Grammars of Creation [Paperback]

Mr. George Steiner (Author), George Steiner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

"We have no more beginnings," George Steiner begins in this, his most radical book to date. A far-reaching exploration of the idea of creation in Western thought, literature, religion, and history, this volume can fairly be called a magnum opus. He reflects on the different ways we have of talking about beginnings, on the "core-tiredness" that pervades our end-of-the-millennium spirit, and on the changing grammar of our discussions about the end of Western art and culture. With his well-known elegance of style and intellectual range, Steiner probes deeply into the driving forces of the human spirit and our perception of Western civilization's lengthening afternoon shadows. 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 masterful volume of reflections with an eloquent evocation of the endlessness of beginnings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300097298
• ISBN-13: 978-0300097290
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Inventive or Creative, June 18, 2002

By 

A. G. Plumb "Greg Plumb" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grammars of Creation (Hardcover)

I enjoy Mr Steiner's writing very much and I also enjoy reading about language and its impact on culture - so there are two basic reasons for my approach to this book. Even when Mr Steiner is not making sense for me - and I'll explain why below - his writing is clear and a pleasure to read (even though he does occasionally use a sentence structure with an inserted phrase that does not read well for me - requires me to read again and try to rephrase in my own mind).

Why does Mr Steiner not make sense sometimes? Well, I suspect that most readers will not have the breadth of knowledge that Mr Steiner draws on in this book. Arguments that appeal to Dante, say, do not convince me because I simply haven't read Dante (yet). By chance, arguments that point to Stravinsky or Schwitters are ones that I can support or challenge. But it is my belief that all readers will only have a subset of Mr Steiner's knowledge and so, more or less, some of the book will not 'make sense' to some readers. But there are areas which Mr Steiner covers and admits less background than he would like - mathematics for example. At one point he suggests that mathematicians are less likely to be 'mad' than other creators, but I would maintain (and perhaps I have a more developed knowledge on mathematics than Mr Steiner - although I hesitate to think this might be possible) that eccentrics like Ramanujan and Erdos (who Mr Steiner does refer to) show all the same extremes as are shown by creators such as van Gogh. Should Mr Steiner not have written of this area - is his scholarship, for once, lacking? Since his main arguments centre on the differences between creation and invention the book would not have been possible without him doing this.

But the most annoying aspect of this work for me was one of editorship. There are so many quotes in foreign languages that I certainly can't read. These are truly without meaning. Even if the timbre of the sounds (and without knowing how to pronounce the words this will never be accurately expressed in the printed word), or the flow of the words - rhythm and shape - were the keys to the quotes, I believe that, as a courtesy to all readers, translations should be provided. Surely it can't be suggested that these quotes are untranslatable?

So what did I get out of the book? I found a valuable discussion on the difference between invention and creation. A wonderful quote "The whispers of shared ecstasy are choral". And another: "If, as Galileo ruled, nature speaks mathematics, far too many of us remain deaf". And a thought provoking discussion on the difference in the life of created works - Schoenberg does not cause us to abandon Monteverdi - Dali does not discount our appreciation of da Vinci - Rushdie does not cause us to no longer want to read Shakespeare. And yet, Einstein in some ways does cause us to overlook Newton (although we do not disregard Newton for all this - and the Newtonian understanding is often adequate to solve problems) - Euclid has been supplanted by later geometers, we would never spend time reading Galen when modern medical texts are more appropriate.

My last comment about this book is also an editorial comment. I would have liked a bibliography to quoted works, both primary sources and secondary ones.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Elegant Eulogy, June 28, 2001

By 

Arun Rajagopalan (Troy, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grammars of Creation (Hardcover)

Steiner has written a difficult and rewarding book on the modes of creation. Based on a doctoral seminar in Comparative Literature and Poetics, it calls for a reader appreciative of the broad spectrum of arts and European literature .

What are the structures and sources of creation in philosophy, literature, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, mathematics and science? How do these structures relate to each other? How has the twentieth century transformed these grammars? Steiner explores these questions, guided by the classics(Commedia, Book of Job) and the voices of seminal figures(Goethe, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein). Steiner concludes, " the story out of Genesis has ended". Duchamp and the Dada movement mark the end of creation once driven by theological impulses, fears of mortality, and desire for artistic permanence. The twentieth century has seen the exponential ascent of science and technology. Discovery and invention have emerged as the dominant grammars of human expression.

As an engineer, I appreciate Steiner's reflections on the creative aspects of science. Although I am not convinced about his conclusions , I still find the arguments engaging and the style entertaining enough to reread the text now and then.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steiner and the "barbarism of specialization", November 12, 2005

By 

Thomas McGlaughlin (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grammars of Creation (Paperback)

It seems to me that George Steiner is a sworn enemy of what Ortega (disparagingly) called the "barabarism of specialization." Although one may quibble that his work exhibits a lack of the "rigor" (as one reviewer put it) that comes with specialized knowledge, I submit the following thesis, which is certainly contestable: Mr. Steiner's lack of "rigor" is the precise point of its work and its value.

I, for one, believe that just as one not need be schooled in literary theory to appreciate and understand literature, so one need not vex oneself in the labyrinthine specifics of analytic philosophy to understand philosophical concepts. Mr. Steiner is "un hombre de las letras," in the precise sense that Ortega meant (lest I annoy the reviewer who complained of untranslated text in Steiner, that's Spanish for a "man of letters"). It is of greater concern to me that there are not more Steiner's in our barbarously specialized age, than that the Steiner we have might overlook a few details.

Man, whose science has classified himself "homo sapiens," which we render as the "thinking being," has lost the ability to see things in their totality, i.e. to think. Gone is the age of the synoptic genius. Or so it would seem. But man is still man, and modern man labors under the curse of skepticism and scientism that he pronounced upon himself. Speculation is, or was until recently, a legitimate and enviable philosophical gift. Steiner has the gift in spades.

If George Steiner troubles and challenges readers who have not his classical erudition, I say that he has done his job. If Steiner irks the rank and vulgar skepticism of those schooled in the horrifically delimited contours of empirical science, I say good. If Steiner manages to get even a single reader to think outside the conceptual categories of a debased and debasing materialist metaphysics, I say, "Amen."

Grammars of Creation is Steiner's best work. It says more about more than anything else he has written. If he is right, that it is "closing time in the gardens of the West," the fact that he is not appreciated by the American reading public is, in my mind, proof of it. I close by saying that he is proof to me that it is still possible, in an age of stultifying scientific tunnel-vision, to think.