Soul & form /

First published in 1910, Soul and Form was Lukacs's first book, and it comprises his early essays. These essays stand today as a rehearsal of themes that later become central in Lukacs's critical turn to Marxism in 1917 and his defense of realism in his famous debate with Bertolt Brecht. Sanders and Terezakis (both, philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology) add to this new translation (and centennial edition) a dialogue by Lukacs (also written in 1910) and an introduction by Judith Butler (comparative literature, Univ. of California, Berkeley). For Lukacs, form does not easily equate with a work's genre or structure; it has to do with the attitude of the creator. The most successful works indistinguishably unite form with the soul of the creator, so Lukacs's criticism is ultimately more abstract than formal. In the opening essays, Lukacs seeks to define the form of the critical essay itself before moving on to his analysis of literary works. He focuses on minor authors, although he sprinkles references to more canonical ones throughout. This early collection is a must for libraries holding Lukacs's later works, most notably Theory of the Novel (1920), History and Class Consciousness (1923), and The Historical Novel (1937). Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers. A. T. Vaver formerly, Brandeis University