Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel

Goethe and Lucifer in the Heidelberg Aesthetics

There is no need to introduce Goethe into Lukács’s aesthetic theory, because 

it contains a full (and surprisingly approving) section on him (HÄs 183–92); 

only in the next subsection does the tone become more critical (HÄs 193). 

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Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel 

143

The question Lukács pursues in Goethe, after having dismantled Hegel,

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is whether Goethe’s conception of organic-developmental form might not 

allow an idea of beauty—above all of artistic beauty—to be conceived, which 

would be simultaneously concrete, immanent, and empirical throughout all 

of its moments and stages. Hegel’s dialectical system reports an error when it 

comes to explaining the concrete developmental manifestations of aesthetic 

objects. Hegel was, according to Lukács, unable to conceive the (Luciferian) 

particularity of singular aesthetic objects in their self-sufficient “spheres.” In 

comparison with Hegel, Goethe’s morphology (which Lukács never refers to 

by this name) is an advance, because it stands a better chance of producing 

an idea of the aesthetic that is at once immanent and developmental. In light 

of Hegel’s failure to vanquish Kant, Goethe’s “way of observing nature” (Art 

der Naturbetrachtung) is an intervention “in the development of specula-

tive philosophy” (in die Entwicklung der spekulativen Philosophie), which 

Lukács characterizes as “fatefully decisive” (schicksalhaft-entscheidend, HÄs 

183). To support this, he draws on a variety of mostly later works of Goethe, 

including the “Maxims and Reflections,” The Theory of Colors, Faust, and 

Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years. Famous lines of Plotinus from The 

Theory of Colors—“If the eye were not like the sun / How could we behold 

the light?” (Wär’ nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, / Wie könnten wir das Licht 

erblicken? HÄs 186)—set up an opposition between Faust and Makarie 

(from  Wilhelm Meister), in which the latter represents the “utopian-real 

cosmic completion” (utopisch-real kosmische Vollendung) of Faust’s human 

inadequacies. Makarie is “the highest realization of this form of life [die 

höchste Verwirklichung dieser Lebensform], .

 . . in which the solar system has 

become truly alive, who is the solar system and lives it immediately [die das 

Sonnensystem ist und es unmittelbar lebt]” (HÄs 187). These lines illustrate 

Lukács’s idea of the “spherical” life and “rounded” existence that is impos-

sible in the fragmentary reality of modernity. The young Faust, on the other 

hand, exemplifies the modern predicament in solipsistic limitations defined 

by the earth-spirit (Erdgeist): “you are like the spirit that you conceive, but 

not like me” (du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreifst, / Nicht mir, HÄs 187).

Lukács is more convinced by this “tragic” figure of Faust than by the pos-

sibility of a development leading to perfection (Vollendung) or redemption 

(Erlösung). Faust’s encounter with the earth-spirit represents a struggle with 

the Luciferian in which “reality” triumphs, even before there is a wager that 

can be lost. Lukács sees the definitive and inescapable reality in Faust’s rest-

less striving, and on this basis he rejects the later harmonizing moments as 

ideals—or as ironic-critical abstractions. Yet Goethe’s organological aesthet-

ics is nevertheless emphatically affirmed:

The doubly guiding role [die doppel-leitende Stellung] of the organic 

in the system is that which is ultimately determinant [als letztlich