BOOK REVIEW 71 relationship of one class to the other, a new sense of history, the fragmentation of class and the atomisation of an individual within his class. Tragedy is a closed form and the best solution is to maintain its closed nature and not to force external elements on it. Drama, or rather tragedy, is important for Lukacs, because it expresses the tragic rupture in the world, it expresses the situation of the essential, non-trivial individual in trivial life. An emerging, rising class cannot have drama. The rising bourgeoisie in England had the great age of the novel, whereas the declining Athens had the great age of tragedy. Historically, the evolution and distinction is significant. Shaswati Mazumdar (pp. 124-140) has focussed on the Linkskurve debates during 1931-33 carried on in the organ of the League of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers of Germany. She gives an interesting and important introduction to the historical and social context of the debates. Following the rejection of the Blum Theses Lukacs shifted the focus of his study to literary and philosophical questions. Shaswati gives details of Lukacs* criticism of the League writers. The debates revolved around the question of creative method and also formed part of his life-long fight against the fragmentation and alienation of life under capitalism as well as the immediate need to create a popular anti-fascist front on culture. The debates also show the relative abstraction of Lukacs1 propositions and criticism from the daily political struggle. Lukacs1 influence and compulsive argument created prejudice and led to the rejection of new artistic forms within the ranks of socialist writers. Shaswati Mazumdar has highlighted the historical significance as well as limitations of Lukacs* positions through a balanced criticism of his positions in the Linkskurve debates. Rekha Rajan (pp. 141-152) has argued that the Brecht-Lukacs debates have been falsely posed as traditionalism versus modernism, as the participants in the debates were all part of an anti-fascist struggle. So, there was no disagreement of principle. Their deliberations and analysis centred around the question of alternative methods for the development of realism and realistic literature in this historical struggle. For Lukacs the novel in the final analysis remains An article of consumption, while Brecht stresses the need for a change in the function of art. Josef Dohnal (pp. 153-159) argue that Lukacs' sharp criticism of Expressionism as a negative and reactionary literary stream ending its way in fascism is only partly right. Joseph Dolmal feels that Lukacs was unjustified in considering Expressionism as one of the roots of fascism. It was not only a German phenomenon and similar features can be traced in other national literary systems of the time without imitating the German literary pattern. The Expressionists refuse flatly the morale of capitalism at the beginning of the twentieth century.