SOURCE: A review of The Responsibilities of the Critic, in Modern Language Notes, Vol. LXIII, No. 7, November, 1953, pp. 502-4.

In the following mixed review of Responsibilities of the Critic, Bateson contends that Matthiessen was an excellent reviewer, but a mediocre critic.

The subtitle [of The Responsibilities of the Critic: Essays and Reviews] is a little misleading. Of the fifty short critical pieces by Matthiessen that make up this book as many as thirty-nine are reviews, reprinted by Mr. Rackliffe, a tactful and intelligent editor, from the Yale Review, the New England Quarterly, the New Republic and similar journals. The “essays” presumably include everything else, from the courageous Hopwood Lecture delivered at the University of Michigan in May 1949, a liberal challenge to this iron age which gives the book its title, to some literary obituaries and unpublished fragments. It is, therefore, essentially Matthiessen the reviewer who is presented to...