“All serious art, music, literature is a critical act. It is so, firstly, in the sense of Matthew Arnold's phrase: "a criticism of life." Be it realistic, fantastic, Utopian or satiric, the construct of the artist is a counter-statement to the world.”

—  George Steiner

Source: Real Presences (1989), I: A Secondary City, Ch. 4 (p. 11).

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George Steiner 74
American writer 1929–2020

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