SOURCE: Eliot, T. S. “Philip Massinger.” The Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 1920, pp. 325-26.

In the following essay, Eliot argues that Massinger is an inferior playwright whose dreary plays lack moral vigor and hence are typical of Jacobean decadence.

Massinger has been more fortunately and more fairly judged than several of his greater contemporaries. Three critics have done their best by him: the notes of Coleridge exemplify Coleridge's fragmentary and fine perceptions; the essay of Leslie Stephen is a piece of formidable destructive analysis; and the essay of Swinburne is Swinburne's criticism at its best. None of these, probably, has put Massinger finally and irrefutably into a place; and if we still aspire to settle this distinguished and unread playwright, we shall find Professor Cruickshank's book¹ more useful, perhaps, than any of them. English criticism is inclined to argue or persuade rather than to state; and, instead of forcing...