Abstract:
This article discusses the inheritance of the Hegelian historical dialectic present in the young Lukács The theory of the novel, and the distancing of the Hungarian author from Hegel’s conclusions about the effective unity between the individual and modern state. The Hegelian heritage is definitive in Lukács understanding of the immanent and necessary relationship between artistic form and historical content. For Hegel, modernity and state institutions appear as the highest indicators of human freedom in history, whereas for Lukács, on the contrary, modernity is presented as the culmination of alienation between the individual and social structures, an alienating process which begins when the world of the epic is supplanted by the Greek nation-state of tragedy and philosophy.
Keywords:
Theory of the Novel; Lukács; Spirit; State; Hegel