The nineteenth-century realist novel is in general founded on a bedrock of history. The status of history as the modern scientifically based humanism was largely unchallenged at the middle of the century and little doubt was entertained about the finality and accuracy of historical knowledge, “as it actually happened,” in Leopold von Ranke's words. Similarly, the accuracy and reliability of the mimetic procedures of fiction tended to be taken for granted: the novel's purpose, it was thought, was to reflect objective reality precisely, and it was to be judged by its success in accomplishing this aim. Clearly, there are important reservations to be made concerning this forthright and confident approach. First, it is evidently not shared by modern theorists like Hayden White, who react sharply against concepts of historical certainty and even against the relevance of history in general (Roland Barthes). Second, in their practice novelists were by no means fully observant of these norms.

It follows, nonetheless, that history – viewed as the objective reality of thepast – plays, from the socially based novels of Balzac onwards, a vital rolein the portrayal of the present in the contemporary novel. Lukács is correctin establishing a direct link between Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels andBalzac’s Comédie humaine. In fact, in Spain it would be broadly true tosay that imitation of Scott’s much-admired model divided into two divergentdirections, corresponding to the Romantic, exotic, or costumbrista sideand the realist side of his achievement respectively.