Counterfactual Literary Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-112
Author(s):  
Nasser Mufti
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Counterfactual Theory ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theory Of The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukács

The occasion for this collection of responses to Telling It Like It Wasn't is a conference titled “Novel Theory.” Given this conjuncture, it seems only obvious to pose the question: What does a counterfactual theory of the novel look like? Of course, there is no single theory of the novel, but there is a book and a thinker most closely associated with the phrase, “theory of the novel,” and that is Georg Lukács. And while Theory of the Novel is the obvious text to revisit to counterfactually historicize and/or theorize, it seems more worthwhile for the history of Europe's counterfactual historical imagination to turn to Lukács's other great text, one that features somewhat prominently in Gallagher's book—namely, The Historical Novel.

Saints and Miracles: The End of the Affair

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Hepburn
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Graham Greene ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Dorothy Sayers ◽  
Theory Of The Novel ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Georg Lukács

Miracles rarely appear in novels, yet Graham Greene includes several of them in The End of the Affair. Sarah Miles heals a boy suffering from appendicitis and a man with a disfigured cheek. Like a saint, she seems to heal or revive through her compassionate touch, as when she raises her lover, who may or may not have died in a bomb blast, by touching his hand. This chapter locates Sarah’s interventions amidst debates about miracles, beginning with David Hume’s sceptical rejection of inexplicable phenomena, through such mid-century books as C. S. Lewis’s Miracles and Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker. The inherent godlessness of novels, as Georg Lukacs puts the matter in Theory of the Novel, would seem to ban mystical content altogether from novelistic discourse. Yet this chapter argues for the revaluation of mystical content—the ordeals of the whisky priest in The Power and the Glory, for example—within the generic precincts of the novel.

scholarly journals Hegel and Lukács on the Novel

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (02) ◽  
pp. 23-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Speight
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Philosophy Of Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Theory Of The Novel ◽  
Prose Literature ◽  
Georg Lukács

That Hegel was a significant influence on the young Georg Lukács'Theory of the Novelis a point few would dispute. Lukács himself insisted that the first part of TN represented his own transition from Kantian to Hegelian theory, and most critics have subsequently affirmed the importance of Hegel to Lukács' pre- (or, depending on one's view, proto-) Marxist argument inTN. Yet the two are in some ways strange to take together in the context of novelistic theory. Despite the profusion of novelistic literature in his own time and his own significant appropriation of it for the limning of essential moments of the development of the world-historical spirit, Hegel's officialAestheticshardly presents what one could claim to be an especially worked-outtheoryof the novel. TheAestheticstakes up literature in general primarily under the rubric of providing a theory of the genres ofpoetry— epic, lyric and dramatic — and what relatively few words Hegel actually devotes to the novel and prose literature in the lectures are tucked in corners: at the end of the discussion of the development of the epic, in the discussion of the historical form of the romantic, and in scattered comments elsewhere. As forTN, despite the strong connections some have drawn between Hegel and Lukács — Peter Demetz said that Lukács was ‘in a certain sense … the last Hegelian in the grand style’ (Demetz 1967: 215) — others have questioned whether Lukács' work should be regarded primarily as making a contribution to the philosophy of literature in the tradition from which Hegel writes.

The Narrative, Its Components and Its ‘Novelisation’

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-188
Author(s):  
Marlé Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Repeated Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Battle Scenes ◽  
Georg Lukács

This chapter represents a narratological breakdown of the tale. Drawing on the theory of Seymour Chatman, Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács, I discuss the tale and its relationship to the ʿUdhrī love tale, the popular epic and the novel in terms of its discourse, setting, characters and events. I argue that the tale has a plot with a ‘homophonic’ texture, whereby a ‘melody’ of singular events (such as the abduction, torture and rescue of Laylā) overlays a ‘drone’ of repeated events (namely battle scenes). I conclude with a comparison of the tale with its twentieth-century novelistic adaptation and a discussion of what the comparison reveals about the pre-history of the Arabic novel.

Georg Lukács and Leo Tolstoy

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Agnes Heller ◽  
Deng Fengming
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Aesthetic Judgment ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Leo Tolstoy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Theory Of The Novel ◽  
First Time ◽  
Georg Lukács

Tolstoy was a frame of reference in the work of Lukács twice, during 1914–16 and 1935–6 respectively. His first-time encounter with Tolstoy was presented in the chapter of The Theory of the Novel involving both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but the former was given more credit and reckoned as the prophet of a new world. It was not until the 1930s that Lukács’ taste changed, and his top priority went to Tolstoy instead. Yet, with due respect to the vicissitudes of his life throughout the 1910s until the 1930s, Lukács remained faithful to his philosophy of history in terms of aesthetic judgment. His preference for the grand artworks was not new as his admiration for Homer showed, but his belief in the resurrection of grand art as realism was rooted in a new and false illusion. Still, his essays on Tolstoy of the 1930s are rich in aesthetic analysis, such as the different aspects of temporality.

The art of cunning: Georg Lukács, Mikhail Bakhtin and Soviet Socialist realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46
Author(s):  
Yanping Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Historical Novel ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
Georg Lukács

This article examines Georg Lukács’ The Historical Novel (1937–8) and four works on the novel written by Mikhail Bakhtin between 1936 and 1941 in relation to the Great Terror and Soviet socialist realism. It argues that, to a large extent, Lukács’ and Bakhtin’s theories of the novel of the 1930s stemmed from a moral urgency felt and shared by the authors to salvage the novel – a category that has significant implications for history for both theorists – from the damages wrought by socialist realism. Focusing on the ways in which Bakhtin and Lukács encode their dissent into legitimate narratives, the article draws attention to the art of cunning – dissimulation, equivocation, doublespeak and coding – as a means of disrupting tyrannical discourse, registering difference and surviving. Both Lukács and Bakhtin held ambiguous views on socialist realism and both of them capitalized on the ambivalence inherent in official Soviet discourse.

The imagined nation-state in Soviet literature: The case of Koshpendiler

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gulnara Dadabayeva ◽  
Dina Sharipova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Novel ◽  
Past History ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
National Union ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Soviet Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imagined Nation

This article focuses on the famous novel Koshpendiler (1976) by Ilyas Esenberlin. This literary work occupies a special place in Soviet Kazakh literature because it raises important problems such as the foundation of the state and nation, the sense of territoriality, and the struggle against Russian colonizers. The authors argue that this historical novel can be considered as an example of post-colonial discourse. The novel itself is an extrapolation of the 1970s’ Soviet reality when national Union republics, including Kazakhstan, were seeking greater independence. Kazakh cultural elites and the intelligentsia turned to the past history of nation-building to address the problems of the present day. Not having an opportunity to openly express their views, the Kazakh establishment preferred to express their national sentiments through the historical genre. In this work, the authors suggest their own vision of Soviet national literature from political science and historical perspectives.

Von der formalen Soziologie zur formalen Literatursoziologie: Georg Lukács

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 546-566
Author(s):  
Christine Magerski
Keyword(s):  
Formal Method ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Georg Lukacs ◽  
History Of ◽  
Georg Lukács

Abstract The paper reconstructs a crucial moment in the history of literary studies: the transference of formal sociology, as developed by Georg Simmel around 1900, into literary studies by his pupil, the young Georg Lukács. First, formal sociology will be explained in order to outline the ways in which Lukács adapts it. Then the formal method Lukács developed will be illustrated using the drama as an example. Finally, the paper will analyze Caroline Levine’s highly acclaimed study Forms (2015) in the context of the history of the formal method outlined, and briefly discuss the impasse in which this method currently finds itself.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document