George Steiner
French-American literary critic and polymath whose After Babel examined the fundamental problem of translation as a metaphor for human understanding. Language and Silence and Real Presences are his most celebrated essays. He wrote with passionate belief in the sacred importance of high culture.
Works
- After BabelEssays on language as barrier and bridge after Babel, examining translation and multilingual consciousness
- Language and SilenceEssays on the silence of barbarism and the fragility of culture after the Holocaust
- The Death of TragedySteiner's argument that tragedy ceased to be possible after the Enlightenment and modern revolutions
- Real PresencesSteiner's inquiry into the nature of presence and how art achieves transcendence beyond language
- In Bluebeard's CastleSteiner's essays exploring Western intellectual tradition through essays on Dante, Dostoevsky, and totalitarianism