“We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can
play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the
morning.”

— George Steiner

Preface.
Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966 (1967)
Context: We come after. We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. To say that he has read them without understanding or that his ear is gross, is cant. In what way does this knowledge bear on literature and society, on the hope, grown almost axiomatic from the time of Plato to that of Matthew Arnold, that culture is a humanizing force, that the energies of spirit are transferable to those of conduct?

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George Steiner 74

American writer 1929–2020

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