Social Scientist

Georg Lukács, Hindi Critical Thought and View of Form in "The Theory of the Novel"
Author(s): Anand Prakash
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 45, No. 11/12 (November–December 2017), pp. 73-83
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26405283
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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought and
View of Form in The Theory of the Novel

Anand Prakash

Georg Lukâcs places the issue of form at the centre of his early book The
Theory of the Novel, and views form as integral to the humanist approach.
In this context, he suggests categories such as nature, human consciousness
and history for serious consideration. At the same time, for him an ade
quate theorisation of form requires a strong reference to socio-philosophi
cal dimensions of transcendence, substance and essence. According to him,
these relate to concreteness of human experience outside the scope of felt
reality somewhat differently though vitally.
In Lukâcs' scheme of things, abstractions hold a great value; with their
help we can go into factors unavailable to the supposedly realistic and veri
fiable methods of present-day investigation. He is impatient with the posi
tivism of early twentieth-century analysts where, as he sees it, there is need
to question the limiting consideration of individual phenomena and their
particular reach in experience. He thinks this to be the case when early years
of the twentieth century confront a scene of unprecedented gravity and
unpredictability - the First World War. The unfolding spectacle, believes
Lukâcs, has thrown open new possibilities of exploration when 'we are also
in a position to appreciate the features which, to a certain extent, justified it
historically as against the petty two-dimensionality of neo-Kantian (or any
other) positivism in the treatment both of historical characters or relations
and of intellectual realities (logic, aesthetics, etc.).' In the situation, Lukâcs
insists that methods of approach as such, since they are methods, may be
altogether discarded and attention given instead to what is sensed and
apprehended in the direct sense. At the time of articulating aspects of form,
Lukâcs found fresh insights that were more reliable than established point
ers. On this he observes: 'At that time it escaped the notice of the younger
ones among us that men of talent were arriving at their genuinely sound
conclusions in spite of the method rather than by means of it' (p. 13).1
This was possible since new experiences knocked at the door of rationality
and compelled not just reconsideration but inventive ways of seeing which
Lukâcs gave greater credence to.

Lukâcs' Relevance to Us
It may be useful to briefly evoke the Hindi literary scene in the later years
of the twentieth century for making the point regarding Lukâcs' relevance
73
to us today. The reference specifically is to the early 1970s that could boast

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 Social Scientist

of familiarity with numerous thought-categories such as 'lokmangaT (the

ο
(Ν good of all), 'swantah sukhaya (for the pleasure of one's self), 'kala kala ke
!_
Ο liyë (art for art's sake) and the like. The 70s were witness to these perspec
_£>

Ε tives coming from India's nationalist phase locked in a fierce life-and-death

<υ
υ struggle with British imperialism. In their togetherness and mutuality,
<υ
Û these perspectives gave sufficient freedom to the reader to evaluate texts
ί the way one chose to. In fact, a reading of the text was provided precisely
ν
-Ο for propagating a viewpoint that was for all practical purposes based on
Ε the personal preference for or disapproval of the interpreting individual.
>
ο In the 1970s, those who liked Jaishankar Prasad sang praises of his work
Ζ Kamayani for its epic dimensions or lofty thought, and those others of the
ο) Nirala fan club in the 1940s and 50s who did not do so spoke highly of
simple statement in poetry. The former camp adhered to poetic abstraction
and the latter wished to engage with life on the street. The two remained
Ο poles apart and stuck to their respective positions; rarely did one find read
Ζ ers and critics in Hindi to be curiously alert and self-reflective at the time
u-l
- there was no way in which the litterateur would think of learning from
•ψ
experience, leave alone be guided by it. In consequence, the form would not
i be a subject of curiosity.
When the trend of self-analysis on the part of Hindi critics began
finally firming up in the late 1960s, it was a happy development moving
in the right direction. In Hindi, Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh's pioneering
effort at reinterpreting Prasad's Kamayani (this was around the time of
Independence) paved the way for exploration of form; it proved worthy
of emulation, signifying a point of departure. Muktibodh's Kamayani: Ek
Punarvichar ('Kamayani: A Reconsideration') was a focused comment on
fantasy as a literary form, the book's title according a certain dignity to the
critical exercise within literary practice. For Muktibodh, the author was
only a participant in the literary endeavour, not its maker or controller. The
author and the mode s/he elected for presenting an experience met halfway
in the course of forming the literary work.
In Hindi, interestingly literary criticism is supposed to be inferior to
creative writing for the simple reason that it comes after a novel, a poem or
play has been written - it is about them, deciphering words and codes there
and rebuilding on its basis a meaning and a message the author intended
to convey to the reader. As stated, the question of form was outside this
paradigm. On the other hand, the book on Kamayani suggested that while
the text was integral to criticism, at its centre so to say for interpretation
and comment, yet it was not an end. Something yet remained to be grasped,
and that much could be done outside and beyond the literary text. There
was a whole domain of cultural practices driven by specific norms await
ing examination, and this stood concretely between the literary work and
the reader. Indeed, the text provided the means through which the critic
74 could engage with the complex questions of life, cultural and philosophical

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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought

as well as economic. Muktibodh was offering a critical view of Kamayani >

3
Ρ
to affirm through example that far from being a mere adjunct of the text 3
CL
under discussion, the comment from a source outside the author enjoyed "U
autonomy of its own. To repeat, the idea that criticism gains meaning from Ρ

creative works alone would be erroneous in Muktibodh's scheme of things, δ"

(Λ
ΙΓ
for which reason he brought to criticism the value it deserved, the critical
act could stand its own ground, it was capable of imparting to the cre
ative work an entirely new light, thus making it different in appeal than it
appeared to the lay reader - it could bring to surface the latent possibilities
of a creative text placing it on a stronger cultural footing. The phenom
enon had something to do with the European influence in the twentieth
century. Can we overlook, therefore, that Lukâcs (as a prime contender for
criticism's role in literature in the European context) played a major role in
upgrading criticism elsewhere, too?
Muktibodh's effort at search for pointers in the internality of the text,
as well as elucidating and assessing literature, however, didn't go down well
with writers and thinkers in Hindi writing. The fault could be attributed
partly to the kind of criticism produced at the time, yet the issue remained
unresolved, since many votaries of ideological trends and norms were not
in sufficient supply. Perhaps the problem lay in our understanding as well
that is wary of noting new developments on the politico-social front.
Significantly, Lukâcs' criticism makes us aware of nineteenth and
twentieth-century thinking patterns, and in defining the contemporary
ethos with the help of historical materialist perspective, he compels us to
relook our own beliefs and opinions. Much is not common between us
and Lukâcs - our societies and literatures are vitally different. Yet, we find
Lukâcs helpful in comprehending our scenario, which would have been
a major reason why reading Lukâcs was considered indispensable in the
Hindi literary world in the 1960s and 70s. He was appreciated by those who
were increasingly aligning themselves with the larger leftist cause and were
driven by principles of rationality and secularism. Among his admirers
were votaries of humanist norms and progressivism; for them, right ideas
in literature came from struggles waged against inequality and exploitation.
Lukâcs' intellectual temperament went much beyond the philosophical
bent - he would extensively use broader concepts to comment upon his
tory, politics and society. Add to this the fact that he extended his analysis
to spheres of life that were in direct touch with literary writing, in them
he located specific centers of aesthetic consideration where the common
reader found solace as well as scope to shuffle responses. In this area adja
cent to writing, he would not focus primarily on the writer's idiosyncratic
practice or the socio-literary environment. For him, the picture would not
be complete unless the dialectic of history and literature were not taken
into account. It was imperative that the larger humanity and the natural
world inspiring and sustaining it be kept in purview while examining texts, 75

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 Social Scientist

authors and the values cherished. Imagine the vast contours of such an
ο
<Ν exercise that brings together on one end the geographical and historical
ί
ο; conditions of mankind and on the other the mysterious, never-ending
-Ο
ε flow of life through nature, as also tribes and communities down the ages.
ν
υ Negotiating this vastness critically, Lukâcs interprets the series of events
α>
Û and human responses in their mutuality and togetherness. He observes in
ι them many a social truth that flashes from within a narrative, and informs
ω
-Q the dynamic working inside it. Let us not forget that Lukâcs' writings raised
Ε
ω a furore in the western literary world as it questioned the very parameters
>
ο on which its aesthetic appeal was founded - he created through his works
Ζ
an atmosphere of deep ideological churning. He could do this for the rea
<Ν son that he was a genuine elabourator of socialist ideas working in direct
opposition to the bourgeois literary practices of the day.1

(Λ
Ο Lukâcs and the Phase of Crisis-ridden Capitalism
Ζ Western bourgeois thinkers and litterateurs had remained in a state of
LO anxiety ever since capitalism entered the phase of crisis in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. They took it on themselves to defend the status
£ quo and the literary trends deriving strength from it. Interestingly, with the
presence of critics like Lukâcs on the scene, they became yet more vocif
erous in their attack on values of equality, debate and mutual exchange.
The large segment of bourgeois thinkers and analysts ventured to define
tradition as the bedrock of existence with concepts of change, progressive
time, purposive writing, commitment, and humanist emphases being their
prime targets. In the process, they disapproved of Lukâcs' changing strate
gies as socialism unfolded on the world scale. Lukâcs' approach to literary
works being the point at issue, we witness that his theory of realism makes
us better equipped to decipher historical incongruities and divergences as
also identify valuable aspects of writers and texts.
The period spanning the First World War constitutes Lukâcs' first
phase of critical writing. From then on till the last phase in the 1970s,
Lukâcs thought deeply on subjects of culture, creativity and aesthetic prin
ciples. He left a considerable impact on the literary scene and earned the
reputation of being an acclaimed analyst speaking from the perspective of
socialist thought. With his elaborate discussions about literary texts and
trends premised on realism, Lukâcs established a link between history, liter
ature and culture. Indeed, such assessments carried a deeper understanding
of the phenomenon at work in the surrounding world. On many an occa
sion, Lukâcs' assessments and conclusions became a hot topic of debate
among critics.2 Within Marxist criticism, too, questions have been raised
about the efficacy of his approach. Some thinkers of the socialist orienta
tion blame him for being narrow in his concerns. Conversely, he has been
targeted for being soft towards bourgeois writers. All in all, when we take
76 into account the comprehensive work he has done in the domain of critical

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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought

thought, we find him to be a committed Marxist thinker facing challenges >

3
Ρ
that emanate from the real circumstance he is a part of. 3
CL
A most significant aspect of Lukâcs' critical writing is that of establish
ing close connection with reality - it considers literary concerns as part of
its context validating the writer's role through the act of writing. This has <Λ

kept his criticism freed from determinism, enabling him to grasp the dia
lectical nature of participation in a given situation. He recognised the path
to partisanship through negotiation of unanticipated hurdles in his way and
his thinking reflects the broader movements of history. More, Lukâcs has
remained uninfluenced by academicism that most of his contemporaries
can be faulted for; for him interpreting literature as an exercise in selfhood
or a personal voyage is counter-productive. It would take one on the path of
what can be termed 'mythicism' - an act likely to stir the writer into believ
ing s/he is part of the cosmic world outside the fold of rational thought.
For Lukâcs, the philosophical bent is an empowering factor; capacity
for abstraction assists him to capture the dynamics operating between
truth and vision. From here, he takes the venture ahead towards specific
and general structures involved in constantly making-unmaking them
selves. Imagine how challenging would be the task for Lukâcs to view a
writer's social sense in totality and linking it with the truth that emerges
from his creative work to enter the aesthetic process. The last in turn bears
the brunt of historical contradictions active at the time. The critic makes
it his business to see how far the creative work under analysis succeeds in
maintaining reflective capability. It is assumed that the writer may become
conscious about the class hierarchy under which he and the creative prod
uct earn a bonding with each other. Such a critical enterprise comes to
the fore in its best form in Lukâcs' analyses that investigate the nature and
character of European fiction.

The Loss Proved to Be the Driving Force of Living

In The Theory of the Novel, Lukâcs has visualised an integrated world in
the distant past, a world in which nature and the human being stood in
complete harmony with each other. In this he is thinking of a mythical
world where an idea denoted by humanity relates organically with all that
surrounds it. The idea can boast of a totality consisting of parts living in
harmony with each other. Since the human being is mind and body, self
and nature, senses and what is sensed, the totality is self-sufficient, devoid
of gaps and fissures. Mark that it is clearly a Lukâcs looking at his distant
past as an entity that was indeed a beginning, and also that the act of look
ing by the twentieth-century individual presents the state of separateness
from a world that has disappeared once and for all. At the same time
though, Lukâcs as the perceiving subject earns the sense of separateness
acutely and longingly. The longing is spread through the known history
driving the human urge for persisting till the past state is conjured into a 77

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 Social Scientist

make-believe restoration. Consider that for the twentieth-century individ

ο
(Ν ual, getting back the lost state is not as important as the sense of emptiness
ί
α» and incompleteness caused by the happening. It may have been observed
-Ο
Ε that the loss proved to be the driving force of living, able to provide an
υ
u incentive to go on searching and exploring. Lukâcs is extremely evocative
ω
D while formulating the idea of an all-fulfilling time and existence. To quote:
L
<υ Everything in such ages is new and yet unfamiliar, full of adventure and yet
-Ο
Ε their own. The world is wide and yet it is like a home, for fire that burns in the
<υ
> soul is of the same essential nature as the stars; the world and the self, the light
Ο
and the fire, are sharply distinct, yet they never become permanent strangers
to one another, for fire is the soul of all light and all fire clothes itself in light.
<Ν
Thus each action of the soul becomes meaningful and rounded in this duality :
complete in meaning - in sense - and complete for the senses; rounded because

GO
the soul rests within itself from it and, having become itself, finds a centre of its
Ο
own and draws a closed circumference round itself, (p. 29)

m Here, Lukâcs attempts a 'duality' that is oneness at the same time as

it is perceived to be moving in a direction. Seldom static, the duality has
an energy running across its length and breadth that ties in one thread its
living-evolving substance. See the play of opposites that are vitally interde
pendent and sharing with each other a common source of origin. Crucial
words in this quotation are 'world,' 'home,' 'light,' 'fire,' 'familiarity,'
'distinctness,' and 'oneness.' Think of the world as home - both denote an
organic link and a close belonging. The ancient world visualised by Lukâcs
was the opposite of what exists in the twentieth century. The question is
which one of these was to be accepted and appreciated.
At the time of writing, The Theory of the Novel appeared a clarification
of the situation humanity confronted. Once the point of departure had
been formulated, it became easy to watch the existing world war scene with
an added urgency. Also, the world of the new period offered an insight into
the nature of the novel in the modern period. The novel enjoyed connec
tion with other forms of literature but contained its own distinct features.
The intended sifting and sorting is geared to understand how the novel
related to the ancient epic, drama, and poetry and in the process became a
telling comment on each as well as presented itself as a dynamic mode of
writing. The novel as form engaged with the emerging human individual
who felt in himself the fissures humanity's own endeavours had created
and left for future generations to fill up - this is the subject of The Theory
of the Novel. The effort by Lukâcs also became a method through which the
issue of form could be approached outside the traditional parameters of
reflection, representation and depiction.
The novel had an illustrious predecessor in the epic as Lukâcs has pos
ited in the book. For him, the epic remained in and sang of the close self
78 contained existence of the surrounding world. An ever-pulsating, risk-lov

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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought

ing humanity was its tenant. It was a mode of being that would inspire >
=J
ρ
future forms of expression. In such a state, the epic is observed as having =>
Ο.
seeds of awareness but it does not know where it is heading, perhaps the -σ
mind as we understand the word is yet to form itself while the epic carries Ρ

on along its path of progress. Even as bereft of the mind, the epic has a soul. ïï
(/)

'And the soul,' says Lukâcs, 'goes out to seek adventure, it lives through
adventures, but it does not know the real torment of seeking and the real
danger of finding; such a soul never stakes itself; it does not yet know that
it can lose itself, it never thinks of having to look for itself. Such an age is
the age of the epic. (p. 30)
Mark that Lukâcs has kept clear of the divisions in society early on
in human existence. Epic was the natural way in which the old existence
expressed itself. This for Lukâcs was the beginning of the journey and the
urge to move rested in the potentiality to be, to look around, to celebrate,
to 'seek', and observe 'the real danger of finding.' The inner impulse of
embracing danger may have finally become the cause of social stirrings,
signs of externalised life that pushed the integrated communal living for
ward. The first chapter of the book is aptly named 'Integrated Civilisations';
it gives the oudine of the journey towards its end in the novel form later.
Again, since 'the home' where the journey is supposed to begin is a philo
sophical assumption, Lukâcs calls it (admitting the flaw) the 'problem of
philosophy of forms.' Under a materialist paradigm, we cannot assume
that something begins or ends at a particular time in the history of human
existence. For this reason, the epic as a form cannot be grasped as rooted in
the concept of 'home.' Then where is the epic rooted in human existence?
For Lukâcs, the answer is that real or actual human endeavour produces
conditions impelling an experience to form itself and play a role unique to
it in an emerging scenario. To quote:

The totality of life resists any attempt to find a transcendental centre within it,
and refuses any of its constituent cells the right to dominate it. Only when a
subject, far removed from all life and from the empirical which is necessarily
posited together with life, becomes enthroned in the pure heights of essence,
when it has become nothing but the carrier of the transcendental synthesis,
can it contain all conditions for totality within its own structure and transform
its own limitations into the frontiers of the world, (p. 54)

The crucial word in the quotation is totality that changes to the rhythms
of work the classless integrated community takes up for realising itself in
human terms; this for Lukâcs is the basis and source of the narrative, in
verse since that alone is the mode of collective expression, called epic.
In the argument about the form that Lukâcs evolves as he considers the
long phenomenon of complex problematic history post class division, the
novel, a form born in the modern phase, is closer to epic than such pow
erful other forms such as tragedy, and lyric poetry. Indeed, the novel has 79

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 Social Scientist

alliance with the epic at the generic level. Thus, in The Theory of the Novel
ο
<Ν it is stated incontestably that, 'The novel is the epic of an age in which the
ί
α) extensive totality of life is no longer directly given, in which the immanence
-Ω
£ of meaning in life has become a problem, yet which still thinks in terms of
ω
υ totality.' (p. 56) The point made is that whereas totality in the epic age is a
QJ

Û given, in our age it has become an idea, an abstraction, an alienated poten

ί tial that is yet to crystallise and become what may be termed concrete total
υ
-Ο ity, hence the novel form. Are we then moving towards a form that served a
Ε
ω vital purpose at the assumed beginning of society and the place it inhabited
>
Ο called 'home'? The implication in the question posed is the circular move
Ζ ment - we are reaching a point that was in fact the beginning of the journey
<Ν humanity undertook. The circularity and repetition, a philosophical per
Τ ception rather a real one, is resisted by what Lukâcs presents as the novel, a
new epic though, yet to be achieved with struggle in life as well as art. In our
case, the conditions of life will correspond with those of art where the said
ι/ί
ο
Ζ journey with its ups and downs, experiments and inventions, meaning-cre
irt ation and problem-solving will make possible and determine the mode of
the novel. If this is not kept in mind, we shall get stuck to considerations

β such as verse and prose that set parameters of literary modes we have in our
midst. Lukâcs clarifies: 'It would be superficial - a matter of a mere artistic
technicality - to look for the only and decisive genre-defining criterion in
the question of whether a work is written in verse or prose.' (p. 56) The
insight is valuable. There is a fundamental difference between form and
genre, the first related closely and deeply with historical time and ethos and
the second with narrow aspects of literature being composed by individuals
within requirements and conventions of imaginative expression.
For Lukâcs, the novel has another important dimension - of the
modern individual who would occupy centre-stage in this art form. This
dimension is of the range and depth enjoyed by totality that pertains to life
as it has come up in times we belong to. Both totality and the individual
have their distinct value as well as relation that may bind them in the limits
of the novel. The totality is to be achieved within the art form by human
endeavour on broader lines of dictates emanating from contemporary life.
It is stated that such an individual did not exist in the pre-modern age and,
therefore, the novel is possible in the manner of a modern epic only in our
period. There may have been great works of literature in the distant or
relatively recent past that fulfilled certain requirements of the epic writing
that was aware of its world and had capability of serving its cause. Yet, the
individual needed to give the art form its necessary contours was missing.
For this reason, the novel would have difficulty appearing on the scene.
Lukâcs makes the point effectively:

The novel comprises the essence of its totality between the beginning and the
end, and thereby raises an individual to the infinite heights of one who must
80

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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought

create an entire world through his experience and who must maintain that >
D
ft)
world in equilibrium - heights which no epic individual, not even Dante's, D
CL
could reach, because the epic individual owed his significance to the grace
accorded him, not to his pure individuality. But just because the novel can ft)
7Γ
only comprise the individual in this way, he becomes a mere instrument, and ft)
ΙΛ

his central position in the work means only that he is particularly well suited to
reveal a certain problematic of life. (p. 83)

We may note here that Lukâcs draws clear lines for distinguishing the
modern day individual captured in the novel mode. He also underlines
the worth of such an individual by assigning to him uniqueness. At the
same time though, he indicates a fundamental limitation, that of being
functional in the novel to 'reveal a certain problematic of life.' Also, in the
novel, he 'becomes a mere instrument' whose 'central position' does not
mean anything 'heroic', laudable and eye-catching. Consider that Lukâcs
has in the discussion stressed the 'problematic of life' as central to our age
of great upheavals and change.

On Way to See, to Explore

There may be difficulties with respect to full appreciation of Lukâcs' view of
form. It is a philosopher's account of the early phenomenon of 'integrated
civilisations' giving rise to the epic. The assumptions of behind home and
journey are too broad to bear critical observation - these are admitted to be
problematic by Lukâcs himself. They are projections into the distant past of
an idea, an ideal used for an entirely different purpose, that of making sense
of how common masses may get together and chart a fantasy-pattern of their
own in the uncertain happenings of the early twentieth century. The book's
first draft of 1914 testifies to the fact that even as the Russian Revolution does
not exactly loom large on the horizon, it was in fact brewing somewhere in
the minds of the Bolsheviks. The eruption occurred in 1917 all of a sudden
and both revolutionaries and their detractors in Russia and the world outside
were taken by surprise at the way the drama unfolded. Is this reflected in
the life's form as Lukâcs visualises it at the back of the novel? Was the critic
preparing himself to receive a gift, so to say, from an unknown corner of
the world - the birth of a classless formation carrying possibilities of great
antagonism resolving itself and dazzling theory by its miraculous nature?
The novel as the comic epic, a positive tale of humanity's success against the
capitalist spread was not easy to grasp and settle down with. Soon, Lukâcs
would move away from abstractions of soul, music, essence and substance
from his consideration and grapple with realism in fiction with precision
of an analyst. It fell upon him at the time to tell of the manner in which
imagination was inspired and controlled in equal measure by the historical
circumstance. For Lukâcs, the novel would ever remain a matter of interest
and engagement. In this form, he visualised human history reflected as an
81

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Social Scientist

evolving phenomenon, much in the manner of an organism coming into

ο
(Ν being and maturing to a point where it would begin declining and eventually
i_
0) fading away. The Theory of the Novel does not touch upon this theme of
_ο
Ε historical unfolding of social life, some vague pointers in it of the split and
ο
υ weakened individual notwithstanding. This is one part.
<υ
Û The other part is of the shadow of Christianity falling over the visua
lised paradigm. The Theory of the Novel makes a conscious effort to steer
ω
-Ο clear of the point of creation and a fate-like agency moving inexorably
Ε towards a predetermined goal. The philosopher Lukâcs is consistently
<υ
>
Ο reminded of this in the course of the argument. Indeed, a part of the com
Ζ plexity we come across in the book owes to this dilemma working in the
<Ν mind of Lukâcs; it (the dilemma) takes the form of an intensive probing of
what is described as 'a typology of the novel form'. Lukâcs tests his hypoth
esis of a fullness to be reached at the end of bourgeois division and split in
Ο life and approaches specific authors, trends and fictional works for this pur
Ζ pose. The authors kept in the loop range from Cervantes and Balzac (not
LH to mention Homer, Dante, and Vedavyasa) to Tolstoy for authenticating a
discovery that leads to the emergence of forms in history. In consequence,
i we are left to wonder whether Frederic Jameson is right when he says,

Yet, what if the earlier works (Jameson is referring in particular to The Theory
of the Novel - A.P.) proved to be fully comprehensible only in the light of the
later ones? What if, far from being a series of self-betrayals, Lukâcs' successive
positions proved to be a progressive exploration and enlargement of a single
complex of problems?... Lukâcs' work may be seen as a continuous and life
long meditation on narrative, on its basic structures, its relationship to the
reality it expresses, and its epistemological value when compared with other,
more abstract and philosophical modes of understanding, (p. 163)

Noteworthy in Lukâcs' approach overall, with respect to the form, is

thus the interaction between life and meaning on one side and meaning
and art on the other. In a given context, the three contain a specific mutu
ality difficult to be tied down and examined, yet they come up and attract
attention of the perceiving artist and the deciphering observer as parts of a
joint venture. There is also the case that the perceiving and the deciphering
subject may confront dilemmas all of a sudden and get drawn into unfore
seen moments of wonder. That is when abstraction might help; it will pull
the venture-laden person out of the heat and create conditions of what
Jameson has called 'meditation'. The word may be expanded to include an
intense searching of a workable answer that will eventually lead to a course
at once exciting and challenging.

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 Georg Lukâcs, Hindi Critical Thought

Notes >
Γ3
Ronald Aronson has appreciatively remarked about the objective and creative Ρ
3
character of discussions in the Marxist framework, saying: 'Indeed, the various Q.

radical currents seemed to be the tangible proof of a half-century of unortho

dox Marxism and critiques of capitalism: those of Lukâcs, Gramsci, Adorno, 0>

Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Sartre' (p. 23). ÏÏ

(Λ

See Jameson, quoted p. 160. Susan Sontag wrote: Ί, too, am inclined to give Lukâcs
all the benefit of the doubt, if only in protest against the sterilities of the Cold War
which have made it impossible to discuss Marxism seriously for the last decade or
more. But we may be generous toward the 'late' Lukâcs only at the price of not
taking him altogether seriously, of subtly patronising him by treating his moral
fervour aesthetically, as style rather than an idea' (Against Interpretation, New
York, 1966, p. 87). This went along with Adorno saying, 'Lukâcs' person is above
suspicion. But the conceptual framework to which he sacrifices the intellect is so
narrow as to smother everything that needs to draw free breath to live...' (Noten
zu Literatur, 3 vols., Frankfurt, 1958-65, vol. II, p. 154)

References

Lukâcs, Georg, 1971, The Theory of the Novel, London: The Merlin Press.
Aronson, Ronald, 1995, After Marxism, New York: Guilford Press.
Jameson, Frederic, 1971, Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of
Literature, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Muktibodh, Gajanan Madhav, [1950] 1997, Kamayani: Ek Punarvichar (Kamayani: A
Reconsideration), New Delhi: Rajkamal.

Anand Prakash taught English Literature in the University of Delhi.

Currently, he is editor of the Journal of Literature Studies.

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