A powerful argument for the presence of the divine within art, from one of the twentieth-century's leading thinkers In Real Presences , George Steiner, whom A. S. Byatt praised as "a late, late, late, late Renaissance man," addressed one of the most challenging and important questions about art and human understanding: Can there be major dimensions of a poem, a painting, a musical composition created in the absence of God? Or is God always a real presence in the arts? Drawing examples from across centuries and cultures, Steiner passionately argues that a transcendent reality grounds all genuine art and human communication. “A real tour de force. . . . All the virtues of the author’s astounding intelligence and compelling rhetoric are evident from the first sentence onward.” -- Anthony C. Yu ― Journal of Religion George Steiner has written a great many books during his long and distinguished career as a literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. He was professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva, Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St Anne’s College at Oxford University, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University.