George Steiner’s Metaphors for Translation

George Steiner’s After Babel contains many riches, and many of these can be found in the chapter “The Hermeneutic Motion”. But that chapter has its chal­lenges and vexing provocations, and it therefore merits critical commentary. At issue, I argue, is the problematic elaboration of various metaphors for translation and a certain laxity in argument that is covered over by the fineness of Steiner’s writing style. The purpose of this essay is to offer such a commentary, and to do so by making two further propositions: firstly, that this chapter in After Babel stands to gain if it’s read alongside his 1989 book Real Presences; secondly, that it can be elucidated by way of a thinker who, despite Steiner’s own reservations, is quite per­ti­nent to the matters addressed in “The Hermeneutic Motion”, namely Jacques Der­rida

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