Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel

Bestimmendes] for both the construction and nature of the object 

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144

 

Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel

[Aufbau und Wesensart des Objekts] as well as for the constitution 

and level of the subject [Beschaffenheit und Niveau des Subjekts]. 

This resolves the anthropological aporias of Platonism [hebt die 

anthropologischen Aporien des Platonismus auf] . . . [and] makes 

possible a philosophically affirmative and positively valued relation 

to art [ein philosophisch bejahendes und positiv bewertendes Ver-

halten zur Kunst]. (HÄs 189, 191)

In Goethe’s conception, Lukács continues, “in diametric opposition to 

Platonism,”

it is no longer the mathematically well proportioned [das mathe-

matisch Wohl-Proportionierte], the crystalline [das Krystallinische], 

which is the real carrier of the idea of beauty, but rather that which 

is enigmatically perfected in itself [das rätselhaft in sich Vollendete], 

that which lives and is full of spirit [das Lebendige, Seelenerfüllte], 

which radiates this fulfillment in its very appearance [diese Erfülltheit 

in seiner Erscheinungsform Ausstrahllende]. And this is why also in 

art [as well as nature], the adequate objectivation of beauty is that 

which transcends all rules [das allen Regeln Entrückte], that which 

has apparently grown out of itself [das scheinbar von selbst Gewach-

sene]. (HÄs 192)

This ideal of both art and nature corresponds with Lukács’s characterization 

of modern works of art as microcosms. The experience of worlds in works 

defines modern art: works are more alive than life, and life lives only through 

art.

Ultimately, the Makarie ideal itself is Luciferian in its relation to modern 

reality. Lukács rejects the idealization of sense perception and apperception as 

a means of unifying subject and object over time on the grounds that even—

and especially—at its most ideal, aesthetic perception is governed by a form 

of solipsism that is essentially equivalent to its non-idealized form (Faust’s 

encounter with the earth spirit). The risk of solipsism is in fact greater when 

less resistance comes from the side of the “object” (when the Erdgeist does 

not intervene and call attention to the limitations of the subject-position). 

Thus the most Luciferian figure for Lukács is Makarie, and thus the most 

Luciferian art, next to that of ancient Greece, is Goethe’s in its ability to ideal-

ize and transfigure the solipsism of all perception and promote the confusion 

of perception and reality. Lukács’s interpretation of Wilhelm Meister in The 

Theory of the Novel (TdR 117–28) similarly argues that, while appearing 

to present a prosaic depiction, Goethe romanticizes reality in a way that 

bears false witness to the achievability of the ideals represented. Lukács thus 

sides more with the Tower Society of Wilhelm Meister than with Makarie—

but not because he supports its model of concrete management: the ideal 

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Georg Lukács and the Demonic Novel 

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Makarie represents must be realized, not by isolated individuals and not only 

aesthetically, but socially and intersubjectively.

Read in this way, it is uncertain whether Lukács is the one who diagnoses the 

problem of the Luciferian—or if he is its victim. One could argue, for example, 

that he is unable to read the aesthetic aesthetically; he only perceives art in view 

of the unrealizability—nicht von der Kunst aus—of the ideals it merely repre-

sents. Even after distancing himself from the morphological idea of nature, the 

(Luciferian) harmony of which seductively leads away from reality’s contradic-

tions, he still implicitly subscribes to this ideal. He sees aesthetic positing as the 

main obstacle to the realization of that which only it can promise:

The grandeur, however, with which it [Goethe’s “cosmic” conception 

of the unified subject] was able to realize both [the theoretical and 

the aesthetic] in his creative praxis [in der gestaltenden Praxis] with 

respect to art and nature, as well as in the conduct of his own life, 

is very well suited [ist sehr geeignet] to covering over [zu verdecken] 

the insoluble problems that are hidden within it [die darin verborgen 

sind] and to awakening the appearance [den Anschein zu erwecken] 

of a well-shaped unity of life [eine gestaltete Lebenseinheit], as if such 

an apparent unity would be able to simultaneously guarantee the sys-

tematic unifiability of its actual elements. (HÄs 193)

Lukács rejects the “apparent unity” of the necessarily disparate elements 

of Goethe’s life and art. Life and art can at best produce the appearance of 

organic unity, which hides the fact that these apparent unities are actually 

artificial composites. As mere appearances, aesthetic unities seek only to put 

a good face on a deficient reality.