Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel

Machwerk]” and (2) the protagonist function as “the inexpressibly sublime 

suffering of the redeemer-God at His inability to come in this world [über 

sein Noch-nicht-kommen-können in dieser Welt]” (TdR 81–82).

It is not easy to determine the precise sense and reasons for Lukács’s 

presentation of the novel’s formal polarities in terms of a Gnostic—Mar-

cionistic—dualism of Creator vs. Redeemer. This specification or redefinition 

of what he understands as the “state of the world” risks ruining the in any 

case dubious historical specificity of his conception of modernity, which 

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Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel

was previously interpreted as a discontinuity with respect to a different ori-

gin (that of Greek antiquity). If, on the other hand, the talk of creators and 

redeemers, old gods and new gods, gods and demons, is not taken literally, 

but only as an extended metaphor, an elaborately ornamented analogue of 

the “modern” situation, it would have a devastating effect on the persuasive-

ness of the philosophy of history upon which Lukács’s thesis is premised. If 

naming of the demonic only allows for improvised “metaphorical” exten-

sions, then the result is only a confusing exaggeration that casts doubt on the 

initial theoretical claims.

It is also not easy to justify Lukács’s decision to quote the most famous 

lines on the demonic. Goethe’s words neither follow directly from Lukács’s 

thoughts about demons as dethroned gods (TdR 75), nor do they lend any 

direct support to his next claim that “the novel is the epic form of a world 

that the gods have abandoned” (TdR 77). In this context, Goethe’s words 

seem to testify to the experience of life in a godless world:

It [the demonic] was not divine [nicht göttlich] . . . , because it seemed 

to lack reason [es schien unvernünftig]; it was not human, because it 

had no understanding [hatte keinen Verstand]; it was not devilish, 

because it was beneficent [wohltätig]; not angelic, because it often 

betrayed Schadenfreude. It was like chance [Zufall], because it did 

not prove consequent [beweise keine Folge]; it resembled Providence 

[Vorsehung], because it gave indications of coherence [deutete auf 

Zusammenhang]. Everything that limits us [alles was uns begrenzt] 

appeared permeable [schien durchdringbar] to it; it appeared [schien] 

to arbitrarily operate [schalten] upon the necessary elements of our 

existence [die notwendigen Elementen unseres Daseins]; it drew time 

together [zog die Zeit zusammen] and expanded space [dehnte den 

Raum aus]. Only in the impossible did it seem content [schien es 

sich zu gefallen], while disdainfully thrusting away the possible [das 

Mögliche mit Verachtung von sich zu stoßen]. (TdR 76)

Lukács offers no direct comment or interpretation on this enigmatic passage. 

He also makes no special effort to introduce or mediate Goethe’s words. An 

interpretive commentary would have bordered on superfluity in any case, 

insofar as the passage itself has the form of a riddle, the answer to which is 

given as “the demonic.” It would be ludicrous to try to add or subtract from 

Goethe’s meticulously crafted personification, and every attempt to “solve” 

the riddle and call the demonic by another name would only reduce it to a 

more familiar and non-enigmatic conception.

By foregoing interpretation, the main role of this quotation in Lukács’s text 

is to be enigmatic—and perhaps to give credit to one of his theory’s sources. 

The Goethe quote is a cipher or token, which Lukács uses to characterize the 

world of the novel and the psychological dynamic of its protagonist-narrator 

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Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel 

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couplet (which is the main topic of his theory’s first part). By explicitly intro-

ducing the demonic in the Goethe citation, he installs a hiatus between the 

name (“the demonic”) and the thing it refers to (the modern state of the 

world that gave rise to the novel). Such a rupture is inevitably introduced 

whenever the demonic is called by name: as a name for the problem of the 

relation of fate and character, of human development and socialization, “the 

demonic” can only be highly improper. When any relation—including that 

of protagonist and narrator—is formalized as “demonic,” it is an affront to 

the expectation of coherence implied by the analytic terms that underlie it. 

From a certain perspective, in other words, the idea of the demonic always 

sounds like an exaggeration or a distortion. Terms of relation like “individual 

and society,” “freedom and history,” “fate and character,” “part and whole” 

implicitly presuppose the possible coherence of their objects, whereas the 

demonic blasphemously assumes that such categorical relations reflect only 

nebulous interrelations or non-relations.

The word “demonic,” already in Goethe, comes with a strong presuppo-

sition of incoherence, and “a world forsaken by god” means the demonic 

instability of meaning for which the word “demonic” is only the placeholder. 

Lukács, however, was not necessarily ready to resign himself to the world 

of this word. His citation of Goethe on the demonic produces an exposed 

moment similar to the introduction of the Luciferian in the Heidelberg Aes-