Forms and Functions of Anti-Realism in the Literature of High Modernism (Woolf, Proust, Kafka)

What is it about?

As »realism« is notoriously hard to define the article uses the far more obvious »anti-realism« of Modernist paintings as a starting-point for an attempt at a systematic definition of »realist« art and literature. The function of Modernist anti-realism is explained as an attack on the rational, causal, and deterministic reality concept of a world-view of reason and materialism. The alternative conceptions of reality which Modernists try to establish are much more diverse and range from Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s »will« to Bergson’s »life«, spiritual principles, or the naked bare »thingness« of the existentialists. In the last part of the essay, various forms of Modernist anti-realism are illustrated by short analyses of Woolf’s "Mrs Dalloway" (1925), Proust’s "Recherche" (1913–27) and Kafka’s "The Trial" (written 1914/15).

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