53. The Human Character
GA 68b/1909-10-29/p029
·1909-10-29
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
[I have] already pointed out in an example from art the loss of control over the individual parts, where the ego has sunk into self-loss. This work of art is the famous Laocoon: a priest with his two sons standing there and entwined by snakes. Many people have endeavored to understand this work of art. ... All this is expressed in a wonderful way, one must... in the right way understand. /Larger gaps; probably a description of “Laocoon”.] Even those who have devoted themselves to it with devotion have said many erroneous things in their understanding of this work of art. Winckelmann, who became Lessing's and Goethe's teacher in the study of art, looked at Laocoon in such a way that he said that it was particularly beautiful that here
Read this passage in another edition