Grammars of Creation - Softcover

Steiner, Professor George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571206425 ISBN 13: 9780571206421

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2002

Synopsis

Are great works of art, literature and music 'creations' or 'inventions'? Does the mathematician 'invent' or 'discover'? Exploring an often neglected field, this book asks whether the current revolutions in our means of communication and in the biological sciences, may bring with them radical changes in the concept of individual creation and of poetic and philosophical invention. Are we returning to ancient anonymities and collectivities in aesthetic and intellectual experience? Are music and architecture now at the frontier where, as Plato would have it, truth and beauty meet? In Grammars of Creation the eminent critic George Steiner brings his unparalleled acumen and erudition to bear on these and other questions.

'This is a mesmerising book . . . Expressed in prose that is unfailingly apt, luminous and evocative.' Guardian

About this title

Review

In Grammars of Creation critic George Steiner discusses how key differences between the historical meanings of concepts of "creation" and "invention" in the arts and the sciences relate to time, the world, and the human psyche.

For Steiner there are four interrelated and, as it were, "transcendental", domains in which men and women seek to escape "the eradicating dictates of biological-historical time" (or death): music, poetry and the arts, pure mathematics and speculative metaphysics. He argues that the "creation" and reception of works of art have rendered them "more indispensable to men and women than even the best of science and technology." On the other hand, industrial and technological "invention" answerable to specific needs is viewed as worldly, pragmatic and utilitarian.

Steiner's belief that the current changes in "the experience of communication, of information, of knowledge, of the generation of meaning and form, are probably the most comprehensive and consequential since Homo sapiens development of language itself" provides the background for these reflections. He also believes that the root and branch critique of language in Central Europe during the first third of the 20th century (supported currently by philosophy, literature, sociology, political science, sociology and the arts) may have consequences more far-reaching than those of the political revolutions and economic crisis which have marked our age.

He wonders if the creation of art, poetry and metaphysics in the future may prove more difficult. If artists and philosophers have been enabled and fuelled, in some sense, by an explicit engagement with transcendence, then what is the fate of the creative process in a technologically driven age and in an intellectual world where the notion of "transcendence" is ridiculed?

What is most impressive about Grammars of Creation is Steiner's breadth of knowledge: he is equally at home talking about Plato and Dante as he is Heidegger and Hegel, the Romantic poets, music, mathematics, modern art or the Bible. Overall, this is a dense, unapologetically high-toned book perhaps not suitable for those with weak powers of concentration. Nevertheless it remains a fascinating work of creative synthesis unusual--by contemporary standards--in its willingness to allow the ultimate metaphysical questions to sit centre-stage. Well worth the sustained effort required to read it.--Larry Brown

Review

'This is a mesmerizing book... Expressed in prose that is unfailingly apt, luminous and evocative.' Guardian

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0571206425
• ISBN 13: 9780571206421
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304