Grammars of Creation - Hardcover

Steiner, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300088639 ISBN 13: 9780300088632

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Roaming across topics as diverse as the Hebrew Bible, the history of science and mathematics, the ontology of Heidegger, and the poetry of Paul Celan, Steiner examines how the twentieth century has placed in doubt the rationale and credibility of a future tense - the existence of hope. Acknowledging that technology and science may have replaced art and literature as the driving forces in our culture, Steiner warns that this has not happened without a significant loss. The forces of technology and science alone fail to illuminate inevitable human questions regarding value, faith, and meaning. And yet it is difficult to believe that the story out of Genesis has ended, Steiner observes, and he concludes this volume of reflections with an evocation of the endlessness of beginnings.

About this title

About the Author

George Steiner is Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge.

Reviews

Steiner begins with the ominous phrase, "We have no more beginnings." In the past, danger came from without, but in the 20th century, Nazism, fascism and Stalinism sprang from within, born from the very cultures they corrupted. The trend continues today in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere. When barbarism becomes so domesticated, writes Steiner, it can only change our language for the worse, a point he illustrates in a story about a thirsty death-camp inmate who watches his torturer pour a glass of water on the floor and asks, "Why are you doing this?" only to be told, "There is no `why' here." Thus we are living during the "eclipse of the messianic," a time when "grammars of nihilism flicker... on the horizon." The dauntingly erudite Steiner, one of our leading literary critics (Errata: An Examined Life; etc.), makes a forceful distinction between progress in the sciences and in the arts, pointing out that "a nineteenth-century steam engine is now an historical curio," whereas "a novel by Dostoevsky is not." But in the context of our present-day civilized savagery, he says, art's very timelessness means that its time is up. Stories repeat themselves; both King Lear and The Brothers Karamazov are just variations on the Cinderella story. Once instructive or comforting, these fables no longer speak to a world that smiles yet has gone mad, says Steiner ruefully. There is just the tiniest spark of hopefulness in his conclusion, however, a curiosity about the possibility of rich and strange developments in the arts, though he hazards no guess as to what those changes might be. Steiner is so profoundly pessimistic that one might fall into a state of total despair were one not dazzled by a learning and an elegance that, in the minds of others less fatalistic, may yet prove redemptive.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

"We have no more beginnings," Steiner opens his book abruptly. The words that follow are equally laconic and contemplative. He reflects on the historical notion of creation and how it applies to our present-day use of language. Based on the 1990 Gifford Lectures given at the University of Glasgow, this study marks the high point of a lengthy and productive career. Steiner has a unique mind among scholars. He has the rare ability, patience, and knowledge to associate distant ideas, such as mathematics and the bombing of Dresden, and resituate them in new contexts. These frameworks often give rise to fresh interpretations of well-worn topics. Thoughtfully constructed and written, this book wanders discreetly through the history of Western, Islamic, and Hebraic aesthetics to gain a sense of language's future direction. In today's market society, few books attempt to address such lofty concepts, but this one is a brilliant success, skillfully fulfilling its aim. Jeff Snowbarger
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Steiner (Cambridge Univ., No Passion Spent, The Death of Tragedy) has written an important study on the nature of creation. He opens with the Book of Job and Plato's Timaeus as visions of creation in Hebrew and Greek thought. He then uses Dante and Shakespeare as examples of different methods in artistic creation and Hegel and H lderlin to give insight into the difference between creation and invention. In addition, he discusses science in terms of collective effort while explaining art and music as primarily individual and distinct efforts. Time, language, hope, architecture, Paul Celan, Ren Char, Heidegger, reception theory, the end of art, and the changing meaning of death are among the topics discussed. This is an exciting work, full of insights, bold statements, and thoughts about our present condition. Recommended for literature and philosophy collections. Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0300088639
• ISBN 13: 9780300088632
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352