“Mr Aiken is not quite a good enough talker; his gossip is entertaining, but he has not the knack of telling a story well, of putting an idea into a forcible and convincing form. A certain diffuseness—it is noticeable, but to a lesser degree, in his poetry—takes the edge and point off what he says; a fact that is the more regrettable, since we believe his psychological methods of criticism to be fundamentally sound and fruitful.” A. L. H.
+ − Ath p10 Ja 2 ’20 500w
“At times rather technical for the lay reader but worth while for all interested in contemporary poetry.”
+ − Booklist 16:160 F ’20
“It makes good sedative reading after you have got tired of Mencken, Cabell, Powys and some few others of the real brains of America—in the matter of the essay, I mean.” Mary Terrill
− Bookm 51:194 Ap ’20 600w
“The poets and the books that he makes an intellectual flourish of judging in the re-printed reviews which make up this volume have, for the most part, their fundamental purposes and qualities befogged and perverted by such critical charlatanry, no matter how brilliant the execution may be. Often Mr Aiken makes a most convincing case for or against a poet, but the average reader will be inclined to discount his own agreement because he cannot be sure of the critic’s motives.” W. S. B.
− + Boston Transcript p6 F 11 ’20 1300w
“One’s quarrel with Mr Aiken will be with his limits, not with his accomplishment within his limits. What in most instances he sets out to do, namely, to particularize (he says illuminate) with a careful casualness, he certainly does well. It is because he has done so much carefully that dissatisfaction arises at the incomplete significance of the whole work.” C: K. Trueblood