Saito Junichi

Saito, Junichi

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 Eljo t's unilin    ingualism and Steiner's multilin their discussion of culturegualismJunichi Saito   Who would have been the greater man of letters in the 20th century T. S. Eliot or George Steiner? One might argue that it depends on how you define the great man of letters. The fact remains that Eliot won the Nobel Peace Prize after World War II. However, it was George Steiner who scrutinized Eliot's Notes in a more sensitive attitude of mind than anybody has ever done before. Where does Steiner's sensitive critical view come from? This article deals with that question.    One might argue that Steiner managed to bring a sharp critical sense to what people of more mediocre sense of mind take for granted. Perhaps this is because Steiner is a multilingual critic who can switch from one language to another in his thinking process. Steiner discusses his multilingual background in an interview included in Barbarie de l'ignorance:Interviewer (in what follows "I") : Votre pere va refaire, reconstruire sa vie a Paris en y emigrant en 1924. Il va ecrire dans le "Manchester Guardian". En fait, cette prescience de votre pere et ensuite cette capacite linguistique extraordinaire de votre pere qui est bien star dans un                                                 109monde germanophone—qui  parle anglais pour un journal anglaistout cela explique que vous soyez eleve de facon trilingue.. .Steiner (in what follows, "S") : Ma mere commencait une phrase dans une langue, la finissait dans une autre, sans s'en apercevoire. Elle aussi avait une oreille superbe, un francais exquis. Cars, dans la culture viennoise, une des montees vers le bonheur d'une autre civilisation, c'etait le francais ... Il ne faut jamais oublier le prestige, enorme, de la langue et de la litterature francaise a travers cette Europe centrale ! Aujourd'hui, dans l'anglo-americain quasi universel—nous en reparlerons—on oublie que c'etait le francais qui donnait l'acces a la sensibilite classique europeenne. C'est en parlant francais qu'on devenait—le mot est devenu tres laid sous Hitler, mais c'est un tres beau mot: cosmopolite.'   The above-quoted passage indicates that his multilingual parents had a great influence on Steiner's intellectual development. In other words, Steiner was raised and disciplined under ideal circumstances to become a person of multiple perspectives. Steiner suggests in the interview that being multilingual provides a person with many thinking channels, a privilege which might be said to confer the liberty of human thought.I : C'est la que vous avez appris qu'une langue qui s'apprend est une nouvelle liberte. Vous etiez donc trilingue, et dans un livre qui s'appelle "Apres   Babel", vous avez voulu, au fond, rendre compte a la fois de la necessite de   ce plurilinguisme, et, en meme temps, de la maniere dont ca permettait de 110 El Mgt No. 26 2003 penetrer les psychologies de peuples differents.S : C'est la plus grande des bonnes fortunes pour moi ! Chaque langue est   une fenetre sur un autre monde, sur un autre paysage, sur une autre   structure de valeurs humaines. On doit a nouveau insister sur ce point:   une certaine pedagogie psychologique, largement americaine, voudrait   nous dire; "L'enfant multilingue risque la schizophrenie, risque des desordres mentaux." A mon sens, c'est totalement absurde ! Donner a un   enfant une serie de langues c'est donner a sa personnalite, tout d'abord,  un sens tres generalement humain. C'est-à-dire qu'il n'y a pas de   monopole chauvin, ni national d'une seule formule humaine. Les litteratures a sa portee, l'histoire d'une autre tradition, c'est essentiel ! 2The passage indicates that Steiner acquired a borderless intellectual mode of thinking through his unique childhood experience. Steiner suggests that taking multilingualism as mental disorder sounds American, because Americans at large are monolingual; a multilingual mind lays the basis , for enormous intellectual progress through the whole of life.    Eliot, in contrast, professed in his later stage of life that he remained loyal to the Anglophone tradition. He also asserts the preeminence of English for the purpose of writing poetry through a modest process of description.It has often been claimed that English, of all the languages of modern Europe, is the richest for the purposes of writing poetry. I think that   Eliot's unilingualism and Steiner's multilingualism in their discussion of culture 111this claim is  justified. But please notice when I say "richest for the purposes of writing poetry" I have been careful in my words; I do not mean that England has produced the greatest poets, or the greatest amount of great poetry.... I simply say that the English language is the most remarkable medium for the poet to play with.'One might argue that enthusiasm for a certain literature sometimes brings about an excessive reverence for a certain language for the production of literary works.    Compared with the multilingual figure of Steiner, Eliot can be called a unilingually based man of letters, though he certainly also had considerable knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as a number of modern European languages, most especially French and Italian.    The deliberate reader may remember the fact that Eliot always made much of English as the outstanding world language for articulating his thoughts and feelings. The following evocation of the virtues of English certainly seems a little jingoistic, from the viewpoint of Steiner:... the richness of the English language for poetry is first of all in its  variety of metrical elements. There is the rhythm of early Saxon verse,  the rhythm of the Norman French, the rhythm of the Welsh, and also  the influence of generations of study of Latin and Greek poetry. And  even today, the English language enjoys constant possibilities of  refreshment from its several centres... I have not taken the trouble to  talk to you in order to praise my own language; my reason for discussing 112 Q1 S pFtNo. 26 2003it is that I think the reason why English is such a good language for poetry is that it is a composite from so many different European sources. As I have said, this does not imply that England must have produced the greatest poets. Art, as Goethe said, is in limitation: and a great poet is one who makes the most of the language that is given him. The truly great poet makes his language a great  language.'It seems that Eliot, from the viewpoint of Steiner, is confident in the surpassing advantages of English as a language for poetry. Steiner might have argued that Eliot always discusses European literature through the special filter of Anglophone culture.    In fact, Eliot later goes on to discuss what a great deal English literature owes to French traditions. Yet it seems even here that Eliot stresses the superiority of the Anglophone tradition in a way that lets the French tradition fade away as an example of past glory. Eliot modestly says:... in the second half of the nineteenth century the greatest contribution to European poetry was certainly made in France. I refer to the tradition which starts with Baudelaire, and culminates in Paul Valery. I venture to say that without this French tradition the work of three poets in other languages—and three very different from each other—I refer to W. B. Yeats, to Rainer Maria Rilke, and, if I may, to myself—would hardly be conceivable. And, so complicated are these literary influences, we must remember that this French movement itself owed a good deal to an American of Irish extraction: Edgar Allan Poe.'   Eliot's unilingualism and Steiner's multilingualism in their discussion of culture 113Is it farfetched to argue that Eliot can not wholly put his ideas into perspective, when he discusses European culture at large, because—for all his cosmopolitanism—he is basically a unilingual literary critic. In contrast, Steiner, as a genuinely multilingual critic, is better placed to discuss the matter from a different viewpoint. As for French tradition, Steiner's presentation is more persuasive.I : On peut dire qu'aujourd'hui ce mot a  retrouve toute sa valeur, toute sa beaute. Etre cosmopolite, c'est finalement etre vraiment citoyen du   monde.S : Ce qui etait l'ideal des Lumieres, et d'une certaine emancipation   juive: la grande sortie historique du ghetto, le mouvement vers   l'Occident et vers la Iiberte francaise, l'ideal de la Revolution francaise et les grands penseurs des Lumieres.   Nous avons, je crois, sous la puissance anglo-americaine, un peu   perdu notre sens de ce que c'etait qu'etre Europeen a ce moment-la.6Steiner's strong tone of voice seems to derive from his personal experience of losing his parents in the concentration camp. He mentions how French as a language of liberty helped emancipate the Jews from the ghettos. His statement rings true, because French can be thought of as a language for those who were oppressed under the Nazi regime. The following passage illustrates the respect.114 C1~rp No. 26 2003 ... M. Hamel se mit a nous parler de la langue francaise, disant que c'etait la plus belle langue du monde, la plus claire, la plus solide: qu'il fallait la garder entre nous et ne jamais l'oublier, parce que, quand un peuple tombe esclave, tant qu'il tient bien sa langue, c'est comme s'il tenait la clef de sa prison.Alphonse Daudet : La Derrniere ClasseOne might ask whether Eliot could really discuss this kind of matter from the viewpoint of the oppressed. Steiner might have been better able to understand the sufferings and pains at the concentration camps precisely because he was taught German by his father. The German the Jews heard at the concentration camps could have struck them as barbaric and overbearing. In other words, Steiner was trying to articulate the feelings of those who were oppressed by the false concept of the supreme race. This might have been possible because he could switch from one language to another when he wanted to think reflectively.    Although Eliot was a polyglot reader at least, he may not have realized his own limitations in being a unilingual critic when he discussed European culture. If he had had more multilingual viewpoints like Steiner's, Eliot's argument of European culture might have been more profound. However, it might also safely be said that such an argument does not devalue Eliot as a great Christian poet, because a large number of men of letters have owed a great deal to his idea of European culture.Eliot's unilingualism and Steiner's multilingualism in their discussion of culture 115Notes  1) George Steiner Antoine Spire, Barbarie de l'ignorance (Latresne, LE   BORD DE L'EAU, 1998), p.11. 2) Ibid., p.12. 3) T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (London: Harcourt Brace &   Company,1977), pp.187-188. 4) Ibid., pp.188-189. 5) Ibid., p.189. 6) Steiner Spire, op.cit., p.12.116 1111W1'nrkiX No. 26 2003

Eliot's unilingualism and Steiner's multilingualism in their discussion of culture

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Eliot\u27s unilingualism and Steiner\u27s multilingualism in their discussion of culture

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