I’m reading a book of literary criticism, written by George Steiner, a long-term columnist of The New Yorker. In introducing his book, Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, which was published in 1959, Steiner sheds light on the rewards and requirements of literary criticism.
In reading this introduction, I find a great deal that brings me back to the importance of never forgetting those foundational kernels of truth and principles of living which emerge from our most life-changing experiences.
There are more than 100 great books, more than 1,000, Steiner tells us. But their number is not inexhaustible. The same comment applies to the principles of living and truths. There are a lot of them. But the number is not inexhaustible. And the most important are ones we must always cling to, including the commitment to excellence, to truth and integrity, to never giving up in the pursuit of what is right, and to respect for one another.
Steiner points out, correctly, that in today’s world a more diffident view of what is timeless prevails. “With the decline of Europe from the pivot of history, we have become less certain that the classical and Western tradition is preeminent. Our minds are shadowed by the wars and bestialities of the 20th century. We grow weary of our inheritance. But we must not yield too far. In excess of relativism lie the germs of anarchy.”
The “ancient recognition and habits of understanding run deeper than the rigors of time. Tradition and the long ground-swell of unity are no less real than that sense of disorder and vertigo which the new dark ages have loosed upon us.” (Steiner wrote this in the 1950s. The shadow of World War II still lingered. I feel certain that his thoughts would be no different in today’s troubled world.)
Even as we know that change is unending, that circumstances change, and that new opportunities and challenges arise, we must hold fast to those truths and learnings which have come down through time and which we believe in our hearts represent guides to our doing the best we can in the world we live in today.
Steiner’s subject is the challenge of literary criticism returning “with passion and awe and a sense of life renewed. At present, there is grievous need of such return,” Steiner writes. “All about us flourishes a new illiteracy, the illiteracy of those who can read short words, words of hatred and tawdriness, but cannot grasp the meaning of language when it is in a condition of beauty or truth.”
This may sound too highfalutin, too detached from the rigors of everyday life, but I don’t think it is. I think it calls upon us to honor those truths gained from our experience and learning which, put simply, helps us be our best selves.
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