Sunday, December 27, 2009

Brute Camouflage

From George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (NY: Oxford University Press, 1975)—

At every level, from brute camouflage to poetic vision, the linguistic capacity to conceal, misinform, leave ambiguous, hypothesize, invent, is indispensable to the equilibrium of human consciousness.