Lukács reads Goethe

by Nicholas Vazsonyi

Long recognized as one of the foremost literary critics of the twentieth century, the Hungarian-born Georg Lukacs (1885-1971) shocked many by turning to Marxism in 1918. Using his formidable knowledge of European cultural history, he revitalized Marxist theory with his book History and Class Consciousness (1923), and continued to write extensively about literature. The ultimate question posed by this book is how Lukacs in the 1930s was able to write enthusiastically about Goethe, citing him as an ideal exponent of humanism, while simultaneously accepting and even condoning Stalinism.