Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel
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LUKACS - ŞEYTANİ ROMAN
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werden] that the will to produce a system [der Wille zum System]
with its necessary will to produce a harmony of values [die Harmonie der Werte], almost always strives from the outset to produce, through a process of synchronization [Abstimmung], the harmony it presup- poses. This kind of systematic approach attempts to veil and diminish [verschleiern und vermildern] the essence of the aesthetic [das Wesen der Ästhetik], which strives to go beyond the level of the other values [aus der Ebene der anderen Werte hinausstrebt]. Here, however, an appeal will be made in the name of the simple understanding of the aesthetic sphere [im Namen der einfachen Erkenntnis der ästhetischen Sphäre], which leads me also to emphasize that the metaphysical “enemies” of art—such as Plato, Kierkegaard or Tolstoy—have rec- ognized its normative essence [ihr normatives Wesen] as well as its metaphysical significance [ihre metaphysiche Bedeutung] with much This content downloaded from 176.88.30.219 on Fri, 22 Jan 2021 23:33:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
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Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel greater clarity than its harmonizing defenders. Thus, if someone were tempted, on the basis of the present purely value-theoretical analysis, to think that the Luciferian [das Luciferische] is the proper metaphysical “location” [der metaphysische “Ort”] of the aesthetic, I would not be able to contradict him (nor would I wish to do so). (HÄs 131–32) At the beginning of the passage, Lukács argues that because philosophical aesthetics itself has the goal of producing systematic harmony and coherence, philosophy obscures the oppositional—negating, contrary—character of art. This will to harmoniousness contrasts with the chaos of everyday reality in the same way that art does, thereby revealing philosophy’s complicity with the aesthetic. That which “cannot be left unsaid” (nicht verschwiegen werden kann) is philosophy’s own aesthetic tendency. Once a philosophical system is bracketed in this way, its meaning is no longer stable. Lukács calls his own system into question in an exposed self-contradiction. With false modesty, he stresses that his work is only an “immanent value-theoretical analysis,” thereby calling attention to the limi- tations of such an analysis. This does not mean that he retracts his theory of aesthetic positing; but what counts here is not the theory’s internal coherence or descriptive accuracy, but the horizons of its possible meanings. In view of such horizons, Lukács displays obvious ambivalence toward his own concep- tion of art. He is unsure whether to side with the metaphysical “enemies” of art or with its “defenders.” He concedes that the enemies would be right to conclude that the “metaphysical location” of the aesthetic is “the Lucife- rian,” 18
however, Lukács himself. The radical defender of the autonomy of art unex- pectedly changes sides and raises doubts about his defense. The traditional defenses were based on art’s double tendency toward transcendence—either toward life and “reality” or toward norms of beauty, ethics, and moral- ity—but in Lukács’s conception, these rationalizations and justifications are disallowed. The oppositional character of art in the Heidelberg Aesthetics makes it Luciferian in its essential tendency to replace the world with a plu- rality of seductive, short-lived, and ultimately unlivable counter-worlds. In the terms of Maurice Blanchot: Luciferian art is a siren’s song that calls away from the world. 19 Lukács’s idea of the immanence and autonomy of art is blocked by an idea of reality that prevents him from affirming his defense of art. With respect to a singular reality, art tends to produce virtual realities. The “better” a work, the more Luciferian it is. On the flip side, the philosophical-conceptual rationalization of art—toward the beautiful, the sublime, the ethical, or the political—neutralizes its Luciferian aspect, but does so in a way that makes art itself irrelevant. Thus, according to consequences Lukács does not explicitly draw: art is utterly otherworldly—but this is precisely what causes it to be of This content downloaded from 176.88.30.219 on Fri, 22 Jan 2021 23:33:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel 141 the utmost consequence for the “real world.” Its “Luciferian” aspect, which its “enemies” perceived, is that if it does not lead upward—if it cannot be instrumentalized—then it must lead downward. If it is not self-transcending, then it is hostile to every system that seeks to stabilize its meaning. Art is an unsublatable, “Luciferian” principle of opposition, and its seduc- tions are even more seductive and uncontrollable when their normative instrumentalization is revealed as the defense mechanism of a beleaguered reality. Given this setup, it is still not easy to say what side Lukács takes. Precisely the harmoniousness of art’s siren song makes it dissonant and false with respect to reality. This might mean that, instead of working on works, artists should work on reality itself. Lukács cannot go in this direc- tion without turning his habilitation into a manifesto, and thus the degree of his sympathy with the enemies of art remains ambiguous. If he were to fully side with them, his “defense” of “aesthetic positing” would become the pre- text for its condemnation. This reading cannot be ruled out, but it overlooks Lukács’s obvious fascination with the unstable and destabilizing functions of art. The idea of the Luciferian suggests its author’s susceptibility to it; he may have found its anarchist “negation” of a deficient reality more salutary than this reality’s attempts to rationalize and harmonize art as propaganda or “aesthetic education.” Without trying to resolve this point, I find it plausible to imagine that Lukács identified with art’s Luciferian aspect—not because it represents a revolutionary potential, but because it represents a this-worldly beyond, a normative inversion with respect to the world and the polarities of its conceptualization (good/evil, idealism/realism, state/society, progress/ decline, etc.). 20 There is no evidence that Lukács takes his idea of the Luciferian from Goethe, but because The Theory of the Novel cites the demonic from book 20 of Poetry and Truth, it seems reasonable to read the Luciferian in connec- tion with book 8’s “pulsing” conception of man’s simultaneous participation in the Luciferian and the divine. Lukács’s and Goethe’s versions of the Luciferian are roughly compatible in their reading of the impulse toward individualization and specification (in the form of “aesthetic positing”) in terms of an opposition or distance from the divine. Goethe’s opposition of the Luciferian and the divine in the figure of systole and diastole, however, differs greatly from Lukács’s more schismatic understanding. Goethe allows the individual to have a double home, whereas for Lukács this doubleness is the essence of homelessness. For Lukács, perfect specification is only pos- sible through “aesthetic positing,” whereas “real life”—including the life of the artist—is defined by alien contingencies. In comparison to Goethe, the most difficult question posed by Lukács is whether the ideal of “specifica- tion” might be realizable in life—outside of the artificial closure of aesthetic positing. The choice of the word “Luciferian” itself seems to be premised on the idea that the lure of the aesthetic always breaks its utopian promise. 21 In a naive way, one might wonder if Lukács is not asking too much of art. He This content downloaded from 176.88.30.219 on Fri, 22 Jan 2021 23:33:11 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms |
