SOURCE: Eliot, T. S. “Philip Massinger.” In The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, pp. 123-43. London: Methuen & Co., 1920.

In this following essay, which was first published in The Sacred Wood as an addendum to a reprint of his Times Literary Supplement article, Eliot observes that although Massinger was not an artist of the first rank, he did write two “great comedies”: A New Way to Pay Old Debts and The City Madam.

Massinger's tragedy may be summarized for the unprepared reader as being very dreary. It is dreary, unless one is prepared by a somewhat extensive knowledge of his livelier contemporaries to grasp without fatigue precisely the elements in it which are capable of giving pleasure; or unless one is incited by a curious interest in versification. In comedy, however, Massinger was one of the few masters in the language. He was a master in a...