Summary

Real Presences (1989), perhaps the best-known work by George Steiner, is usually introduced as a vindication of high-culture, humanist reading and aesthetic values inherent to artistic masterpieces. This paper is based on the arguments of anti-deconstructionist theory raised by Steiner, in the context of US academy debates. Contrary to the proposals of Paul de Man or Stanley Fish, among others, Steiner’s work does not represent a relapse into a realistic metaphysics aesthetically created. The provocative reference to God is not an alibi to resolve the question of meaning outside the text but «hope» to be fulfi lled «within» the text. If read sceptically, its aporiai become paradoxes with tentatively numinous language.