The Question of Literary Realism: Adorno and the Form of Novel

: The aim of this paper is to investigate the notion of literary realism both in the contemporary debate and in aesthetic reflections of the twentieth century. What I intend to show, in fact, is the possibility to exploit some conceptual tools developed during the last century in the context of German literary aesthetics in order to give an answer to a set of problems closely connected to the contemporary discussion. To this aim, I intend to present Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno’s notion of ‘literary realism’ as a possible solution to some problematic refrains in the philosophical investigation of literature. My argument is here divided in three steps: first, I’ll sketch out the basic lines of the historical debate about realism in novels; second, I’ll outline Adorno’s notion of realism, in order to discern it from Lukács’ elaboration of the notion; third, I’ll try to show to what extent Adorno’s definition could provide an answer to recurring issues in current debates.