Real Presences - Hardcover

Steiner, George.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571140718 ISBN 13: 9780571140718

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, 1989

Synopsis

Can there be major dimensions of a poem, a painting, a musical composition created in the absence of God? Or, is God always a real presence in the arts? Steiner passionately argues that a transcendent reality grounds all genuine art and human communication.

"A real tour de force. . . . All the virtues of the author's astounding intelligence and compelling rhetoric are evident from the first sentence onward."—Anthony C. Yu, Journal of Religion

About this title

About the Author

George Steiner has written a great many books during his long and distinguished career as a literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. He was professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva, Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St Anne's College at Oxford University, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.

From Library Journal

In this dense, prolix book, critic, linguist, novelist, polymath Steiner holds that in the creation of art (especially music), and in its experiencing, there is a fundamental encounter with a "real presence" and that, in fact, it is this transcendent reality that grounds all genuine art and human communication. He does not so much argue this in the traditional manner as give a "transcendental argument" a la Kant: since so much literature and so many literary figures attest to the thesis, it must be true. Because of its lack of discursive argument, this difficult book will be dissatisfying to philosophers and largely impenetrable to the general reader. But sophisticated readers looking for highly learned literary criticism will find much here to ponder.
- Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0571140718
• ISBN 13: 9780571140718
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 256