A DEFINITION OF CULTURE
Sir,-Dr. J. C. Beaglehole is widely regarded as a literary man, but I question certain of his statements and writings with. regard to T. S. Eliot’s Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, Dr. Beaglehole’s review of this book in The Listener went far enough, but he went even further in public at the recent Books Brains Trust, when he denounced the book as the second-rate writings of a first-rate writer. Further, he said that Eliot, a director of the publishing firm of Faber and Faber, was deliberately using his firm’s honoured imprint in order to hoax people into buying what he must know to be a second-rate work. In your review he admits that he didn’t. know what to say about the book after he had read it, and so had turned to The Times Literary Supplement, but even then was not "much further forward." It is a happy thought that had the Supplement thrown a little light on the Eliot book, some of it may have been deflected through the doctor. As it is, one can only regret the utterances which arise from a reviewer’s frustration. The second-rate writings of a first-rate writer are, after all, more to be desired than a second- or third-hand review of them.
L.
JOHNSON
(Seatoun),
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 520, 10 June 1949, Page 5
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216A DEFINITION OF CULTURE New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 520, 10 June 1949, Page 5
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