SOURCE: “A Citation of T. S. Eliot” in The Nation (New York), Vol. 141, No. 3668, October 23, 1935, pp. 478-80.

In the following review, Blackmur provides a mixed assessment of The Achievement of T. S. Eliot.

The great temptation in writing of T. S. Eliot's poetry is to batten upon the frequent illuminations provided for it in his critical essays; and to this temptation Mr. Matthiessen has again and again given in. His book [The Achievement of T. S. Eliot] is a citation rather than an examination of Eliot's work, and the circulating energy—what keeps the book going and unites its effects—is Mr. Matthiessen's felt appreciation of Eliot's governing obsessions. Thus the successive crises of interpretation and judgment tend naturally without a jar to appear as unrelieved quotation. There could be no better testimony of the scope, the consistency, and the expressive persuasiveness of Eliot's work once one gives...