After Babel
1975
- translating and interpreting
- language and languages
- philosophy
- hermeneutics
The story
First published in 1975, After Babel constituted the first systematic investigation of the theory and processes of translation since the eighteenth century. In mapping out its own field, it quickly established itself as both controversial and seminal, and gave rise to a considerable, and still-growing, body of secondary literature. Even today, with its status as a modern classic beyond question, many of the book's insights remain provocative and challenging. Since the first edition of After Babel, George Steiner has entirely revised the text, adding new and expanded notes, and the bibliography has been completely updated. New prefaces written for the second and third editions set the book in the context of hermeneutics, poetics, and translation studies, and reflect on the implications for translation of recent social, technological, and political developments. - Back cover.
What it’s like
Dense, unhurried and intellectual, the reading experience of this book is less a story than a long conversation with a restless, learned mind. Its prose is erudite and elegantly argued, moving through sentences that circle a idea, test it against languages and centuries, then loop back with a quiet insistence. The sensory world is almost entirely in the mind: the pages hold classical texts, glosses and footnotes, and the faint pleasure of watching a thinker sharpen a definition. Its vibe is cerebral, precise and quietly expansive, best suited to a slow afternoon with a notebook at hand, a late-night stretch of focused reading, or a stack of other books that already share its appetite for language. Pacing is deliberate, with long analytical passages that reward patience rather than momentum. The register is serious and occasionally combative, though never cruel, and there is no violence, no sexual content, and no fear beyond the intellectual stakes of getting meaning right. It suits readers who love etymology, the strangeness of other tongues, and the philosophy of how one mind reaches another across difference.
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