Nuestras palabras: Educación, mundo clásico y democracia

by George Steiner, Julio Trujillo (Translator), Jur Schuurman (Translator)

¿Qué le pasa a una sociedad cuando relega el estudio del mundo clásico? ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias para la convivencia democrática de arrinconar las humanidades y entronizar como únicos paradigmas válidos la ciencia y la tecnología? ¿Qué le sucede a una civilización que extravía, en el vértigo del presente, su alma? Tres grandes humanistas, el filólogo George Steiner, el poeta Adam Zagajewski y la helenista Jacqueline de Romilly responden a estas preguntas en Nuestras palabras , una defensa del valor de lo «inútil», es decir, del estudio de las ideas, las artes y las letras del pasado.

Las humanidades no nos hacen mejores personas, coinciden los tres autores, pero en ellas palpita nuestra esencia. Se puede vivir sin haber leído a Tucídides, pero basta leerlo para saber que estamos ante una voz única cuyo relato de la lejana guerra del Peloponeso está vigente. Lo mismo sucede con Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Proust o Tolstói.

No es casualidad, nos dice Romilly , que la democracia, el teatro y la filosofía hayan nacido a la vez, ni que su vigencia marque la esencia del espíritu europeo, hoy presente alrededor del mundo. Tampoco es casualidad que su decadencia esté unida a la del estudio de las filologías en las universidades, presas de la autocensura y la «corrección política», como denuncia Steiner . Y esto sin olvidar, como advierte Zagajewski , que el saber libresco no puede ni debe reemplazar a la musa de la poesía, que lo mismo se esconde en Yeats que en la vida callejera.

Para el escritor Rob Riemen , tenemos la obligación de «portar la bandera» del humanismo, como hicieron Thomas Mann, Mandelstam o Camus en lo más sombrío del siglo XX, y transmitirlo a la siguiente generación, no como un fardo, sino como un mapa del tesoro.

112 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2023

About the author

George Steiner was a French and American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator whose work explored the relationship between language, literature, and society, with a particular focus on the moral and cultural consequences of the Holocaust. Multilingual from an early age, Steiner grew up speaking German, English, and French, and studied the classics under his father, while overcoming a physical handicap with his mother’s encouragement. His family relocated to the United States during World War II, an experience that shaped his lifelong reflections on survival, morality, and human cruelty. He studied literature, mathematics, and physics at the University of Chicago, earned an MA at Harvard, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Steiner held academic posts across Europe and the United States, including Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva, Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative European Literature at Oxford, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard, teaching in multiple languages. A prolific writer, he produced influential works in criticism, translation studies, and fiction, including Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, The Death of Tragedy, After Babel, and The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., blending historical insight with philosophical reflection. His essays and books explored the power and ambivalence of human language, the ethical responsibilities of literature, and the persistence of anti-Semitism, while his fiction offered imaginative examinations of moral and historical dilemmas. Steiner was celebrated for his intellectual breadth and lecturing style, described as prophetic, charismatic, and sometimes doom-laden, and he contributed extensively to journals such as The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The New Yorker. He was married to Zara Steiner, with whom he had two children, David and Deborah, both of whom pursued academic and public service careers. Steiner’s work remains widely respected for its integration of rigorous scholarship, ethical inquiry, and literary sensitivity, marking him as one of the foremost thinkers in twentieth-century literature and comparative studies.