Background— George Steiner in this journal
and elsewhere—
"An intensity of outward attention —
interest, curiosity, healthy obsession —
was Steiner’s version of God’s grace."
— Lee Siegel in The New York Times ,
March 12, 2009
(See also Aesthetics of Matter in this journal on that date.)
Steiner in 1969 defined man as "a language animal."
Here is Steiner in 1974 on another definition—
Related material—
Also related — Kantor in 1981 on "exquisite finite geometries," and The Galois Tesseract.