Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Georg Lukács

Critical Essay by Georg Lukács

SOURCE: "Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and the New Type of Historical Novel," in The Historical Novel, translated by Hannah and Stanley Mitchell, Merlin Press, 1962, pp. 221-30.

In the following essay, first published in Russian in 1936-37, Lukács reads Meyer's historical portrayals as critical reflections on the "innermost conflicts" of modern bourgeois sensibility.

The real representative of the historical novel in this period is Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, who along with Gottfried Keller—likewise a native of Switzerland—is one of the most important realistic narrative writers of the period following 1848. Both, however differently, have stronger ties with the classical traditions of narrative art than most of their German contemporaries and hence surpass them far in respect of a realism which comes to grips with essentials. But Meyer already shows marked features in both his outlook and art of the decline of realism. Yet this did not prevent his exercising a powerful influence...
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