Biography Essay

Gyorgy Lukacs, whose name appeared as Georg Lukacs on his English-language publications, was one of the most important philosophers in the twentieth century and an influential theoretician of Hungarian aesthetics and literary criticism. Writing in Hungarian and German, Lukacs created an extensive body of critical works over a period of more than a half century. Influenced early in his career by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, Lukacs was concerned with the historical, political, and social dynamics of the work of art. His critical works on aesthetics and ethics influenced a generation of philosophical theorists while contributing to the growth and development of modern Hungarian literature.

Gyorgy Lowinger was born on 13 April 1885 in Budapest, the second child of an assimilating Jewish family; the surname was changed to the Hungarian Lukacs five years later. His mother, Adel, nee Wertheimer, came from a rich Viennese patrician family...