Georg Lukacs was one of the most controversial Marxist philosophers of this century. In this book, however, he appears in another guise: as a literary historian in the tradition of Sainte-Beuve and Belinsky, offering an advanced introduction to one of the richest periods of European literature. These previously untranslated essays - on Heinrich von Kleist, Joseph Eichendorff, Georg Buchner, Heinrich Heine, Gottfried Keller, Wilhelm Raabe, and Theodor Fontane - were written between 1936 and 1950. They illuminate Lukacs's enduring love of German literature and his faith in the humanist tradition. In all of them, moreover, he can be seen actively intervening in the cultural debates of the time - on the role of literature, on the literary tradition in society, and on the relationship between literature and politics. Although his defense of realism against the crudities of socialist realism is implicit throughout these essays, Lukacs's main purpose was to illuminate the intellectual, historical, and literary context in which these great writers worked, to attain a fuller understanding of what they wrote, and also to settle accounts with contemporary German critics who were attempting to create a fascist pantheon.
- ISBN10 0262121719
- ISBN13 9780262121712
- Publish Date 27 May 1993
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 18 September 2010
- Publish Country US
- Publisher MIT Press Ltd
- Imprint MIT Press
- Edition Mit Press ed.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 392
- Language English