Theor of the Novel

THE THEORY
OF THE NOVEL
A Historical-Philosophical Essay on the
Forms of Great Epic Literature

Georg Lukács

Translated by Anna Bostock

Lukács is a thinker and critic widely appreciated in cultural and literary studies of the twentieth century. This book considers the nature and development of the novel and anticipates its development. It is an essay of prophetic vision: Lukács writes: “anyone who wants to become more intimately acquainted with the prehistory of the important ideologies of the [nineteen] twenties and thirties ... will be helped by a critical reading of this book.

“ It begins with a comparison of the historic conditions that gave rise to the epic and the novel. In the age of the novel the once known unity between man and his world has been lost and the hero has become an estranged seeker of the meaning of existence. Later Lukács offers a typology of the novel based on whether the hero struggles for a realisation of a meaningful idea, or withdraws from all action. The balance of these extreme forms the third possibility, and each type is exemplified. The book is not a study of artistic technicalities, but of man, history and art tied closely in their development. It is written in a lyrical style well rendered by the translation." Library Journal

CONTENTS:
Preface – the forms of great epic literature examined in relation to whether the civilisation of a time is an integrated or a problematic one integrated civilisations (Greece, Christianity) – the problems of a historical philosophy of forms (principles, tragedy, epics) – the epic and the novel – the inner form of the novel – the historico-philosophical conditioning of the novel; attempt at a typology of the novel form – abstract idealism (Don Quixote, Balzac, Pontappidan), the romanticism of disillusionment – attempted synthesis Wilhem Meister’s Years of Disillusionment (the problem, social community and literature, the novel of education and the romanticism of reality, Novalis, Goethe) - Tolstoy and the attempt to go beyond social forms of life (and Dostoevsky) - Index of names – Index of subjects.

214 x138mm 160pp