Essays on Realism

✍ Scribed by György Lukács, Georg Lukács

• Publisher: Lawrence and Wishart
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 259
• Series: Marxism and Literaure
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Originally published in the 1930s, these essays on realism, expressionism, and modernism in literature present Lukacs's side of the controversy among Marxist writers and critics now known as the Lukacs-Brecht debate. The book also includes an exchange of letters between Lukács, writing in exile in the Soviet Union, and the German Communist novelist, Anna Seghers, in which they discuss realism, the European literary heritage, and the situation of the artist in capitalist culture.

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction Rodney Livingstone

The Novels of Willi Brede [1931] 23
I. FOR DIALECTICS AS A LITERARY PRINCIPLE
2. AGAINST THE THEORY OF SPONTANEITY IN LITERATURE

'Tendency' or Partisanship? [ 1932] 33

Reportage or Portrayal? [ 1932] 45
I. CRITICAL REMARKS A PROPOS A NOVEL BY OTTWALT 45
2. A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY 63

Expressionism: its Significance and Decline [ 1934) 76
I. THE IDEOLOGY OF THE GERMAN INTELLIGENTSIA IN THE IMPERIALIST PERIOD
2. EXPRESSIONISM AND THE IDEOLOGY OF THE USPD
3. EXPRESSIONISM'S CREATIVE METHOD

Marx and the Problem of Ideological Decay [1938] 114

A Correspondence with Anna Seghers [1938/9] 167
Anna Seghers, 28 June 1938
Georg Lukacs, 29 July 1938
Anna Seghers, February 1939
Georg Lukacs, 2 March 1939

Tribune or Bureaucrat? [1940] 198
I. THE GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LENIN'S ANTITHESIS
2. BUREAUCRACY AS A BASIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALIST CULTURE
3. TRAGEDY AND TRAGICOMEDY OF THE ARTIST UNDER CAPITALISM
4. THE ACTUALITY OF LENIN'S ANTITHESIS

Notes 238

Name index 246