ENGLIT 2325: Modernism Term Paper April 29, 2010 Modernisms Reality: The Lukcs-Brecht Debate and The

Waves Literary figures Georg Lukcs and Bertolt Brecht proposed two different directions for the future of modernist literary aesthetics of the 20th century even though both were ardent proponents of Marxist social philosophy. Lukcs argued for a perpetuation of the traditional realist conventions epitomized by writers such as Balzac and Thomas Mann, while Brecht fervently supported the innovative formal conventions of the Modernists. Both were interested in literary aesthetics as a socio-political force; their literary opines are irrevocably tied to their individual Marxist ideologies, but they disagreed as to how the reality of society should be aesthetically represented and the function of that representation. Literary modernism thus became the conceptual battlefield of opposing mimetic realities. The Lukcs-Brecht debate began in the 1930s with literary critic Georg Lukcs ideological denunciation of German expressionism, a modernist movement to which writer Bertolt Brecht adhered (Jameson). The denunciation sparked a riposte by Brecht and the exchange quickly grew into a much grander theoretical inquiry of modern-day aesthetics. The primary aesthetic concept in question was the nature and function of realism in literature. Additionally, a fundamental though less explicit concern was the tension between old and new within the evolution of aesthetics. The debate flourished within the propitious sphere of Marxist philosophy and today it is still considered one of the most influential debates about the nature of realism (Hawthorn) in literature. At the time, the debate gave modernism a strong sense of historicity and socio-political

relevance. Exactly how modernism was characterized is significantly different for Lukcs and Brecht but nevertheless both men played a fundamental role to situate the body of modern literature in history: giving it a place among the literary periods of the past, a functional purpose in the present, and a path in the future. This paper will explain the aesthetic literary theories of Georg Lukcs and Bertolt Brecht, and then apply those respective theories to Virginia Woolfs 1931 novel The Waves. The discussion and subsequent analysis will then determine, from the theoretical perspectives of both Lukcs and Brecht, how the conventions and style of her novel express literatures reality in the early 20th century. Considered a canonical text of modernism and Woolfs greatest novel, a look at The Waves through the lens provided by the realism debate will allow the abstract ideas of the debate to be realized in a modernist text. In order to contextualize the modernist movement and situate the Lukcs-Brecht debate within the history of aesthetic inquiry it is necessary to quickly discuss, historically, the equally ambiguous concepts of what is modern and what constitutes realism. The question of how to categorize the evolutionary stages of aesthetics is a long-standing historical debate. Dating back to the 5th century A.D. when the word modernus was first used, there has been debate about what it means to be modern. Is this merely a temporal distinction? Or does it necessarily imply something new and therefore different from previous aesthetical evolutional stages? (Jameson 17) This inquiry was not only important in terms of appropriate categorization but became necessary to explain and justify and beneficial evolutional progress within the realm of aesthetics. In 17th century France there was debate about the relevance and position of modern aesthetics among the history of tradition. At this point in time the querelle des anciens et des moderns signaled the first feelings of inferiority by les moderns in light of

the accomplishments of les anciens, particularly within the aesthetic realm. Purposeful aesthetic differentiation would calm these feelings of historic inferiority. Over the next two centuries, the evolution of literature in the forms of neo-classicism and romanticism evolved alongside theories of representation but without an explicit exploration of style. The desire to maintain social and historical relevance within aesthetics was always important, but not until the beginning of the 20th century did debate arise concerning the form of representation. With classicism and a subsequent neo-classicist movement, stylistic aesthetic rules became normative, limiting viewership by creating distinct class barriers. Everything popular was purged from aesthetics and thus also the majority of the populous. Romanticism sought to counter the extreme separation between life and art. The style of neo-classicism was deemed artificial because it was so distanced from the lives of the majority of people. And so romanticism glorified the popular and described the everyman. Literature was written in the vernacular instead of Latin, which was the traditional language of culture and education. Contemporaneously to the new focus on a realism of the ordinary and popular was the emergence of the novel - what would be the primary genre for romanticism. Different from previous lyric, comedic, or epic aesthetical categories, the novel arose within an uneasily different concept category pertaining to realism. While the former categories may be analyzed and evaluated without any reference outside the phenomenon of beauty or the activity of artistic play, the latter claims not only an aesthetic status but also a cognitive one (Jameson). Realism married aesthetics with reality, binding literature to humanity in a new way, thus inherently expounding that realism is not an issue not only for literature [but] a matter of general human interest (Brecht 45). Returning to the larger picture of literary evolution however, the categorical demarcation

between neo-classicism and romanticism was never defined by a differentiation of stylistic form but in terms of its target audience and the nature of its content - its realism. For neo-classic and romantic literature, style was a determination of content, not structural innovation. The form was merely a means to an end; it was the vehicle of representation, not an aesthetic goal. The form of romantic literature was not new and therefore ignored. It became the normative formal structure of realism, going so far as to dictate societys conceptualization of reality (MacCabe 8). This entrenched structure of realism was finally challenged with the rise of literary modernism in the 20th century. Modernism opposed the representation of the conscious self in romantic literature and the mapping of quotidian moments that could define the identities of characters. The content of representation was contested as in previous literary periods but for the first time formalistic concerns were the means through which content was opposed. So instead of merely altering that which was represented, modernism focused on the ways in which reality could be represented. Modernism was fundamentally a movement about form not representation. Style was no longer an indirect product of the representational purpose of the artist but a conscious focus of the artist. In this moment all past styles became apparent as such. Modernism proposed that the stylistic conventions of romanticism were inadequate, because too superficial, to deal with the realities of [the] age. In order to describe a new reality it was necessary to use a new form.

Lukcs critique of modernist writing was fundamentally based on his literary theory, or more specifically his conception of the novel. He believed that one of the ultimate aims of a novelist is to represent the totality of reality at any given point in history (Hawthorn). To understand what the totality of reality meant for Lukcs, one must look at the philosophy

of Marxism and dialectical materialism that he adhered to. In his 1919 essay entitled What is Orthodox Marxism? Lukcs asserts that the facts no longer appear strange when they are comprehended in their coherent reality, in the relation of all partial aspects to their inherent, but hitherto unelucidated roots in the whole: we then perceive the tendencies which strive towards the centre of reality, to what we are wont to call the ultimate goal. This ultimate goal is not an abstract ideal opposed to the process, but an aspect of truth and reality. By totality of reality then, Lukcs meant an author should not only relate the mundane quotidian events of man but also the underlying processes of the development of man and society. At the end of the essay he states that Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process. Historical process in a practical sense includes the possibility of revolution. Lukcs railed against the modernist novel and respected the traditional realist novel because the while the latter effectively captures this totality, the former falls inexcusably short. He believes that the struggle between socialism and capitalism is still the fundamental reality of the modern age and expects literature and criticism to reflect this reality. Lukcs states that this failure of modernist literature is the inevitable consequence of modernisms underlying ideology. In fact, he encouraged the traditional realist novel to be seen as the pinnacle of the evolution of the genre. The underlying ideology of a work is the ideology that determines the nature of the content. Lukcs asserts that in all novels the focal subject of content is Man. So this assertion in conjunction with Lukcs belief that the ultimate aim a novel is the representation of reality defines a works ideology as the ontology of man. Lukcs believes that the underlying

ideology of modernism is that man is an isolated and solitary being, asocial and ahistorical. This is not to say that man perpetually acts in a solitary manner, but that his isolation is the inescapable condition humaine. For Lukcs this implies that man is incapable of interactions with his environment and is relegated to the realm of subjectivity alone. Man cannot interact with his environment. He cannot change it and it cannot change him i.e. social revolution is impossible. Lukacs considered one criteria of literary realism to be the presentation of man not only of as a subject but also as an object of history. However, at the turn of the century and in 1920s-30s Germany, there was a weakening of liberal optimism that would be necessary for the latter type of presentation. The socialist movements that were supposed to have already come to fruition were stagnating politically. There was a loss of belief in beneficial linear historical development (Lunn 39) and many Marxist intellectuals became sympathetic to modernist writers who withdrew from the traditional notions of man as an object of history and tended rather to dissolve character into a stream of consciousness (37). The path of tradition was no longer seen as an efficacious means of change but merely a means of representing social development. The solution was not to be found in the traditional conventions that were not linked to the good old days but to the bad new ones. It [did] not involve undoing techniques but developing them (Brecht, 40). Since most modernist writers and critics are concerned mainly with form and not representational content, Lukacs believed that modernisms underlying ideology was ignored. To him this was a grave error made by modernist critics and writers alike because that underlying ideology is the most important aspect of an artists work. Not only that but he asserted that it is the content, i.e. the represented context, that determines the literary form. Therefore, focus on

form at the expense of content will only lead back to a superficial understanding of form. The content of modernist writing was inferior to that of traditional realist texts because it stagnated within itself. It was a protest against the profanity of capitalism but did not allow for the reality of a capitalist society to be changed by situating it along a linear historical timeline. Because modernist narrative obliterates an objective reality through its focus on sense-data, excruciating minutia, subjective stream-of-consciousness, and a multiplicity of perspectives, man cannot efficaciously impose himself upon the world nor can the world impose itself upon him - he becomes ahistorical. Reality becomes fundamentally static and unchangeable; in the subjective realm of capitalism, socialist revolution is no longer impossible. In traditional realist literature, the underlying ideology is the Aristotelian dictum: man is zoon politikon, a social animal. Man is irrevocably tied to his environment and history. There exist both subjective and objective realms of reality that are necessarily connected. Modernist writing dissolves the dialectical unity of subjective and objective realms, of man and environment, which Lukcs believed to be crucial to the integrity of the novel as an aesthetic work. This ideology has specific literary consequences to most modernist writing. These connections are explained in detail in Lukacs essay The Theory of Modernism. It is important to note that Lukcs critique of techniques is not grounded in the techniques themselves but the aesthetic intention of the writer to use them as something absolute. He makes this distinction when he says of Joyce: It would be absurd, in view of Joyces artistic ambitions and his manifest abilities, to qualify the exaggerated attention he gives to the detailed recording of sense-data, and his comparative neglect of ideas and emotions, as artistic failure. All this was in conformity with Joyces artistic intentions; and, by use of such techniques, he may be said to have

achieved them satisfactorily. Brecht, like most modernists, similarly turned to formalistic innovations to change the way that the audience or reader would view society. At the charge of his art as merely aestheticized formalism, a critique that most modernist writers received because of their greater focus on form than content, Brechts riposte was that formalism is present only where a solution is offered that is merely good on paper, or where there is a holding fast to conventional forms while the changing social environment makes ever new demands upon art. (Lunn 20) The solution he is talking about is a solution that would bring about the much sought after socialist revolution. Art would only be good if it could change the readers view of the world and incite activity. The traditional realist text allowed the reader to only passively consume meaning. Brecht saw Lukcs as concerned with enjoyment and way of escape through literature instead of inciting struggle and a march forward, the path that Brecht believed art must take. The passiveness of escape is stagnating to cause, if one is not compelled into action, compelled to change, change will never come. He meant to transform the passive consumption of meanings into the active appropriation of knowledge (MacCabe, 154). In his essay Against Lukcs he explores the meaning of form. The charge of formalistic, in literary criticism, did not entail a concern of form over content but, as in everyday life, that the work did not correspond to reality (Brecht, 42). Using the example of the formal technique of the interior monologue Brecht concludes: Without very precise measures (again of a technical sort) the interior monologue by no means reproduces reality, that is to say the totality of thought or association, as it superficially appears to do. It becomes another case of only formally, of which we should

be warya falsification of reality (43). And so when form is a necessary condition of successful realistic reproduction, an aestheticized formalism is not pejorative but since works can be realistic in form, it connotes nothing but success for modernist writers. And so realism was not a prescriptive aesthetic. Realism was not intrinsic to a work by way of content, but rather played a functional role - a formal role. Brecht is most famous for his epic theatre that involved his principal theory of Verfremdungseffekt. This theory constituted a defamiliarization of words, ideas, and gestures which would then allow the alienated spectator the chance to recognize the subjects as only such, and focus on the underlying ideologies. In his theatre this was accomplished through active defamiliarization by the structural elements of the play and also the techniques employed by the actors themselves. There was a radical separation of elements such as music, text, and setting that normally would exist coherently during a play. This normal fusion of elements (Brecht), wrapped the audience in comfort, a fixity where the spectator/reader became interpolated into ideology (Diamond 83). It allowed the audience to settle into the scene, to become incorporated and duped into seeing the action on stage as a mimetic reality. Through the separation of elements or nonmimetic disunity in theatrical signification (83) and subsequent alienation, the audience was no longer afforded the comfort of passive viewing. With regard to the actors, Brecht believed that they should alienate rather than impersonate the character - quote or demonstrate the characters behavior instead of identifying with it. This would allow the audience to see acting as merely such, as the acting out of an idea, and thus be able to recognize the idea and form an opinion of it (Diamond 84). The jarring incoherence, or literalization of the theatre space (83) forces the audience to engage in

analysis and make connections that ultimately lead to a better understanding of the workings of the world. Virginia Woolfs novel The Waves, published in 1931, was probably her most experimental novel. A review by Storm Jameson in Fortnightly Review described its synopsis: Six characters are revealed at varying periods in their lives from childhood to old age. They reveal themselves, speaking in soliloquy, a few strands from the thoughts of each mind being woven in with the thoughts of the other minds to form the invisible web that holds them together in division. The change of time is marked, struck, by the recurrent image of the sea, from dawn to night. The progression is only in Time, since the characters, though their movements are described, remain static (Critical Heritage). It is a prose novel fluidly bordering a poetic drama and even Woolf herself said that she would be happy if the text was not read as a novel. It was certainly not traditional, and if her novels are seen as linear progression, in writing The Waves she moved furthest away from writing exteriorly (Dick 71). But of anyone, including the critics who reviewed her newest novel as bloodless (Critical Heritage) or as the product of an amiable talent that lacks an inner drive (Critical Heritage), Woolf was by far most aware of the precariousness of the experiment. While she abhorred the narrative business of the realist (Dick 71) she was casting about all the time for some rope to throw the reader (67). The rope became the poetic sections at the beginning of each section that depict the passing of one day of all seasons from sunrise to sunset. These sections are meant to ground the reader with a certain amount of fixity and act as one of the many sorts of details one would find in a conventional novel that link characters and events to a material world (66). In the same moment however, Virginia Woolf was completely opposed to the tradition

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of fiction, namely the superficial realism or, what Lukacs would call traditional realism. As discussed above, Lukcs believed one of the ultimate aims of the novel to be the depiction of the totality of reality. The perspective necessary to see the whole of reality is an objective one. It indeed is only one. And it was not enough to simply see the whole, but to also see its tendencies, ultimate goal, inherent unelucidated roots. These characteristics imply a linear progression of reality and the novel needs to relate the immediate present to the whole historical process. With this idea of totality in mind, it is certain that Woolf had no intention of depicting reality as such. On the most obvious level The Waves, with its material foundation and major theme captured in the title, revolves, repeats, is cyclical like the drumming of waves upon the shore. The rise and fall and rise again, crest after crest, undulating, moving back and forth, the waves are inevitable and inescapable with no ultimate goal but that of repitition. Thus too are her characters caught in an ultimately inevitable and inescapable reality. Woolf was much more focused on the complexity of character as she moved away from conventional patterns of plot, repudiating the importance which she claimed novelists such as Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells had placed on material, rather than spiritual, existence, and claiming that the novels true task is the complex one of representing character (Flint 220). But even so, the purely subjective creation of the characters identities subverts the actual creation of their identities. There are mentions of external events or actions or conversations, but they are merely spoken, never acted. Without the depiction of action, that which defines a human subject in the world, the character tosses to and fro among the continuous churning and displacing realm of their thoughts and contemplations. One may argue that Woolf here is championing the unelucidated roots of reality, the beginnings of all action and life

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that originate in the mind and are nurtured by thought and language. She created identities that rather than depending on the concrete circumstances of a persons life, [were] primarily constructed from within, through an individuals deployment of language (220). But even this deployment of language that could potentially manifest itself as communication is never depicted as such. Each character is confined by language not defined. It is only when the language can be used socially, within the interaction of character and environment, can the concrete parts of life be singled out. The progress of history cannot exist without action. The form of interior monologues or, as Woolf described, dramatic soliloquies, does not lend itself to the neurotic distortions of extreme stream of consciousness but this would be merely a superficial improvement in the eyes of Lukacs. Nor do the soliloquies express Brechts necessary totality of thought and association for a true creation of reality. Woolf creates an attenuation of reality or a ghostly un-reality that the reader must navigate. In practice it is impossible to avoid the demands of historicity and social environment when grounding a text in a recognizable reality but Woolf manages to anchor her text even less than Joyce did for Ulysses. Joyce uses his city of Dublin to situate his text but it is really only little more than a backcloth; it is not basic to [his] artistic intention. Woolf anchors her text by the intermittent inclusion of poetic material descriptions of waves and sunrises but this is so infrequent that the subjective monologues of the characters overwhelm any other material facts that are mentioned and consequently seem to float about unfettered. Without the possibility of action or of social interaction the solitariness of man moves beyond that of temporary spacial positioning to become the condition humaine. It is shown through the private soliloquies of the characters that connections also exist between those who on the surface may appear dissimilar (Flint 222) and that in fact for Woolf it was the

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very act of questioning the purpose of lifewhich links otherwise disparate individuals (221), but these still remain potential connections, invisible links, which, without their objective acknowledgement, without an authority or decision that brings them to the surface, they remain within the innumerable possibilities of an abstract realm, powerless to create meaning. But most importantly, they are powerless to create change. Brecht would inevitably counter Lukcs critique of the of The Waves but would still be hard-pressed to champion it as a force for revolution. He did believe that the revolution of the great writers is permanent. The practical methods of the revolution are not revolutionary, they are dictated by the class struggle. It is for this reason that great writers find themselves ill at ease in the class struggle, they behave as though the struggle was already finished, and they deal with the new situation, conceived as collectivist, which is the aim of the revolution (MacCabe 17). But when it comes to inciting a reader/spectator into action through alienation, The Waves falls short of the ultimate goal. Virginia Woolfs novel is in fact surprisingly similar to a play and so it is easy to notice the alienating parallels between the work and much of Brechts theatre. It utilizes the interior monologue and continual subversion of the reader to achieve the same aesthetic function as Brecht argued the new modernist work should have but ultimately, the reader is left within the inescapable reality of a continually cycling world. Similar to Woolfs opinion about the superficial realism of traditional literature, realism disgusted Brechtbecauseit offer[ed] the illusion of lived experience, even as it marks off only one version of that experience (Diamond 87). The illusion of lived experience from a single perspective is the illusion of an inescapable dominant discourse. But Brecht did not wish to give his audience, with unquestionable authority, the dominant discourse without possibility of

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opinion. Brecht most devoutly wished, that significance (the production of meaning) continue beyond plays end, congealing into choice and action after the spectator leaves the theatre. (87) After reading The Waves one cannot but begin to make meaning of their own thoughts and reevaluate the relationships one has with others. The multiplicity of perspectives, of subjectivities, subverts the objective reality of visible material objects that one normally feels so at home with. As in Brechts dramas, the audience is invited to look beyond representationbeyond what is authoritatively put in viewto the possibilities of as yet unarticulated actions or judgments (Diamond 86). This is what the soliloquies of Bernard, Jinny, Neville, Louis, Rhoda and Susan allow the reader to see, the unarticulated actions or judgments. This is the reality behind the ordinary world of which the self that speaks is most receptive to perceiving, mostly because it resides in the subjective experiences of man (Dick 66). Woolfs characters articulate that which is not actually articulated. The characters are not performing their parts but in many cases simply narrating them. In the performance of The Waves, each actor quotes or demonstrates the characters behavior instead of identifying with it (Diamond 84). The formal prose of the soliloquies do not allow the reader to get caught within the character but allow him to stand at a distance, much like the character himself does, using consistently the same tone and style from childhood to middle-age. [T]heir utterances are soliloquies, self-presentations and self-justifications, rather than acts of communication with one another (221). Instead of this giving the effect of a tragic disconnection of man from reality, it allows the reader to see the demonstrations for what they are, thereby remaining free to analyze and form opinions (Diamond 84). But these opinions and reevaluations do not lead to social

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action for the reader of The Waves. Rather, they leave the reader only more entranced by his or her own subjectivity. so while the novel certainly adheres more congenially to Brechts vision of literary aesthetics, it does not represent the a totality of reality and ability to incite revolution, that was so imperative for both Brecht and Lukacs. This dispute, the debate between Georg Lukcs and Bertolt Brecht is one of subjectivity versus objectivity. Which is the dominant reality, or rather which should be the reality to dominate literature, and for what reasons? It is a dispute concerning how one properly sees and analyzes the world. Is it by way of objective generalizations, one truth and meaning? Or is it by way of innumerable subjectivities, multiple meanings laying quietly unseen below the surface and only brought to light through art? Objectivity is accessible to all, the underlying currents of progress and the socio-political reality remain unseen through fault of the potential seer, it lives there, available for him to find if he so chooses. It is not the purpose of art to show people what they can already see but to show them that which would otherwise be unavailable. As soon as one reality is seen by a third party it immediately becomes old, objective, and art must move on to demonstrating the new, the yet untouched upon reality. The subjective offers innumerable dark alleyways to be explored and lit by a word or color. And thus this debate, in all its convolutions and complexities still belongs to the contemporary artist. If humanity is the inevitable content of an aesthetic work and realism a matter of general human interest, this debate will unceasingly continue.

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Works Cited Brecht, Bertolt. "Against Georg Lukacs." New Left Review 84 (1974): 39-53. Web. Diamond, Elin. "Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism." TDR 32.1 (Spring, 1988): 82-94. JSTOR. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 1145871>. Flint, Kate. "The Waves." Virginia Woolf: Introduction to the Major Works. Ed. Julia Briggs. London: Virago, 1994. 219-47. Print. Holub, Robert. "Modernism, Modernity, Modernisation." The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Ed. Christa Knellwolf and Christopher Norris. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1989. 277-88. Print. Jameson, Fredric. A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present. London: Verso, 2002. Print. Jameson, Fredric. "Reflections on the Brecht-Lukacs Debate." The Ideologies of Theory: Essays 1971-1986. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1988. 133-47. Print. Lukcs, Georg. "What Is Orthodox Marxism? (1919)." Trans. Mary Phillips. International Socialism 1st ser. 24 (Spring, 1966): 10-14. Marxist's Internet Archive. Web. 20 Feb. 2010. Lukcs, Gyorgy. Meaning of Contemporary Realism. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities International, 1979. Print.

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Lunn, Eugene. Marxism and Modernism: an Historical Study of Luka?cs, Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno. Berkeley: University of California, 1982. Print. MacCabe, Colin. James Joyce and the Revolution of the Word. London: Macmillan, 1979. Print. MacCabe, Colin. "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses." Screen 15 (Summer, 1974): 7-27. Screen. Oxford Journals. Web. 12 Mar. 2010. Majumdar, Robin, ed. Virginia Woolf: the Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 2002. Print. Woolf, Virginia. The Waves. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1931. Print.

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