“Act II of Cymbeline closes with a monologue by Posthumus.” (1975)

“If there is currently a debate on ‘culture’ – as distinct from a merely formal academic-journalistic rhetoric or rhetorical gossip – it involves, it must, where it is honestly pursued, involve the nature of ‘texts.’” (1978)

“The crisis of spirit suffered by Germany in 1918 was more profound than that of 1945.” (1978)

“Chardin’s Le Philosophe Lisant was completed on 4 December, 1734. It is thought to be a portrait of the painter Aved, a friend of Chardin’s.” (1978)

“Between c. 1790 and c.1905, it was widely held by European poets, philosophers, scholars, that Sophocles’ Antigone was not only the finest of Greek tragedies, but a work of art nearer to perfection than any other produced by the human spirit.” (1984)

“We still speak of ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset.’ We do so as if the Copernican model of the solar system had not replaced, ineradicably, the Ptolemaic. Vacant metaphors, eroded figures of speech, inhabit our vocabulary and grammar. They are caught, tenaciously, in the scaffolding and recesses of our common parlance. There they rattle about like old rags or ghosts in the attic.” (1989)

“Rain, especially for a child, carries distinct smells and colours.” (1997)

“We have no more beginnings. Incipit: that proud Latin word which signals the start survives in our dusty ‘inception.’” (2000)

These are the opening sentences of Professor Steiner’s major works. I have cited them as a kind of collage, because in this density they demonstrate one of the major qualities of this “general reader.” They are challenging and declarative, inviting and seductive, and, above all, clear. You might resist the persuasion, but you will not be assaulted. You will find a stringency not acceptable to all tastes, for, as he has said, he has never been able to disguise his faith in Spinoza’s equation of excellence and difficulty. For powerful driving rhetorical force you may try the series of T. S. Eliot Memorial Lectures titled In Bluebeard’s Castle. Perhaps follow it with that extraordinary allegory of argument, Professor Steiner’s powerful expression of evil as he gives A. H. the jungle podium in The Portage to San Christobal of A. H.