George Steiner: A Reader

by George Steiner

As an incisive and provocative critic of literature, language, and culture, George Steiner has acquired an international reputation and a devoted following. "He scatters bright ideas everywhere," writes The New York Times Book Review, "and they are sure to be picked up." This volume presents a rich sampling of Steiner's ideas, including selections from his seminal books The Death of Tragedy , After Babel , Tolstoy or Dostoevsky , and Language and Science . Aside from pointing to work that lies ahead, this anthology offers a rich retrospective of the intellectual ground Steiner has already covered. Whether discussing Marxist literary theory, the significance of Tolstoy, or the problems of treating sexual material in literature, Steiner's writings give us the pleasure of watching an astute and nimble mind constantly at work.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Literary Criticism, Books About Books, Literature, Cultural

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

George Steiner was a French and American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator whose work explored the relationship between language, literature, and society, with a particular focus on the moral and cultural consequences of the Holocaust. Multilingual from an early age, Steiner grew up speaking German, English, and French, and studied the classics under his father, while overcoming a physical handicap with his mother’s encouragement. His family relocated to the United States during World War II, an experience that shaped his lifelong reflections on survival, morality, and human cruelty. He studied literature, mathematics, and physics at the University of Chicago, earned an MA at Harvard, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Steiner held academic posts across Europe and the United States, including Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva, Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative European Literature at Oxford, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard, teaching in multiple languages. A prolific writer, he produced influential works in criticism, translation studies, and fiction, including Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, The Death of Tragedy, After Babel, and The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., blending historical insight with philosophical reflection. His essays and books explored the power and ambivalence of human language, the ethical responsibilities of literature, and the persistence of anti-Semitism, while his fiction offered imaginative examinations of moral and historical dilemmas. Steiner was celebrated for his intellectual breadth and lecturing style, described as prophetic, charismatic, and sometimes doom-laden, and he contributed extensively to journals such as The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The New Yorker. He was married to Zara Steiner, with whom he had two children, David and Deborah, both of whom pursued academic and public service careers. Steiner’s work remains widely respected for its integration of rigorous scholarship, ethical inquiry, and literary sensitivity, marking him as one of the foremost thinkers in twentieth-century literature and comparative studies.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poet enters into silence. Here the word borders not on radiance or music, but on night.

While haunting and effective, I wasn’t moved by A Reader comparable terms to my recent encounter with Steiner. The compilation nature of the text mitigated any sustained result and I did find myself considering previous sections when immersed into a theme quite remote. That is a likely testament to the breadth of Steiner’s erudition. The pieces on Racine, Anthony Blunt and Heidegger proved the most effective. I found the selections from his book on Dostoevsky and Tolstoy intriguing but hardly heraldic. The same for the maneuvers around Flaubert and Thomas Mann. There were corners where I couldn’t manage to linger: it didn’t feel comforting to ponder Steiner parsing pornography.

The concluding sections on the historical challenges to literary and cultural employed similar angles of argument that he had used previously. Spending five hours at a Subaru service center allowed me the chance to finish this book today but I wouldn’t wish such on anyone.

[Estep Nagy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Steiner writes is, at least, worth reading, and some -- "The Hollow Miracle" and "Nineteenth-Century America and Russia" -- are essential. In "The Hollow Miracle" Steiner outlines how the German language was so thoroughly degraded by the Nazi party that he blames the language, partly, for the Holocaust:, or, as he calls it, "the unspeakable being said, over and over, for twelve years."

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The man who first lied was the inventor of literature".---George Steiner
George Steiner was an Enfant Terrible and agent provocateur, polymath and polyglot at the same time. Critic, novelist, philosopher and academic outlaw. The STEINER READER is the collection of an aging wise guy who wishes to taunt us by reviewing a life filled with outraging the commoner and common sense. Take his musings on post-war Germany, "The Hollow Miracle": "The Nazis invented a new German language". I once tried out this thesis on a German female colleague who specializes in Russian history, and she replied "So did Stalin". I demurred, but did not press the issue further. You see, Steiner could ignite controversy between a Cuban and a German over the politics of language. Or, strap yourself in for "Notes on Post-Culture", which is most famous for asking the rhetorical question "Is poetry possible after Auschwitz?" and muses on the metaphysical legacy of fascism: "For mankind the loss of a belief in hell may have had more sinister consequences than the loss of a belief in heaven. For, while the Communists proved you could not construct a heaven on earth the Nazis did prove it was possible to build hell on earth". For George, a Franco-German-American Jewish atheist, the only poetry, theater, or novel possible after the Holocaust was in the language of silence, hence the apotheosis of Samuel Beckett in many of these essays on language. Or else, as in Celine or Steiner's own novel THE PASSAGE TO SAN CRISTOBAL OF A.H., literature is a road that leads nowhere and closings are an illusion, and lethal ones at that. If Steiner is not as well-known as Susan Sontag or Harold Bloom, who took on similar tasks, it may be due to his aversion to both politics and publicity. Still, not to read Steiner is to miss out on some of the highest intellectual mountains of the last century and the current.

[César · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma obra prima de um do maiores pensadores contemporâneos, pouco há a dizer dos livros de Steiner mas muito a aprender!

[Bestred]

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