George Steiner

Date of Birth: April 23, 1929

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Date of Death: February 3, 2020

Biography

George Steiner was a renowned literary critic, essayist, and philosopher, known for his profound contributions to the study of literature and culture. Born on April 23, 1929, in Paris, France, to Austrian-Jewish parents, Steiner grew up in a multilingual environment that deeply influenced his intellectual pursuits. The family fled to the United States in 1940 to escape the Nazi regime. Steiner’s academic journey took him to prestigious institutions; he studied at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and Balliol College, Oxford. Steiner’s career as a critic and scholar was marked by his deep engagement with the Western literary canon and the philosophical implications of language. He wrote extensively on a range of subjects, including the Holocaust, the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the nature of translation. His seminal works include “After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation” and “Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism.” Steiner held several academic positions throughout his career, including at the University of Geneva, Oxford University, and Cambridge University, where he was an Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College. His work earned him numerous accolades, including the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

5 Interesting Facts about George Steiner

1. George Steiner was fluent in several languages, including English, French, German, and Italian.

2. He was a vocal critic of the decline of classical education and the humanities.

3. Steiner’s book “After Babel” is considered a foundational text in the field of translation studies.

4. He was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2001.

5. Despite his immense contributions to literary criticism, Steiner never completed his PhD.

5 Most Interesting Quotes from George Steiner

1. “To many men and women, the great majority, the truth of the Holocaust remains more real than the truth of the Crucifixion.”

2. “Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.”

3. “There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.”

4. “What we know of other cultures and of our own past is chiefly what has been preserved in writing.”

5. “The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.”