Abstract
This article explores the work of the young Lukacs, from Die Seele und die Formen till Geschichte und Klassenbewustsein, with the main emphasis on the latter work. Its aim is to avoid the pitfalls of an interpretation built exclusively on the idea of discontinuity – Geschichte und Klassenbewustsein conceived of as a kind of fracture between aesthetics and politics. Our reading, on the contrary, shows how the founding text of Western Marxism remains deeply indebted to Lukacs’s previous works on aesthetics : it is shown, for instance, that the very notion of ‘class consciousness’ is in fact defined as a kind of work of art even though Lukacs explicitly rejects any significant role of aesthetics in the overcoming of reification and alienation. The actual theme of the essay is the constant ambivalence of Lukacs when he invokes the work of art (the realm of the aesthetic), an ambibiguity which is structural in the works of Lukacs thematized here.
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