Abstract

- Under 200 words

The category of realism, under current usage, might refer to two different ideas:
First, the historical realism, i.e. the increasing interest apparent on 19th century art,
especially on France, but sometimes generalized as a multinational phenomena, on
the depiction of reality. Realism is taken as the form artists try to deal with the rapid
changes of society under 19th century capitalism and thus, this understanding is
usually connected with theories of modernism, supporting them or being explained
by them. On the other hand, realism is also considered as an imperative in crisis, an
abstract presupposition with political undertones attach to the 20th century vision
over the development of art during capitalism, usually marked as a sign of the latter
degeneration, and a necessary category to be saved or discarded in regard to the a
new and different society. Thus, realism becomes an ideological tool to be guided by
or reacted upon.

The present series of essays pretends to elucidate the categorical development of

the notion of reality as it expresses itself through a specific phenomenon
historically, the novel. I consider the novel in its historic-dialectical development,
coming from the 18th to the 19th and early 20th century as a separate category

I find the notions of the novel as described above to depict a historical moment not
crystallized, a spiritual movement from Subject to Object abandoned and whose
traces have still not been overcome. I trace this transformation by a close reception
analysis of the literary criticism of the Hungarian-Marxist theorist Gyrgy Lukcs,
and making a clear separation of Lukcs earlier and later works. I claim that Lukcs
earlier works almost materialized the dialectical category of the novel, but also that
the movement from earlier to later works depicts the reification of this category
itself into realism in one of its forms. I pretend to assess these claims by revising the
criticism exerted over Lukcs writings from critics like Adorno, Thomas Mann,
Slavoj iek, etc. But my main concern here is to contextualize, by a close re-reading
of Lukcs sources and writings, the dialectical moment that was lost and, that by
lack of critical understanding, keeps exerting its force through repetition.