Mr. Steiner's "T. S. Eliot Lectures" for 1971 [published as In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes towards the Redefinition of Culture] return us, we are told, to issues posed by Eliot in his 1948 Notes towards the Definition of Culture. As far as I can make out, Mr. Steiner's problems arise from the barbarism of our century, on which Eliot had almost nothing to say. Steiner has a great deal to say about it in a tone of sustained eloquence, while seemingly presenting a causal account of its origin. I say, "as far as I can say." and "seemingly," because protracted effort to get past the eloquent fuzz to the warp of the argument was not altogether successful….

Do these lectures add anything to Eliot's Definition of 1948? Very little of substance, besides the emphasis on the genocide of our age. There is the eloquence already noted; there is a great display...