Sociological Reading of Lost Illusions based on the Approach of Negative Aesthetic

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Zeinab Rezvantalab ¹
• saeed nasrabadi ²

¹ Assistan Professor, University of Tehran, French Department

² Master Student of French Language and literature, University of Tehran, Tehran., Iran

10.22067/rltf.2024.87118.1108

Abstract

The Frankfurt School, with a critical view of art and literature, studies the various dimensions of art in capitalist society. It reveals the fact that art in capitalist society has become a commodity tool for controlling the masses, and this is where the cultural industry emerges to use any media tool to deceive the masses. The cultural industry governs a kind of instrumental rationality that uses art to make a profit. In this way, the consumer is in the possession of this industry, and any will and freedom are taken away from him. “Negative Aesthetics” criticizes the consumerist and anti-intellectual dimensions of a “one-dimensional” society and questions the function of art. Honoré de Balzac, the French writer of the nineteenth century, in the novel Lost Illusions, depicts this consumer society with precision and delicacy. Through the narration of the life of a young provincial and the evolution of his literary life in Paris, he actually criticizes the cultural industry of his time. The present research, with a descriptive-analytical method, by using the key concepts of consumerism, reification, and cultural industry, criticizes the dimensions of “negative aesthetics” in the novel Lost Illusions, emphasizing the intricate interplay between art, society, and commerce.

Keywords

• Negative aesthetics
• Lost illusions
• Cultural industry
• Balzac
• Reification
• Consumerism

Main Subjects

• french literature

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