The new épos as historical form

Brief observations on the Lukács and Bakhtin’s theories of the novel

Abstract

Both Georg Lukács (1885 - 1971) and Mikhail Bakhtin (1895 - 1975) developed theories of the novel (in 1916 and the mid-1930s, respectively), which are still consecrated in the Western world today. Although similarities can be found in his works, some disparities are observable. To clarify them, we turn to a synopsis of these ideas, focusing on the relationship between history and novel. Thus, we divided our argument in three stages: 1st, we investigated the idea of historical consciousness in the analyzed theories of the novel; 2nd we developed the concept in a historical way; and 3rd, we established the difference between the versions of the History in the two authors.