AUSTRIAN STUDIES, II, 2OO3 235 1949 echoed that of 1933 in regrettable fashion, with Innitzer leading a procession of clerics intoVienna Stadium at the culmination ofHenz's WeihespielDer Ruf der Jugend, as he had done sixteen years previously in StMichael f?hre uns! Equally outdated was the continued promotion of the Laienspiel as a means of youth evangelism; and it speaks volumes that, of the fourmain groupings discussed, the Catholics were least successful in theirattempt to run a professional theatre. Theater im 'Wiederaufbau3 is a handsomely produced volume, with eighty-four black-and-white illustrations, and will certainly become the standard work in its field. Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner writes well and is never content merely to accumulate data without analysis, although the sheer wealth of detail makes the book a demanding read, especially when tackled from cover to cover. Its enduring value is,however, likely to be as a work of reference ? which makes ita pity that there isno index of the several hundred actors, directors, playwrights, politicians and cultural functionaries who grace itspages. University College London Judith Beniston Am st?rzenden Pfad. Gesammelte Gedichte.By Franz Baermann Steiner. Ed. byJeremy Adler. (Ver?ffentlichungen der Deutschen Akademie f?r Sprache und Dichtung, Darmstadt 76). G?ttingen: Wallstein. 2000. 494 pp. 35,00. isbn 3-89244-411-0. This volume marks the outcome of a sustained endeavour by other writers to gain recognition for thework of thePrague poet Franz Baermann Steiner (1909-1952). Although his poetry was acclaimed by Stephen Spender, Gottfried Benn, Johannes Bobrowski, Paul Celan, Erich Fried andMichael Hamburger, only forty-onepoems were published during his lifetime. Inauspicious circumstances prevented publica tion of his collection In BabylonsNischen at proof-stage in 1950. Steiner's Prague friend and colleague in exileH. G. Adler edited the selection Unruhe ohneC/Ar (1954) and the cycle Eroberungen(1964), but these did not reach a wider public, and around half thepoems inAm st?rzenden Pfad are now being published for thefirst time in this edition by Jeremy Adler. The volume complements publication of Steiner's other works, permitting appreciation of his contribution both as a poet and as an anthropologist at theUniversity ofOxford, where he worked with Mary Douglas (see Selected Writings, ed. byJeremy Adler and Richard Fardon, 2 vols, 1999). Am st?rzenden Pfad is based on Steiner's plans for a volume of collected poems (which he distinguished from a critical edition) and includes Steiner's own? often extensive ? annotations and associated poetological reflections. It documents his intensive work with theGerman classical tradition, notably the diction, imagery and verse-forms ofKlopstock, H?lderlin, Rilke and Trakl. Steiner responded no less energetically to theEnglish tradition, inpoems about Spenser and Donne, engaging criticallywith Eliot's citation techniques and composing verse paraphrases of diary entries by the nineteenth-century rural novelist Richard Jefferies. Steiner was fascinated bymyth, likehis Prague friendElias Canetti, and by the rituals, narratives and symbols ofpeoples across theworld, which he explores inversified fables and in a series of'variations' on folk songs.He challenges both Romantic veneration of the folk song as ideal poetry and the view that folk song is irrelevant tomodern needs. His political concern to counteract the suppression and marginalization of 236 Reviews non-Western cultures is evident in his programmatic avoidance of folksongs from themajor nations involved in theEuropean wars. Steiner's magnificent unfinished cycle Eroberungenispoetry inprogress, composed mainly in the years 1940-45 and continually evolving as he expands the structure, elaborates themes and incorporates new sequences. The cycle refracts autobio graphical elements and political events through poems, religious texts and myths drawn frommany cultures, with texts from theJewish tradition exemplifying the human condition in exile. The work may be read as a response to Wordsworth's The Prelude, Rilke's Duineser Elegien and Eliot's The Waste Land, with the range of intertextual connections linking up cultures and ages of mankind in the con sciousness of the central figure.The theme of sufferingisdeepened in the long poem 'Gebet im Garten', written in 1947 on the occasion of Steiner's late father's birthday. Steiner's poetry isof and for itstime, and it is tobe hoped thatbelated publication will restore hiswork to itsrightfulplace inour perception ofmid-twentieth...