Lukacs has addressed the problem of how to portray the complete human self in relation to nineteenth-century European literature. Between the aesthetics of naturalism and psychologism, realism, he argues, represents a true, solution-bringing third way. Naturalism fails to portray the complete human self because it depicts social being at the expense of private being; similarly but conversely, psychologism fails because it depicts private being at the expense of social being. Realism represents a solution to the problem because it renders both the social and private being of characters. Although Lukacs arrives at a notion of realism based on close readings of novels by Balzac and Tolstoy, I believe his approach can contribute to our unders...