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to the Kadar government. An old man now, he seems mainly devotedto finishing an ambitious three-volume work on esthetics.The Historical Novel was written during the worst years of the Rus sian terror, yet it shows few signs of conscious adaptation to Stalinistapologetics. There is the standard praise for Maxim Gorky as "thegreatest writer of our time," and an apparent readiness to take seriouslysuch third-rate "progressive" writers as Lion Feuchtwanger; indeed,the book clearly declines in its last chapter, as Lukacs, turning to con temporary novelists, finds the pressures of political obligation to beincreasing. But in its bulk The Historical Novel is a work of thought ful historical scholarship that should prove valuable even to those whooppose Marxism on principle- for the mind unable to learn from itsopponents is a mind gone dead.The book is rich with those insights and nuances of perception wehave come to expect from the disinterested literary critic (the analysisof Scott's mediocre heroes, the passage on Stendhal's relation to theEnlightenment, the sustained comparison of Scott, Manzoni and Push kin, the polemic against psychological "modernizing" in historicalfiction, the comparison between history in the novel and history indrama). Nothing, I would judge, in The Historical Novel quite matchesthe sheer critical brilliance of Lukacs' essays on Stendhal and Balzacin his Studies in European Realism; the price for choosing to composea survey of the development of a genre is an inability to focus at lengthupon particular texts, while thereward is an admirable comprehensive ness and sweep of judgment, an exercise in theoretical inquiry such aswe Americans too seldom risk. Lukacs' criticism is radically differentin method and assumption from the nominalist drudgery which hasbeen so fashionable- and often so useful- in America these pastfew decades; it ought to provoke us to some fruitful questions, com parisons and revisions.In reading The Historical Novel one repeatedly experiences thatspecial thrill of pleasure which comes from encountering a first-rateliterary mind. Even when it is hard to accept Lukacs' particular judg ment (such as the high praise for Scqtt), or ·when one is disturbed bya sudden drop into dogmatics (such as the section on French classicaldrama), or is annoyed by an almost willful miscomprehension of anintellectual opponent (such as the remarks about Nietzsche), one can not forget that this man commands the resources of classical Europeanculture, that he employs a mind of great dialectical skill, and that hehas a deep love for literature in its own right. Unlike so many would-beMarxist critics, Lukacs turns to literature not because it provides himwith political opportunities but because he has been involved with itfor a lifetime and has experienced the passion of the true scholar. Histheoretical constructions are finally at the service of- they do notmerely dictate- his task as a literary critic. And The Historical Novelprovides evidence, if any be needed, that in the hands of a serious andgifted writer Marxism can be a powerful tool for the· investigation ofwhat might be called the problems of pre-criticism. It can, that is,9

illuminate particulars of literary setting and compositional bias; it canexplain the historic coloration of a writer's outlook; it can provide uswith a sense of the hidden social coordinates of a work of literature,those references and implications that help bind it together and mustbe grasped if the work is not to be obscure.Though Lukacs is concerned with the external relations between thehistorical process and the development of literature, and though hestops to examine the illumination a literary work can provide upon theepoch in which it appears, these are not finally the questions thatinterest him most. The essential theme of his book is a problem inliterary criticism: How does a historical consciousness become em bodied in a work of art? Repeatedly Lukacs turns to "the increasingconcreteness of the novel in its grasp of the historical peculiarity ofcharacters and events"; repeatedly to that self-reflexiveness in thedominant characters of the modern novel, which he sees as the sense ofhistory become part of experience and. thereby transformed into adynami agent reflecting and acting upon the dialectical contradictionsof the outer world. It is this union of consciousness and historic processwhich most concerns Lukacs, and it concerns him primarily as asympathetic critic trying to discover the "class timbre" of those novel ists who choose moments of historical conflict as their setting andtheme.The problems Lukacs encounters it would be absurd to discuss inso brief an introduction. But let me at least mention two of them.Lukacs begins with large historical concepts but soon turns to criticaldetails and particulars, so that unexpectedly 'his work can be read withprofit as a contribution to the study of literary genres. And throughoutthe book he grapples, at times a bit surreptitously, with the problem ofthe relation in literature between the historically conditioned and thesupra-historical, the theme that is socially and temporally defined andthe theme that seems, in addition, to evoke a universal element of thehuman condition. Though not as free or bold as he might be on thismatter- a comparison with the critical writings of Sartre and Camusis not entirely to his advantage- Lukacs is genuinely troubled by theproblem, for he understands that the prinCiple of historicity shouldnot be made into an absolute but must be set against some principleof opposition.I write these few remarks in the hope of encouraging a wide readingof The Historical Novel and a program for translating more of Lukacs'books. Meanwhile, I would urge readers wishing more material aboutLukacs' career to look up the first-rate study by Morris Watnick inSoviet Survey, January-March 1958, as well as the thoughtful essay byLaurent Stern in Dissent, Spring 1958, to both of which· I am indebtedfor a good many of the facts in this introduction.10

Translator's NoteSHOULD like to draw attention to the following points.First, wherever possible we have translated quotations ofnon-German authors from their original language (e.g. French orRussian) rather than from the German in which they are given. Thishas sometimes produced certain slight divergences from their Germanrenderings. Where verse quotations are concerned we have providedliteral translations for the German passages, while for the Frenchquotations (the only other language in question here), which are allgiven in the original, we have assumed a greater familiarity on thepart of the reader and left them as they are.Secondly, in omitting sources for quotations we have followed thepractice of the original text.Thirdly, with the exception of the term Novelle we have renderedall Lukacs's specific literary and philosophic terms into English, vary ing their translation where a fixed word-for-word rendering wouldnot adequately convey them. Sometimes we have indicated theoriginal German word in parentheses.Finally, a translator's apology : it has been difficult to produce areadable English version of a highly theoretical idiom in the German.WEH.&S. M.We add the following explanatory notes to aid the reader un familiar with certain names and references.pp.29,90Mikhail Lifschitz-a well-known Soviet critic who has written onMarx's philosophy of art.p.54Hsocial equivalent"-the phrase belongs to Plekhanov, the RussianMarxist critic, who wrote: HThe first task of a critic is to translatethe idea of a given work of art from the language of art intothe language of sociology, to find what may be termed the socialequivalent of the given literary phenomenon."(Preface to the 3rd edition of the collectionYears, 1908.)11The Past Twenty

Plekhanov was criticised by Lenin and other Marxists for lapsesinto sociological relativism. The concept 41Social equivalent ", derivedperhaps from Taine, was used. by the "vulgar sociology" whichLukacs attacks. 16Hfor us"-Engels wrote: "If we are able to prove the correctness ofour conception of a natural process by making it for ourselves, bring ing it into being out of i ts conditions, and using it for our ownpurposes into the bargain, then there is an end of the Kantian in comprehensible 'thing-in-itself'. The chemical substances produced inthe bodies of plants and animals remained just such 'things-in-them selves' until organic chemistry began to produce them one afteranother, whereupon the 'thing-in-itself' became a 'thing-for-us' . . . "Lukacs applies this ideaof reality.mutatis mutandis(Ludwig Feuerbach)to the literary treatmentpp.246,247,249Friedrich Gundolf-an influential German critic, associated withthe Stefan George circle.p.247Biedermeier-the period 181 5-1848, i.e., from the end of theNapoleonic era to the 1848 Revolution. Biedermeier is the worthy,Philistine, middle-class German, so called after a poem by one Eichrodtwhich appeared in 1850.p. 263Jose Diaz-Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party from 193242.12

Preface to the English EditionHISwas composed during the winter of 1 93 6/7 and pub Tililished in Russian soon a,fter its completion. If today I present itBOOKto e English reader without any changes, my decision requires someexplanation. For, obviously, the past twenty-two years have con siderably increased the material of the last chapter. To quote justone example: a detailed analysis of the concluding second part ofHeinrich Mann's Henri Quatre, which has since appeared, wouldcertainly heighten the concreteness and topicality of the last chapter.The same goes for the later novels of Lion Feuchtwanger. But evenmore important than this is the fact that the picture of the timesand the perspective it reveals are those of twenty-two years ago. Cer tain expectations have proved too optimistic, have been belied byhistorical events. For example, the book pins exaggerated, indeedfalse, hopes on the independent liberation movement of the Germanpeople, on the Spanish revolution etc.If I neither fill in the gaps nor correct the mistakes, but allow thebook to appear as it was more than twenty-two years ago, it is chieflybecause my present circumstances of work do not permit me to reviseit to any worthwhile extent. I was thus faced with the choice eitherof publishing it unaltered or not at all.This explanation, however, would be inadequate from a scholarlypoint of view were the literatuTe of the past two decades able to affectthe questions I deal with or the value and significance of my resultsin any decisive way. Which would indeed be the case if the questionposed by my book were purely liteTary-historical, if its subject andtheme were the development of the historical novel (or the historicaldrama) or even simply the unfolding of the historical spirit, its declineand Tebirth.However, as the reader will see, this is not the case. My aims wereof a theoTetical nature. What I had in mind was a theoretical examina tion of the interaction between the historical spirit and the greatgenres of literature which portray the totality of history-and thenonly as this applied to bourgeois literature; the change wrought bysocialist realism lay outside the scope of my study. In such an enquiryit is obvious that even the inner, most theoretical, most abstract dia lectic of the problem will have an historical character. My study isconfined to working out the main lines of this historical dialectic :that is, it analyzes and examines only the typical trends, offshootsand nodal points of this historical development, those indispensable13

THE HISTORICAL NOVELto a theoretical examination. Hence it does not aim at historical com pleteness. The reader must not expect a textbook on the developmentof the historical drama or the historical novel; he will find a discussionsimply of writers, works and movements who are representative fromthis theoretical standpoint. Hence in some cases I have had to dealat length with lesser writers (i.e. from the purely literary point ofview), while disregarding more important ones in other cases.This approach also enabled me to leave the old conclusion un changed. The hook ended with the German anti-Fascist literature of193 7. This was made possible, I believe, by the fact that the theoretic ally important questions-in the first instance the strengths and givenweaknesses of the time both in respect of outlook and politics as wellas aesthetics-had found a sufficiently clear expression in preciselythis literature. The new important historical novels, like HalldorLaxness's The Bell of Iceland and Lampedusa's The Leopard (particu larly its first half) confirm the principles I arrived at in a positive direc tion. In a critical-negative respect these theoretical conclusions haveperhaps stood the test even better. For the fact that the historicalnovels which make the most noise today are those which accommodatea purely helletrist treatment of life to the latest fashions cannot affectthe foundations of the artistic form. Thus, although my politicalperspective of the time proved too optimistic, this in no way altersthe significance of the theoretical questions raised and the directionin which their solution 'is to he sought.This aim determines the methodological problem of my hook. Firstof all, as already mentioned above, the choice of material. I do nottrace an historical development 'in the narrow sense. of the word,nevertheless I do try to clarify the main lines of historical develop ment and the most important questions these have raised. The ideal,of course, would he to combine a thorough elaboration of the theoreti cal viewpoints with an exhaustive treatment of the totality of his torical development. Then, and then alone, could the real strength ofMarxist dialectics become tangible to all, could it he made clear to allthat it is not something essentially and primarily intellectual, hut theintellectual reflection of the actual historical process. But this againwas not my aim in the present work; hence I regard my hook simplyas an attempt to establish the main principles and approaches in thehope that more thorough, more comprehensive works will follow.The second important methodological approach is to examine theinteraction between economic and social development and the outlookand artistic form to which they give rise. Here an entire series of newand hitherto barely analyzed problems is to he found: the social basisof the divergence and convergence of genres, the rise and witheringaway of new elements of form within this complicated process of14

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITIONinteraction. In this respect, too, I consider my book no more than abeginning, a venture. In the concrete elaboration of Marxistaesthetics this question has as yet hardly arisen. However, no seriousMarxist genre theory is possible unless an attempt is made to applythe theory of reflection of materialist dialectics to the problem of thedifferentiation of genres. Lenin, in his analysis of Hegel's logic, ob serves brilliantly that the most abstract deductions (syllogisms) arelikewise abstract cases of the reflection of reality. I have attempted inmy book to apply this idea to epic and drama. But here again, as inthe treatment of history, I could go no further than give a methodo logical pointer to the solution of this problem. Thus this book no moreclaims to provide a complete theory of the development of dramaticand epic forms than it does to give a complete picture of the develop ment of the historical novel in the domain of history.Despite its extent it is, therefore, only an attempt, an essay: a pre liminary contribution to both Marxist aesthetics and the materialistictreatment of literary history. I cannot sufficiently emphasize hat Iconsider it, all in all, only a first beginning, which others, I hope, willsoon extend, if necessary correcting my results. I believe, however, thatin this still almost virgin territory even such a first beginning ,has itsjusti:fica tion.BUDAPEST,September, 1 960.15

ForewordHIS MONOGRAPHdoes not claim to give a detailed and completeT history of the historical novel, Apart from the lack of real spadework for such an enterprise, this was not at all what I intended. Iwished to deal with only the most important questions of principleand theory. Given the extraordinary role of the historical novel atpresent in both the literature of the USSR and the anti-Fascist popularfront, such a study of principles seems to me as indispensable as it istopical. Especially so because the historical novel of our day, despitethe great talent of its best exponents, still suffers in many respectsfrom the remnants of the harmful and still not entirely vanquishedlegacy of bourgeois decadence. If the critic really wishes to uncoverthese shortcomings, then he must turn his attention not only to theprinciples of the historical novel, but to those of literature in general.But there is an historical basis to our theoretical study. The dif ference of principles between the historical novel of the classics and ofdecadence etc. has its historical causes. And this work is intended toshow how the historical novel in its origin, development, rise anddecline follows inevitably upon the great social transformations ofmodern times; to demonstrate that its different problems of form arebut artistic reflections of these social-historical transformations.The spirit of this work then is an historical on:e. But it does not aimat historical completeness. Only those writers are dealt with whoseworks are :in some respect representative, marking typical nodal pointsin the development of the historical novel. The same principle ofselection applies to our quotations from older critics and aestheticiansand from writers who have dealt theoretically with literature. In bothspheres I have tried to show that with the historical novel as withall things else it is not a question of concocting something "radicallynew", but-as Lenin taught us-of assimilating all that is valuablein previous development and adapting it critically.It is not for me to judge how successfully or not my intentions havebeen realized. I have simply wished to put these intentions clearlybefore the reader so that he should know at the outset what to expectand what not to expect from this book.However, there is one gap to which I must draw the reader's atten tion before proceeding. As a result of my personal development I havebeen able to deal with the Russian historical novel only in translation.This is a serious and painful gap. In the older literature it was alwayspossible to treat Russian literary works of universal importance. But17

THE HISTORICAL NOVELtxanslations of Soviet literature are only sporadic, and my critic'sconscience forbids me to draw any conclusions on the basis of suchscanty and incomplete material. For this reason I have been unable todeal with the historical novel in Soviet literature. Nevertheless, I hopethat my remarks will do something to clarify these important problemsfor the Soviet reader, too, and hope especially that this gap in my workwill be made good by others as soon as possible.Moscow, September, 1937.18

CHAPTER ONEThe Classical Form of the Historical Novel1. Social and Historical Conditions for the Rise of the Historical Novelnovel arose at the beginning of the nineteenthat about the time of Napoleon's collapse (Scott'sWaverley appeared in 1814). Of course, novels with historical themesare to be found in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, too, and,should one feel inclined, one can treat medieval adaptations ofclassical history or myth as uprecursors" of the historical novel andindeed go back still further to China or India. But one will find noth ing here that sheds any real light on the phenomenon of the historicalnovel. The so-called historical novels of the seventeenth century(Scudery, Calpranede, etc.) are historical only as regards theirpurely external choice of theme and costume. Not only the psychologyof the characters, but the manners depicted are entirely those of thewriter's own day. And in the most famous uhistorical novel" of theeighteenth century, Walpole's Castle of Otranto, history is likewisetreated as mere costumery : it is only the curiosities and oddities ofthe milieu that matter, not an artistically faithful image of a concretehistorical epoch. What is lacking in the so-called historical novel be fore Sir Walter Scott is precisely the specifically historical, that is,derivation of the individuality of characters from the historical pecu liarity of their age. The great critic Boileau, who judged the historicalnovels of his contemporaries with much scepticism, insisted only thatcharacters should be socially and psychologically true, demandingthat a ruler make love differently from a shepherd, and so on. Thequestion of historical truth in the artistic reflection of reality still liesbeyond his horizon.However, even the great rea

Contents Translators' Note ll Preface to the English Edition l3 Foreword 17 ONE The Classical Form of the Historical Novel 19 1. SOCIAL ANn HISTORICAL CONDITIONS FOR THE RISE OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL 19 2.