ABSTRACT
Rosa Luxemburg's critical admiration for Shaw emphasizes one of the basic tenets of enlightened Marxian aesthetics, which refuses to judge a work of art by pre-judging the artist's political point of view and imposing the latter as the one and only criterion. Inspired to a considerable extent by the letters of Rosa, Doeblin's narrative unearths once again the poet in Rosa, who like Heine loved everything human and beautiful. Doeblin's epic-like novel swings between vivid and meticulous descriptions of turbulent Berlin in the years 1918-19 and surreal flights of fantasy undertaken by Rosa with her soulmate Hans Diefenbach to imagined realms. The critic in her was able to distinguish between first-rate epics like Brothers Karamazov and attempts at epic writing like Roman Rolland's Jean Christophe. The irrepressible poet in Rosa crossed the realm of her letters to stimulate her other texts as well.
