portray historical reality as it actually was” simply means being psychologically and philosophically relative to the age in which a book’s setting takes place (Lukács 41). Mikhail Bakhtin, a Marxist and Structuralist literary critic, further explains this concept in Discourse in the Novel (1936), coining history as series of events which are written in the socio-ideological language that dominated a given society at that time. Bakhtin explains how this is connected with the novel, that the novel and historical context both influence each other:
  
  

  “The internal politics of style . . . is determined by its external politics . . . in artistic prose, and especially in the novel, this dialogization penetrates from within the very way in which the word conceives its object and its means for expressing itself, reformulating the semantics and syntactical structure of discourse . . . [But for this to work,] individual differences and contradictions [must be] enriched by social heteroglossia.” (Leitch 1208)

  
  
  Secondly, Lukács notes that Scott saw history as “a series of great crises . . . a process full of contradictions,” and to be historically “accurate,” one must have “a felt relationship to the present” and demonstrate “the life of the people themselves” despite the dialectical nature of history, among other things (Lukács 53, 55). People’s individual crises all “coincide and interweave within the determining context of an historical crisis . . . It is always a fate suffered by groups of people connected and involved with one another,” truly Hegelian and Structuralist (Lukács 41).
  
  This two-fold definition of history to Lukács—that it is 1) always peculiar to a given age and is therefore different from other ages, and that it is 2) an on-going process of dialectical struggles propelling each other forward—reveals the double standard that can be seen in many of Lukács’s comments. Lukács adheres to the censorship regulations in the context he lived in, allowing him to continue writing. It does not appear that Lukács goes agains Marxist literary criticism (then again, he could not), which states that literature is a product of a given society’s socio-economic struggles and past. Supporting this theory could conflict with his emphasis on the hic et nunc of “real people’s” inner motives—how far can that go without angering a communist government? However, he manages to hold onto both ends of the spectrum in his careful, one may say, disassociation from particular concepts (the hic et nunc, perhaps) while associating more with others (such as Marxist criticism). Furthermore, how can viewing historicity not as “accuracy” but as “peculiarity” change how we view the ever-elusive term known as realism?
• 
  Mateus Pereira

  Bastante difícil, mas também bastante iluminador. Os estudos sobre realismo europeu (Thomas Mann e outros) e as diversas considerações sobre Épica e Dramática na historiografia literária são sensacionais. O estudo que Lukács faz sobre o desenvolvimento e o "futuro" do romance histórico (e aqui ele já levanta implicações de ordem social, típico do materialismo histórico deste autor, em conjunto com a luta contra o fascismo empreendida pelo movimento das massas e os romancistas) é sistemático e rigoroso (até um pouco didático na medida do possível), mas confesso que fiquei perdido em muitos trechos porque não sei porra nenhuma nem de Kant nem de Hegel.
• 
  M

  Incredibly interesting, especially as historical fiction is one of my favorite [I was about to put genres here but out of respect to Lukacz I won't] choices of reading material. His analysis of the duty of epic versus drama, the classic historical novel, and the bourgeois historical novel were genuinely very convincing in a lot of aspects, and opened up a completely new framework of evaluation for me. I think he becomes weaker as he approaches contemporary topics, especially in his analysis of the anti-Fascist emigration German literature [also hurts that I just don't enjoy these books and haven't read any of them – his work was way more fun for me when it was analyzing things I'd read, but you have to be really, really well read to be able to follow every example, and I'm unfortunately not there yet – though this book has given me tons of new suggestions for further reading material!! In my fav NOT A GENRE!], but to be fair, he admits that he is more limited in the discussion of processes that he doesn't see as having yet reached their fulfillment as well. Once he goes to discussing prospects for the future he becomes interesting again, though, of course, this text hasn't aged the best in a lot of respects with regard to its ideas about socialism. I suspect it's mostly that aspect that stops me from giving this book a 5.
• 
  Nara

  É reconfortante terminar esse livro agora e ler como o realismo - profundo e fiel ao que realmente é o mundo - supera qualquer fase decadente, pois "contém as tendências que conduzem ao futuro de modo mais forte e nítido que os mais belos sonhos e projeções utópicos. " Precisamos encontrar um formato pra esse realismo na literatura brasileira contemporânea e lembrar que a força de várias vidas transformadoras está na massa do povo. "Força é mudares de vida"!
• 
  Ali A.

  كتابٌ مدهشٌ اقتصادي / اجتماعي - بعض الشيء - أدبيّ نقديّ، يسبرُ أغوار الرَّواية التاريخية يشرّحها يفندُها، يعالجُها ويعطي أمثلة وافية من روايات لأدباء لم أسمع بهم قبل قراءة الكتاب مثل هنريخ مان وفويشتفانغر، وفولبير بارهاف
  شكرًا جورج لوكاش على هذا الكتاب العظيم
  وشكرًا شكرًا للمترجم الدكتور صالح جواد الكاظم
• 
  Jack Josellis

  Jesus h Christ! Cranked this out for grad school! Nothing like some frosty Soviet literary criticism to rock you to sleep! Honestly, very interesting every 10 pages (the intermixing 9 pages were usually full of literary references that whizzed over my head) but is pretty much laying the groundwork for all of our analysis of our syllabus! Apparently Stalin read this!
• 
  Marta Ilieva

  grad school requirement.
• 
  noblethumos

  "The Historical Novel" is a book by Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic, Gyorgy Lukacs, first published in 1937. It is a critical analysis of the historical novel as a literary genre and its role in representing historical events and social change.
  
  Lukacs argues that the historical novel is a product of the Enlightenment and emerged as a response to the growing importance of history in European society. He sees the historical novel as a means of exploring the dialectical relationship between the individual and society and as a way of showing how historical forces shape human destiny.
  
  Lukacs also discusses the relationship between the historical novel and Marxist theory, arguing that the novel can be a powerful tool for understanding the social, economic, and political forces that shape historical change. He emphasizes the importance of historical accuracy and authenticity in the historical novel and suggests that it should be a means of educating readers about the complex processes of social change and historical development.
  
  "The Historical Novel" has been influential in the fields of literary criticism and Marxist theory. Lukacs' ideas about the relationship between literature and social change have been taken up by other Marxist critics and have been the subject of ongoing debate and discussion.
  
  GPT
• 
  Rachel

  Great theoretical classic. Improved my understanding of the history and significance of novels.