Realism began as description of existing works before becoming prescriptive dogma

Evidence

That he will later shift, more questionably, from description to prescription and attack modern writers in the name of some a priori model of realism does not invalidate this starting point, where the word merely designates the empirical existence of a concrete body of works to be explored. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 386

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes book_so_far claim about revisionism deleting praxis-demanding content and Marxism’s variability — Lukács’s own later dogmatism as a cautionary case. — connects to: Epic restoration requires social transformation, not the novelist’s will — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 367; Whether art reflects class passively or actively depends on the critic’s historical distance — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 739; Literary description flourishes precisely when human beings become reified — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 402 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Lukács’s realism theory began as empirical exploration of actual great realists, not prescription #exemplifies (0.95)