The Poetry of Thought: From Hellenism to Celan

by George Steiner

Overview

With his hallmark forceful discernment, George Steiner offers The Poetry of Thought as his magnum opus: an examination of more than two millennia of Western culture that argues on behalf of the essential oneness of great thought and great style. Sweeping yet precise, moving from essential detail to bracing illustration, Steiner spans the entire history of philosophy in the West as it entwines with literature, finding that, as Sartre stated, in all philosophy there is "a hidden literary prose." "The poetic genius of abstract thought," Steiner believes, "is lit, is made audible. Argument, even analytic, has its drumbeat. It is made ode. What voices the closing movements of Hegel's Phenomenology better than Edith Piaf's non de non, a twofold negation which Hegel would have prized? This essay is an attempt to listen more closely."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811219457
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	01/24/2012
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

George Steiner, author of dozens of books (The Death of Tragedy, After Babel, Martin Heidegger, In Bluebeard’s Castle, My Unwritten Books, George Steiner at the New Yorker, The Poetry of Thought), is Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge University and one of the world’s foremost intellectuals. He has been acclaimed “superb” (Edward Said, The Nation), “dazzling” (London Review of Books), and “a remarkably powerful writer” (The Christian Science Monitor).

Editorial Reviews

The Poetry of Thoughtis denser in its language, more disquieting in its arguments, more in line with Steiner’s stronger works, such asHeidegger(1978) and many of the essays collected inNo Passion Spent (1996). Steiner’s overall subject here is the interlocked nature of poetic language and philosophical thought, and how the intellect manifests itself through this connection.”

Rain Taxi

MacLaughlin has hit the nail on the head… Stunning… You may very well read [Hammer Head] in one sitting.”

The New Yorker

Beautiful and wise. . . . Like if Annie Dillard had her own show on HGTV.

Robvert Alter - The Washington Post

No one now writing on literature can match Steiner as polymath and polyglot, and few can equal the verve and eloquence of his writing.

The Washington Post - Robvert Alter