American critic and author, born in Paris, and educated at the
Sorbonne and the universities of Chicago, Harvard, and Oxford.
His critical works include The Death of Tragedy (1961); Language
and Silence (1967); In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards
the Re‐Definition of Culture (1971); After Babel: Aspects of
Language and Translation (1975); and Real Presences: Is There
Anything in What We Say? (1989). One of Steiner's recurrent
themes is the way in which the 20th‐cent. experiences of
totalitarianism and world war, and, more specifically, of the
Holocaust, have destroyed the assumption that literature is a
humanizing influence. His novella The Portage to San Cristobal
of A. H. (1979; dramatized by Christopher Hampton, 1982) puts in
the mouth of Hitler (who is supposed to have survived the war
and taken refuge in South America) the argument that the Jews
(through monotheism, Christianity, and Marxism) had provoked
their own destruction. Other works include Proofs and Three
Parables (fiction, 1992) and Errat