Despre literatură, cu dragoste… Nicolae Steinhardt,Între viaţă şi cărţi*
On literature, with love… N. Steinhardt – In between life and books
During the last two communist decades, N. Steinhardt proposes a personal approach on literature and critics. He practices the reading and the receiving of literature and art in a Christian manner. Avoiding turgid expression, N. Steinhardt highlights the life embroidered in literature, in more or less famous authors, lyrics and characters. He catches a single moment of truth and beauty in the book he reads, in the painting he contemplates, and, starting from this glimpse or revelation of life, he develops a vivid demonstration of the values he believes in: the way, the truth, and the life. N. Steinhardt’s attitude regarding literature and arts is based on love and gratitude. In a grey, humdrum, wearisome world, he finds the resources to proclaim the arts as an aristocratic manifesto. This is an intelligent and discrete way for him to counterpoise a vulgar ideology and the ubiquitous spectrum of censorship.
Mircea Ivănescu, „Cărţi şi critică” / “Books and criticism”, în Transilvania, anul IV (LXXXI), serie nouă, nr. 8, august 1976.
Nicolae Steinhardt, Ioan Pintea, Primejdia mărturisirii. Convorbirile de la Rohia / The danger of confession. Interlocutions from Rohia, in Opere / Works, 15, Polirom, 2009.
„N. Steinhardt între viaţă şi cărţi”(ianuarie 1977) / “N. Steinhardt between life and books”(January 1977), in Semnul mirării / The sign of wonder, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 1995.
