A Teoria do Romance

by György Lukács, José Marcos Mariani de Macedo (Tradutor)

Com 'A Teoria do Romance' de Georg Lukács, a Coleção Espírito Crítico dá início à publicação de uma série de clássicos da crítica literária internacional. Redigido entre 1914 e 1915, este livro permanece como referência fundamental para qualquer estudo acerca do romance. O horizonte conceitual de suas indagações ultrapassa o âmbito da literatura, conferindo ao debate teórico uma ampla perspectiva histórico-filosófica. O poder de irradiação de suas idéias está presente na reflexão de importantes críticos, entre os quais Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Lucien Goldmann, Harry Levin e Fredric Jameson. Numa prosa densa e pontuada de lirismo, esta obra - marco da crítica literária do século XX - mantém intacta toda a sua atualidade.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Literature, Writing

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian and critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.

His literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.

Reviews

[Aslı Can · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harika, harika, harika bir kitap. Her bir cümlesi, her sayfası dopdolu. Baştan başlayıp sonuna kadar altını çizsem yeriydi herhalde. Dili, bakışı, romanı ele alış şekli çok hoşuma gitti. Sadece edebiyat değil, ayrıca psikoloji kuramı bence.

''Roman nedir?'' sorusuna verdiği her bir cevap, romana ve edebiyata dair kavrayışımı o kadar güzel bir yerden besledi ki... Geçmişe dönük edebiyata dair bildiğim, sıkış tepiş hurçlara konmuş ne varsa, açılıp havalanmış, yeni ve daha havadar raflara yerleştirilmiş gibi hissediyorum.

Mutlaka mutlaka tavsiye ediyorum edebiyat üzerine okumaktan hoşlananlara. Çok yoğun bir kitap, okuması çok fazla emek istiyor ama eminim değecektir. İki kere, üç kere okusam da her birinde kaçırdığım bir şeyi keşfederim gibi geliyor.

Başlarken hiç böyle bir kitapla karşılaşacağımı beklemiyordum. Beni en çok şaşırtan, beklentimi kat be kat aşan kitaplardan biri oldu. Aslında kitabın içeriği hakkında da bilgi vermek istiyordum ama biçim o kadar tatlı ki, içerikten bahsetmek gereksiz geliyor. Şiir okur gibi okunabilecek bir kitap.

[Peiman E iran · Rating 2 out of 5]

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، سالها پیش، خوانشی بر این کتاب داشته ام، ولی از آنجایی که موضوعی تخصصی و خاص دارد، نکاتی از آن را به یاد دارم و تا آنجا که حافظه یاری نماید، برایتان چندخطی در موردِ آن مینویسم.. پیش از همه چیز باید بگویم که این کتاب شاید عنوانی داشته باشد که در میانِ برخی از دوستانِ اهلِ رمان و داستان، ایجادِ انگیزه نماید تا آن را برایِ خوانش انتخاب کنند.. ولی نکته ای را که باید در نظر داشته باشید این است که برایِ خواندنِ این کتاب، لازم است نسبت به اصطلاحاتِ فلسفی - سیاسی آشنایی داشته باشید.. بهتر است پیش زمینه و مطالعه ای نیز در خصوصِ فلسفهٔ کانت و هگل برایِ فهمِ بهترِ کتاب داشته و صد البته بهتر است که علاقه ای به جامعه شناسی در سلیقهٔ کتاب خوانیِ شما وجود داشته باشد
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‎نویسندهٔ کتاب، <جورج لوکاچ> در موردِ کتابش میگوید: این نخستین کتابیست که فلسفه و دیدگاهِ هگل را در زمینه هایِ زیباشناسی پیاده نموده است... او در این کتاب، به دنبالِ پاسخی برایِ پرسشهایی میباشد که کالبدهایِ اجتماعی و کالبدهایِ ادبی، به وجود آورده و مطرح نموده اند.. و تلاشی برایِ نمایان کردنِ ارتباطی میانِ انسان، نژاد، مرگ، هستی و سرنوشت، از خویش نشان میدهد.. البته در این میان، جنگ و رویدادهایِ تاریخی در نظریه هایِ او، بی تأثیر نمیباشد
‎لوکاچ بر این باور است که "شعرِ حماسی"، به تمامیّت خواهیِ بیرونیِ زندگی کالبد میبخشد و از سویِ دیگر، "نمایش" به تمامیّت خواهیِ درونی، کالبد و جوهر میدهد... حال زمانی که تمامیّت خواهیِ بیرونیِ زندگی نمایان نیست، این داستان و رُمان است که واردِ کار میشود.. . لوکاچ برایِ راحتیِ کار، آثارِ ادبی را به جامعهٔ پیش بورژوایی و جامعهٔ بورژوایی تقسیم میکند
‎لوکاچ بر اساسِ پیوندهایِ میانِ قهرمانِ رمان و جهانِ او، الگویی برایِ رمانهایِ سنتی به وجود می آورد و آن را در سه دسته شرح میدهد که این سه دسته را به صورتِ چکیده، در زیر برایتان مینویسم

‎دستهٔ نخست - رمان هایِ ایده آلیسمِ انتزاعی یا همان رمان هایِ پندارگراییِ آهنجیده: در این رمانها، پیوند میانِ قهرمان و جهان، جور در نمی آید.. هر پیروزی بر واقعیت، برایِ قهرمانِ رمان، شکستی به شمار می آید و در سویِ دیگر، چشم پوشیِ قهرمانِ رمان از هر بخشی از واقعیتِ شکست خورده، یک پیروزی به شمار می آید.. دُن کیشوت میتواند مثالی برای اینگونه از رمانها باشد
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‎دستهٔ دوم - رمانهایِ روانشناختی یا همان رمانتیسمِ پندارزدا: در این دسته از رمانها، آگاهیِ قهرمانِ رمان، از واقعیتِ بیرونیِ جهان، گذر میکند و با جهان درگیری و خشونت دارد... یعنی از ستیزه جویی و درون گرایی، موجودی با خصوصیاتِ یک قهرمان، در رمان زاده میشود
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‎دستهٔ سوم - رمانهایِ آموزشی: موضوعِ اصلیِ اینگونه از رمانها سازش میانِ انسانِ نگران و پیچیده، با واقعیت هایِ جهان و جامعه اش، میباشد... در این دسته از رمانها، تلاش میشود تا تعادلی میانِ اندیشه و کردار، برقرار گردد
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‎عزیزانم، همانطور که در این ریویو خواندید، با آنکه تلاش کردم به ساده ترین شکلِ ممکن، موضوع را برایتان بنویسم، ولی بازهم تخصصی بودنِ مبحث، سبب میشود تا درکِ آن دشوار باشد... ولی با دانستن و شناخت در زمینه های: فلسفه، سیاست، جامعه شناسی، تاریخِ رمان نویسی و سبک هایِ داستان نویسی، فهمِ این کتاب میتواند برایتان ساده تر باشد، چراکه لوکاچ از مثالها و نویسنده ها و سبکهایِ گوناگونی در کتابش نام برده است ... البته ترجمهٔ خوب و مناسب نیز بسیار تأثیرگذار میباشد.. دانستنِ زبانِ انگلیسی، نمیتواند دلیلِ خوبی برایِ مترجم باشد تا دست به ترجمهٔ این دسته از کتابهایِ تخصصی بزند
‎امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mutig-pathetischer Weitblick mit Freude an begrifflich hegelischer Schärfe.

Das Frühwerk von Lukács steht noch ganz im Zeichen einer sich unabhängig setzenden Geisteswissenschaften im Sinne von Wilhelm Diltheys Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung . Er steht also noch im Überschwang von Hegels Weltgeist, den er in seiner späteren Theorie mehr und mehr materialistisch bis zur Unkenntlichkeit läutert. Was den späten, Realismus versessenen, mit dem jungen, sturm-dränglerischen, Lukács eint, zeigt sich im Versuch, Verständnis eröffnende Kategorien zu entwickeln:

Die deutsche Romantik hat den Begriff des Romans, wenn auch nicht immer bis ins letzte geklärt, mit dem des Romantischen in enge Beziehungen gebracht. Mit großem Recht, denn die Form des Romans ist, wie keine andere, ein Ausdruck der transzendentalen Obdachlosigkeit.

Lukács‘ Argumentation lässt sich schnell zusammenfassen: In der Moderne hat sich für den einzelnen ein Vertrauensverlust zwischen sich und dem Kosmos geschoben: das Gemeinwesen, der kulturelle Hintergrund haben an Selbstverständlichkeit verloren und das Individuum für sich und gegen die Welt problematisiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund verändert sich die Ausdrucksform vom Epos zum Roman. Das Epos lebt vom Kosmos, von der Dauer und Ewigkeit, in vertrauensseliger Umarmung des dargestellten Heroentums. Im Roman dagegen muss die Glaubwürdigkeit aufgrund des Vertrauensverlustes erst gestiftet werden:

Die Strukturdifferenz [vom Epos], in der diese im Grunde begriffliche Pseudoorganik des Romanstoffes zum Ausdruck kommt, ist die zwischen einer homogen-organischen Stetigkeit und einem heterogen-kontingenten Diskretum. Wegen dieser Kontingenz sind die relativ selbständigen Teile selbständiger, in sich abgerundeter, als die der Epopöe und müssen deshalb durch Mittel, die ihr einfaches Dasein transzendieren, ins Ganze eingefügt werden, um es nicht zu sprengen. Sie müssen, anders wie in der Epopöe, eine strenge, kompositionell-architektonische Bedeutung haben […]

Hiermit dialektisiert der Roman Dauer mit Zeit und selegiert mittels Komposition einer Erzählstimme. Lukács unterscheidet zwischen einer, die zu eng, eine andere, die zu weit im Vergleich zur jeweils beschriebenen Welt angelegt ist. Die zu enge erzeugt einen Abenteuerroman (Cervantes Don Quijote de la Mancha ), das erzählende Ich wird überrascht; die zu weite ergeht sich in einem Desillusionsroman (Flauberts Die Erziehung der Gefühle ) und lächelt müde und resigniert. Zwischen diesen vermittelt der Entwicklungsroman (Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehr- und Wanderjahre ). Zum Abschluss bringt die romantische Epopöe (der Roman) Tolstoi:

Tolstoi selbst nimmt freilich eine doppelte Stellung ein. In einer rein auf die Form gerichteten Betrachtung – die jedoch gerade bei ihm unmöglich das Entscheidende seiner Gesinnung und selbst seiner gestalteten Welt treffen kann – muß er als Abschluß der europäischen Romantik begriffen werden.

Die begriffliche Struktur von Zeit und Dauer und deren selegierend-changierendes Wechselspiel in der vertrauenserzeugenden Erzählstimme gibt Georg Lukács Die Theorie des Romans jene intellektuelle Lebendigkeit, die trotz faden, spröden Anfangs (die ersten 50 Seiten), Lust auf Literaturtheorie wecken, um lebendig den Wechsel der schriftlichen Kommunikationsform nachzuvollziehen. Obzwar zu kurz, zu manieristisch-biedermeierhaft an manchen, extra pompös verspielten Stellen, lehrt Die Theorie des Romans Mut zur Unterscheidung und Freude an der Begriffswelt, um Leseeindrücke zu vertiefen und sachgerecht zu vergleichen. Zur Mehrmals-Lektüre geeignet.

[Argos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roman Kuramı zor bir kitap, yorucu, anlamak için sarfedilen enerjiye karşılık vermeyen bir kitap, en azından benim için böyle. Ancak Lukacs bizzat kendisi şöyle diyor önsözde “1920’lerin, 30’ların önemli ideolojilerinin tarih öncesiyle daha yakından tanışmak isteyen okura belirli bir yarar sağlayacaktır. Ama kitabı kendine yol göstermesi umuduyla eline alırsa, yolunu daha da karıştırmasından başka sonuç beklenmez”.

Ben ikinci gruptayım. Bu kitabı roman hakkında biçimsel, tarihsel, ideolojik, estetik, mistik vb yönleriyle bana yol göstereceği beklentisiyle okudum. Modern romana geçilmesinin yol ve yordamını öğrenmek istedim. Epik ile roman arasındaki örtüşme ve ayrışma hakkındaki görüşleri dışında yararlanacağım bir bilgi bulamadım, ya da ben anlamadım.

Ünlü marksist yazarın bu erken eseri (marksist olmadan önce yazmış) Kant-Hegel felsefeleri ile romantik yazar arasında bağlar kurarak roman üzerine bir kuram oturtmuş.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I write down what I thought of this work, I'd direct anyone trying to seriously grapple with early Lukács to David H. Miles' 1979 essay "A Portrait of the Marxist as a Young Hegelian: Lukács' Theory of the Novel," (PMLA vol. 94 no. 1), which is a really clear exposition of the place of this book in Lukács work and its relation to German idealism before it and to Marxist literary criticism after it. Also only 14 pages long.

The Theory of the Novel has a fairly unusual and difficult writing style. It almost exclusively uses abstract language - there are only two or three paragraphs that meaningfully discuss actual plot details, in the concluding chapters on Goethe and Tolstoy - and it never varies this diction, moving pretty swiftly through its theoretical opening to its typological survey. This abstract language is mostly Hegelian (or at least "pre-Hegelian," to use Paul de Man's term), but it is not inaccessible and if anything it can be a good introduction to this type of writing - German idealism in general - since there are many much longer and denser works in the tradition. It's also full of poetic moments, particularly in the first half: the opening chapters read almost like a prose-poem commentary on Ancient Greek culture and philosophy, and it can be quite beautiful.

In trying to get my head around this work I feel compelled to comment on these unusual stylistic properties. It becomes I think weaker towards the end, as we proceed through an in-no-way-exhaustive survey of great novels, none of which actually represent unmitigated successes for Lukács - they all fail in one way or another to return to the epic (except Dostoevsky, who requires another book, never to be written!) and as Miles explains this kind of points to the central weakness of this (and many other) German idealist accounts of art, viz. the ideal, both of form and content, lies in an imagined golden or classical past (which was actually a stratified slaveholding society). It seems somewhat weak, somewhat unsatisfying, to read a series of quick accounts of Cervantes, Goethe, Flaubert, and Tolstoy that focus on their failures at the expense of their concrete successes or immanent details. Lukács also has quite a sweeping and generalising feeling for the historico-philosophical moments (to use his hyphenation) of each of these works, which makes the accounts seem distant and unenlightening. His prose is powerful, and almost otherworldly, at the beginning of the work, as though Lukács were actually performing (as he very clearly does in the surprising first sentence, which just throws you into the past) his thesis that there is a 'philosophy of the history of forms' and that forms can speak this philosophy into being. This prose is happy to trade in abstract concepts because it is classically and confidently philosophical: it has things to tell you about essences, about soul, object, and world.

Here is a useful long quote: "the Greeks traveled in history itself through all the stages that correspond a priori to the great forms; their history of art is a metaphysico-genetic [not totally sure what this is] aesthetic, their cultural development a philosophy of history. Within this process, substance was reduced from Homer's absolute immanence of life to Plato's likewise absolute yet tangible and graspable transcendence; and the stages of the process, which are clearly and sharply distinct from one another (no gradual transitions here!) and in which the meaning of the process is laid down as though in eternal hieroglyphics - these stages are the great and timeless paradigmatic forms of world literature: epic, tragedy, philosophy. The world of the epic answers the question: how can life become essential?" (35). I think when first reading this passage it didn't hit me that Lukács had slipped philosophy in with the two other genres and explictly labelled it a 'literature.' He doesn't really need to answer a lot of the questions that we might conventionally pose the literary theorist, such as 'why read literature' or 'what does literature tell us about the world or our society' because here it is basically evident that all these textual productions share the aims of philosophy: it's about the examined life, examining your concepts and getting to essences and truths.

Lukács develops this thesis by talking about the role of the subject as artist. The writer has an "ethic" (pp. 66, 115) whereby they articulate their (soul's) relationship to the world and to essences, and in so doing we learn about how social structures (at least insofar as they are represented in novels) either do or do not facilitate the soul's grasping of itself and of objects and essences.

Lukács doesn't really consider the act of reading in this book: he uses subject interchangeably with writer, as a translator's note points out, and the thing that he's analysing is almost less the content of the novels than the method by which the artist-subject assembled them (or formed their totalities, which no longer simply copy the world but must recreate its lost unity) such that he can tell us in concrete detail about how the soul of the writer grasps an essence, i.e. Socratically or otherwise. We might worry that there's a bit of a gap here concerning the reading rather than the writing subject, but I think Lukács' conception of novels does not totally contradict Barthes'. The Lukácsian novel's philosophical work, its philosophical richness, is maybe not dissimilar from Barthes' writable text: like a Platonic dialogue, it takes you, and your soul, through a journey or a process, perhaps dialectical, towards the understanding of an essence. It's not that Lukács unduly elevates the author-function or the transcendental signifier: on the contrary and ironically, all of Lukács' authors end up quite similar to each other, because they are all, for him, engaged in exactly the same task, and fail according to the same criteria.

This was a good and difficult read. I recommend having an interest in at least one of the authors whom he discusses, or in Ancient Greek literature (or perhaps Virgil, who is criminally underexplored by Lukács!), because there is much to critique and expand on here. I also sincerely recommend reading the 1962 preface after you have read the actual text, because it doesn't really elaborate or introduce the material, but is instead partly an interesting contextual note and partly an auto-critique. It helps I think to pull you out of the strong stylistic voice I have identified and into an awareness of the incompleteness of this work as a youthful moment in Lukács' overall development (interrupted by his own historico-philosophical circumstances, as always).

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful... Hegel's last roar.

In ancient times, everywhere we went was home. Now we are homeless and lonely and disintegrated and looking for meaning in all the wrong places. The novel is this cry. But we'll all come back to Ithaca one day and destroy all the suitors. Everywhere will be home again and again and again.

(He didn't know it then, but Ithaca is Marx.)

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

El filósofo, pensador y teórico húngaro György Lukács elabora en este, su lúcido ensayo escrito en 1916 todas las interpretaciones posibles de la épica, la epopeya, la tragedia, el drama y la novela bajo su influencia hegeliana nos va desmenuzando la literatura a través de los siglos, desde la época de los griegos, haciendo alto en lo grandes sucesos literarios como La divina comedia de Dante, Don Quijote de la Mancha, el Wilhelm Meister de Goethe, de Flaubert y Balzac en Francia, las distintas vertientes del Romanticismo, la naturaleza de las novelas de Tolstói e incluso un acercamiento a Dostoievski de quien afirma que "no escribe novelas".
El único escollo que posee este libro es el la prosa bastante densa y difícil de digerir de Lukács que hace que el lector deba releer constantemente algunos párrafos para avanzar en la comprensión del texto que por momentos roza lo barroco.

[Farnaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب نقدی مارکسیستی به آثار بالزاک، استندال و زولاست که که با همین رویکرد، آثار اون‌ها رو بررسی می‌کنه. به زبان دیگر، بسط اینکه چجوری رمان می‌تونه دلالت‌های اجتماعی داشته باشه و هرکدوم از این نویسنده‌ها چطور این رو در کتاباشون نشون دادن.
خوندنش برای من فوق‌العاده لذت‌بخش بود و می‌تونم بگم که پوینده به خوبی از ترجمه‌ی این اثر براومده.
قبل از خوندن این کتاب لازمه که یه تسلط حداقلی به آثار این نویسنده‌هایی که اسم بردم و همچنین فلوبر و هوگو داشته باشید و با جریان‌های ادبی هم یک آشنایی حداقلی داشته باشید.

[Benn Uzayy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beklentileri karşılayan bir kitap olduğunu düşünmüyorum. Kitabın başlığı romanın tarihsel bir süreci ya da diyalektiği gibi farklı yaklaşımları olabilirmiş :)
Kitapın edebi ağırlığından çok felsefi, sosyolojik çözümlemeleri ağır basıyor ve anlamayı ve ilerlemeyi zorlaştırıyor.. Doğru değerlendirmenin zor olduğunu düşündüğüm bir kitap...

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

changed the way i read fiction. forever.

[Paul O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lukacs penned a real headache of a book here. Written around the time of his "conversion" to Marxism, this detailed and viscid work alludes to some of the background thoughts that must have bounced around the back of Gyorgy's mind. The notion that the world is "out of joint". That art reflects man's relationship with his world. That struggle should, if not must, lead to something better, whatever that might be. Simplistically stated, Lukacs views the epic as a golden age where man, his gods, nature, and the world all lived as one in harmony. This also explains why the epic need pass as an artistic form, my apologies to the author of Parliament of Poets. Global assessments lead to peculiar statements from Lukacs to justify his codifications. For instance, he charges the ancient Greeks with only having the ability to answer, not question, due to their epic form of their life & Art. Tragedy provides the rise and necessary separation of the heroic individual from his people, community and world. According to Lukacs, this does not lead to egotism, but rather a stark loneliness that prompts the hero to wonder why all others, who are ostensibly the same as he, and possessing each of like essence, shouldn't "fall into each other's arms" in comradeship. This does not happen, thus paving man's new found plight forward from this drama of separation into the outright conflict of the novel. The novel, by Lukacs' definition, seems to be an epic of chaos(so, no longer an epic) which is bereft of its gods, bereft of its harmony, bereft of its human & world community. The road back to the epic and an epic living world seems to be the hidden goal behind Lukacs' analysis. Tolstoy is the last practitioner of the novel assessed by Lukacs meaningfully in this work, but he's dismissed as a utopian of nature. Dostoevsky is mentioned briefly as not being a novelist, but promptly dropped to end the work. He is Lukacs' herald & hope for the beginning a "new world" and a "renewed epic". Lukacs is very clear, however, that art follows reality like a mirror. This, undoubtedly, is when and where Lukacs' Marxism walks through the door....
Right on cue.

[Katrinka]

Lukács was Very Serious about the novel, and the many dangers of constructing it in certain ways. No frivolity here, people! Buckle down!

[Stela · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’ai essayé de me rappeler, en lisant La théorie du roman de Georges Lukacs, si ce livre était inclus parmi ceux qu’il fallait étudier à l’université et si oui, pourquoi je ne l’ai jamais lu. Peut-être le motif est, tout simplement, parce qu’il faisait partie de ces fameuses lectures obligatoires que je m’obstinais à ne pas lire comme un proteste silencieux (on était dans les années ’80, la pire période du socialisme roumain), contre tout ce qui avait trait à l’idéologie communiste. En tout cas, je suis restée avec des séquelles et préjugés même trente ans après car, tout au long de cette lecture, les implications marxistes du petit ouvrage ont ombragé pour moi, presque irrémédiablement, son incontestable importance philosophique et littéraire. Voilà pourquoi mes notes de lecture manquent un peu d’enthousiasme, même si, au froid, je dois accepter sa valeur.

Il semble que les critiques à l’intérieur du Parti communiste dont il faisait partie et qui considérait la plupart des œuvres de Lukacs plus ou moins subversives, aient déterminé l’auteur de refuser une réédition de son essai (paru en 1920) pendant plus de 40 ans. En tout cas, dans l’Avant-propos de la seconde édition, écrit en 1962, il refuse toujours de le considérer une œuvre « essentielle » en le traitant, un peu condescendent, de travail enthousiaste mais assez superficiel, de jeunesse. En se souvenant que l’étude a été ébauchée en 1914 comme une réaction au fait que la social-démocratie de ces temps-là avait approuvé la guerre, contrairement aux opinions de l’intelligentsia de gauche avec laquelle l’auteur s’identifiait, il se désiste de la méthode utilisée (de créer les concepts généraux à partir de quelques traits caractéristiques d’une orientation, période, pour descendre par après vers les phénomènes singuliers afin d’avoir la vue d’ensemble), qu’il aurait choisie plutôt parce qu’elle était à la mode que parce qu’elle était vraiment efficace. Enfin, le plus grand mérite qu’il trouve à son essai est par rapport à la pensée matérialiste-dialectique :

…la Théorie du roman me semble le premier livre où une éthique de gauche, orientée vers une révolution radicale, se combine à une exégèse traditionnelle et conventionnelle de la réalité.

L’étude a deux parties : une théorique, qui met en relation les formes du genre épique avec la civilisation et une « pratique », c’est-à-dire des études proprement-dites des œuvres littéraires.

Les formes épiques, affirme l’auteur, ont changé en fonction du rapport entre l’homme et la société. Les temps heureux, comme l’âge de l’épopée, n’ont pas de philosophie, car toute philosophie nait de la faille entre le moi et le monde. Jadis, les civilisations étaient closes et unitaires, car la Divinité était proche de l’homme, connue comme le père est connu par ses enfants. La seule question que l’épopée se pose est comment la vie peut devenir essentielle, et la réponse a été donnée a priori par Homère.

Pour l’homme moderne cependant il n’y plus de place dans le cercle métaphysique étroit des Grecs, puisque les archétypes n’ont plus de relevance pour lui :

Notre monde est devenu immensément grand et, en chacun de ses recoins, plus riche en dons et périls que celui des Grecs ; mais cette richesse même fait disparaître le sens positif sur lequel reposait leur vie : la totalité.

Les différences entre les deux formes, épopée et roman, proviennent justement de cette opposition : totalité/ isolement ce qui se voit à tous les niveaux narratifs : structure, personnages, trame, style, etc. par exemple, tandis que le héros de l’épopée n’est pas en effet un individu, son destin étant celui de la communauté avec laquelle partage le monde intérieur, le héros de roman est isolé du monde extérieur, il n’a plus de dieux et ses actes perdent leur valeur de symbole. En ce qui concerne la trame, le crime et la folie, par exemple, qui n’existent pas dans l’épopée (où le premier est toujours contrebalancé par le châtiment et la deuxième a valeur plutôt symbolique ou est un déclencheur d’intrigue) sont dans le roman des frontières psychologiques, en séparant le crime de l’héroïsme positif, et la folie de la sagesse. D’ailleurs, l’intention éthique devient essentielle dans la construction du roman, en lui donnant l’apparence d’un processus (par opposition aux formes achevées des autres genres littéraires) ce qui le rend finalement le plus exposé au péril de ne pas être considéré qu’à moitié comme un art :

…le roman est le seul genre qui possède une caricature qui, par tout ce qui n’est pas essentiel dans sa forme, lui ressemble presque à s’y méprendre : la littérature de divertissement offrant tous les caractères extérieurs du roman mais qui, dans son essence, n’est liée à rien, ne repose sur rien et manque, par conséquent, de toute signification.

Du point de vue chronologique et / ou normatif l’épopée serait donc la littérature de l’enfance et de la jeunesse, avec un équilibre parfait entre l’univers intérieur et celui extérieur. C’est avec le roman que la littérature arrive à la maturité virile, et l’harmonie entre les deux univers se brise pour toujours. L’antagonisme entre le héros et la société n’arrive pas quand même à les séparer, le personnage restant lié aux valeurs périmés de ce monde, d’une façon dégradée et indirecte (appelée par l’auteur « démonique » par rapport au divin). De plus, ces valeurs ne sont pas explicites dans la conscience du héros, seulement dans celle de l’écrivain, et plutôt comme une exigence conceptuelle, éthique que comme une réalité entièrement vécue, d’où l’attitude ironique de l’auteur envers sa propre œuvre, étant donné qu’il connaît d’avance le caractère vain et démonique des recherches de son héros.

C’est donc l’insuffisance, le caractère problématique de ces valeurs, non seulement dans la conscience du héros, mais aussi dans celle de l’auteur qui explique la naissance de la forme romanesque.

De cette opposition entre l’homme et le monde, entre l’individu et la société naissent trois types fondamentaux de roman : le roman de l’idéalisme abstrait, le roman psychologique et le roman éducatif.

Le roman de l’idéalisme abstrait, tels Don Quichotte, ou Le Rouge et le Noir, produit un héros dont la conscience est trop étroite par rapport à la complexité du monde, qui part à la recherche des valeurs absolues qu’il ne connaît pas et dont il ne peut pas se rapprocher. Sa recherche énergique mais sisyphique, qui semble toujours progresser sans jamais avancer, a été illustrée par l’auteur à l’aide d’une image inspirée : « Le chemin est fini, le voyage est commencé ».
Au contraire, dans le roman psychologique, hanté du « romantisme de la désillusion », tel L’éducation sentimentale, c’est l’âme du héros qui est trop large pour s’adapter au monde. Le héros reste passif, vaincu à l’avance par le temps qui s’interpose entre lui et l’absolu.

Enfin, le roman éducatif, tel Les années d’apprentissage de Wilhelm Meister, est une synthèse, une voie moyenne entre les deux. Le héros envisageant un équilibre entre l’action (« la volonté d’intervenir efficacement dans le monde ») et la contemplation (« l’aptitude réceptrice » à l’égard du monde), arrive à un renoncement conscient au monde extérieur, duquel il s’isole sans néanmoins désespérer.

Le dernier chapitre, « Tolstoï et le dépassement des formes sociales de la vie », voit dans l’écrivain russe le seul qui, par le thème du retour à la nature (où se refugient ses héros insatisfaits de l’univers de culture qui les entoure), offre la promesse parfois d’un monde alternatif, le seul vrai, qui pourrait s’échapper à ces catégories du roman et retourner à l’épopée. Seulement Dostoïevski, conclut l’auteur, saura accomplir cette promesse, mais Dostoïevski déjà n’écrivait plus de romans proprement-dits.


Dans la postface intitulée « Introduction aux premiers écrits de Georges Lukacs », Lucien Goldman affirme que l’essai pourrait être lu comme une analyse marxiste et dialectique de la forme romanesque conçue sur le modèle du marché libéral du Capital, car l’histoire du roman est similaire à celle de la bourgeoisie. L’univers romanesque ne peut avoir un héros positif d’une part parce qu’il se rapporte à ses valeurs implicites, qui lui donnent un caractère ambivalent (positif et négatif à la fois) et d’autre part à cause de l’antithèse entre le monde conventionnel et le héros problématique « dont la vie est constituée uniquement par la recherche, dégradée et démonique, de ces valeurs authentiques. » La description de Marx de la société libérale produisant pour le marché n’est pas différente : la production est régie par les valeurs d’usage, de consommation, qui sont devenues implicites, et son seul souci est quantitatif. Les relations humaines ont été remplacées par le prix des marchandises, le secteur économique dominant la vie sociale et agissant plus fortement que les autres secteurs, pourvu que « dans cette société les médiations fondées sur la fonction active de la conscience aient tendance a disparaître pour faire place à une liaison directe entre la vie économique et la vie d’esprit. »

Goldman, en justifiant son inclusion de la Théorie du roman dans une analyse marxiste globale par l’évolution ultérieure de la pensée de Lukacs, considère que cette clé de lecture est importante pour la meilleure compréhension de son essai. Quant à moi, pour reprendre ce que je disais au début, c’est malheureusement ce qui lui nuit un peu.

[Drew Gullahorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel is the epic of a world that has been abandoned by God. Epic!

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

totality, essence, transcendental homelessness, self as home, form as search for meaning. super beautifully written and opens up a ton but i am not 100% there on all of it

[Gerardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Testo molto complesso, seppure breve. Il periodare è ciceroniano, lo stile barocco. Non è facile andare avanti con la lettura, vista la profondità di ogni singola espressione. Tuttavia, bisogna ammettere che gran parte delle difficoltà derivano dal passaggio dal tedesco all'italiano. Bisogna render merito a questa traduzione, che si difende bene in mezzo a tutte queste difficoltà.

L'operazione di L. è ambiziosa: definire le caratteristiche base delle forme narrative nella cultura occidentale. Seppure egli riconosca la presenza di vari stadi intermedi, il testo si fonda sulla presenza di due forme: l'epica e il romanzo.

L'epica ha il compito di rappresentare l'azione di eroi in armonia con il proprio mondo. Ogni eroe, nell'epica, è ciò che è e vuole essere ciò che è. Anche i personaggi più conflittuali prendono su di loro la responsabilità del proprio conflitto, diventano il proprio conflitto e lo risolvono con la morte (la tragedia è la forma che inserisce la conflittualità nell'epica, ma di questa non ne scalfisce l'armonia).

Nel romanzo, invece, l'armonia si spezza: il mondo e l'individuo non combaciano, vivono accostati in maniera forzata, convivono come due pezzi di puzzle malamente assortiti. L'idealismo ricerca la propria armonia nell'utopia, la quale, però, risulta lontana dalla realtà. Il romanticismo, invece, eleva il mondo interiore a vero mondo, ricercando un'armonia intera: ma ancora una volta, il mondo esterno, ferocemente, ricorda che il tutto è soltanto un'illusione. Di fatto, dalla consapevolezza di questa illusione scaturirà il romanzo, per l'appunto, della disillusione che ha come massimo esponente Flaubert.

Il modo di pensare e la struttura dell'opera si basa sull'Aufheben hegeliana. Volgarmente, se l'epica è la tesi, il romanzo sarà la sua antitesi. Eppure, sintesi non c'è o, meglio, non c'è ancora: intravede in Dostojevskij una forma altra in cui il romanzo, finalmente, raggiunge l'armonia dell'epica. Ma di lui si accenna solo nell'ultima pagina.

Per palati fini e robusti.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es divertido leer a Lukács en este texto, antes de la crítica marxista y, quizás, muchas reflexiones más atinadas que las aquí presentadas. El espíritu del libro, más que sus aciertos críticos, es lo que me gusta: una certeza en la literatura como forma de vida, y en la novela como voz de un tiempo convulso (pero, ¿qué tiempo no lo ha sido?, podría objetársele).

La primera parte, como intento de genealogía desde las formas clásicas de la épica y la epopeya hasta la novela moderna, funciona como introducción para cualquiera que quiera profundizar en esa línea de la teoría literaria. Lo más interesante es el comentario sobre las sociedades abiertas y las sociedades cerradas, la idea del individuo integrado o aislado como punto de partida para la forma de la creación literaria.

La segunda parte, clasificadora ya de las creaciones propuestas por ese individuo aislado, consiguió hacerme sonreír de comienzo a fin. La selección de novelas a analizar (de Cervantes a Flaubert, de Flaubert a Goethe, de Goethe a Tolstoi, y finalmente de Tolstoi a Dostoievski) consigue dibujar un arco donde no veo reclamos argumentativos posibles, se puede estar o no de acuerdo, pero la lógica presentada desde el idealismo abstracto hasta la segunda naturaleza de Tolstoi es sólida, metafísica, tal vez, pero "es que no como", citando a Rocinante.

Por fuera de la broma (inevitable en la línea anterior), me gustan los autores que se atreven a escribir de la lectura como experiencia espiritual, los críticos que, más que asomarse a una obra con un aparato definido de conceptos, parecen abismarse en un oráculo del que regresan con presagios a veces incomprensibles.

Después de todo, ¿no fue la primera literatura, acaso, esas hojas compuestas por la Sibila, cuyo contenido y mensaje barría el viento cada vez que se abría la puerta de la cueva? ¿No somos, en cada lectura, el troyano derrotado en búsqueda de su nuevo hogar?

[Sissel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't understand much, to be honest. I'm reading this for class, and I'm told that I will have to read it several times to understand the points that the author is trying to make. I guess I should start reading it again then..

[Ana Builes · Rating 4 out of 5]

De los marxistas que he leído, Lukacs me gustado más. Sus ensayos críticos, aunque complejos, están escritos con una delicadeza digna de ser leída.
Esta es la tercera vez que lo leo, cada vez es enriquecedor y más provechoso.

[André Taniguchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um bom intelectual nem sempre se traduz em um bom escritor.
O bom livro de teoria é aquele que se faz compreender com poucas palavras, essa é a mágica do bom professor/escritor. Muitos dos grandes gênios tiveram pouca aptidão em formular as suas ideias em palavras, esse parece ser o caso de Lukács.

[Robert Nield · Rating 1 out of 5]

This does not rise to a level where it can be taken seriously as literary theory.

(Disclaimer: read in English translation)

Lukacs's theory of what the novel is largely his theory of what the epic isn't. This is a rehashing of Romantic theories of modernity, and obligingly follows such theories in a puzzling simplification of the epic world as one of simple organic moral agreement in order to differentiate it on an essential level from modern literature. Lukacs seems to skip in his assessment of the epic from the Odyssey to Dante, which is a gap over a thousand years larger than the entire history of the novel as he envisages it. He makes inexcusable factual errors while overegging some of the incidental differences between the epic and the novel (for instance, the plot of the Iliad does not last ten years but a few weeks, which is much closer to Lukacs's thoughts on the biographical novel).

This is all done with a barrage of quasi-technical language, often used with meanings so idiosyncratic as to render them obscure, and a number of provoking assertions about a heavily filleted selection of literary landmarks (of the Divine Comedy, ‘it was possible for an epic to be created at a time when the historico-philosophical situation was already beginning to demand the novel.’ (p. 70)).

These seem to exist largely to distract from deficiencies in advancing the core argument:

What precisely is the essential difference in the historical situation between the epic and the novel? What is the evidence for that difference? When specifically did it emerge? Why? By what mechanism does a historico-philosophical situation determine what can be written? These questions must be answered for this book to represent a minimum viable case. As the work is so heavily derivative of Romanticism, it generates its most interesting insights in the later chapters on Romantic novels, but these too are inflected by a purely negative idea of the process of writing literature, that it is (or even that it has to be) the pursuit of solipsistic philosopher-authors writing purely for themselves falling short of an essential form which is dictated to them by circumstances.

Of historical interest only. Intellectually tepid, and far too much work for far too little insight.

[Sophie Kemp]

had basically no idea what was going on for 88% of this. thank u to my boyfriend for letting me borrow his copy.

[Maya Lerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the unorthodox, deceptively beautiful writing style. An essential essay on literary form that I can tell will influence my perspective on future reading.

[Alejandro Orradre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Corto pero intenso ensayo acerca de la literatura en el que György Lukács expone su teoría acerca del género novelesco: sus orígenes y los cambios que ha sufrido a lo largo de la Historia, sus vertientes filosóficas, la búsqueda de la verdad a través de la literatura y las últimas transformaciones de finales del siglo XIX a manos de Tolstói y Dostoievsky.

Teoría de la novela es un trabajo deudor de su tiempo (escrita en 1916) y su tono demasiado académico hacen que su lectura, aunque de pocas páginas tenga que ser tomado como un trabajo pausado y concienzudo. Se podría leer en una tarde pero para entenderlo o al menos comprender lo que intenta explicar el autor quizás se requeriría de una semana entera. Y pese a ello resulta a veces demasiado profundo y con cierta tendencia a pensamientos demasiado abstractos y ambiguos.

No apto para todos los públicos, es ideal para quien sea amante de los ensayos filosóficos y sobre literatura.

[Marcos Francisco Muñoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.8/5
Lukács era un hombre brillante, no hay manera de discutir eso. Y este libro solo afianza su reputación.
Mi problema con este libro es que pretendí encontrarme con una teoría de la novela, pero el texto es más un intento de crear una historia filosófica de la novela, atravesada por un fanatismo casi ciego hacia el idealismo alemán. El autor pone como figuras principales y casi antagónicos (en su teoría) a Homero y Dante, representates mayores cada uno en su era de la Épica poética y si bien la mayoría de argumentos ganan fuerza con una poesía (digan lo que digan de Lukács, aun cuando uno debe releer uno que otro párrafo cinco veces para poder aprehenderlo por completo) propia, que sangra de las letras; es difícil no interpretar gran parte del libro como un despotricamiento contra las nuevas y venideras formas de narrar que uno bien puede interpretar como miedo a lo desconocido, pero eso es puramente especulativo.

[Manuel Correa · Rating 3 out of 5]

La condición ontológica de la novela como expresión del mundo desencantado por la insuficiencia de la metafísica. Lukács es uno de estos autores que se toman en serio el arte como algo que imprime incidencias en las fracturas del ser... Pero para él esto se cumple solamente en la novela. Yo diría que su percepción de la poesía (y lo poético) es insuficiente..., que el carácter de la ironía atribuido a la novela bien podría decirse de la poesía en primer lugar y digo en primer lugar porque en ella se quiebra el encanto de la vida como tal, desde el momento en que Platón la ha expulsado de la polis, precisamente, por ser demónica.

Pero el daimon al que Lukács alude es uno digno de los desencantos de principios del siglo XX (pasando por aquellos, propiamente filosóficos, venidos desde Schopenhauer y sus alumnos en el s. XIX) que, sin duda, se deben reivindicar.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Georg Lukács wrote The Theory of the Novel in 1914-1915, a period that also saw the conception of Rosa Luxemburg's Spartacus Letters, Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Spengler's Decline of the West, and Ernst Bloch's Spirit of Utopia. Like many of Lukács's early essays, it is a radical critique of bourgeois culture and stems from a specific Central European philosophy of life and tradition of dialectical idealism whose originators include Kant, Hegel, Novalis, Marx, Kierkegaard, Simmel, Weber, and Husserl.

[Feral Academic · Rating 3 out of 5]

After much eye rolling, this is over. He has a melodramatic way of saying things that as far as I can tell belongs to the (continental) decade in which he wrote this, and some of his points are just bullshit, but there are some interesting points here and his discussion of time in the novel in particular is important and good. Overall, it hasn't changed my life but I liked it.

[Monica O'Brien]

If you like philosophy and you like literature, this is the book for you!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A slender yet firm rainbow that bridges the bottomless depths"