Until recently, Dudek's contribution to the Canadian literary scene has seemed a little blurred. Because his poetry wasn't represented in Milton Wilson's influential Poets of Mid-Century anthology, his work is less familiar to paperback-reading students of Canadian poetry than it otherwise might have been. And his critical writing has up to now been scattered in newspapers, journals and little magazines. But thanks to the appearance of his Collected Poetry in 1971 and the recent publication of these critical gatherings, we are now in a position to see his work as something approaching a totality. And a very impressive achievement it proves to be.

Perhaps his most significant contribution to Canadian criticism (and the implications of the statement for our current literary-critical situation are staggering) is his continued insistence on the centrality of the value-judgment. As he remarks in an appreciation of Alden Nowlan in 1969.

The real business of literature...