"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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Academics from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesJews from the United StatesEmigrants
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George Steiner
Francis George Steiner (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a French-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator, who wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust.
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