SOURCE: Robson, W. W. “The Unread Eliot.” Partisan Review 40, no. 1 (winter 1973): 136-41.

In the following review, Robson examines the shared conservative philosophies of T. S. Eliot and Kirk, comparing it with several other contemporary books on Eliot, finding much to commend in Kirk but finding his explications and paraphrases of the Eliot's poems “long-winded and bluff and his breezy manner somewhat incongruous,” among other flaws.

There is no sign at present, at any rate in Great Britain, that T. S. Eliot's fame as a poet is likely to suffer the fate of Abraham Cowley's. It is true that the present generation of poets shows no trace of his influence; but even in his heyday no good poet seems to have been able to assimilate much from Eliot. It is also true that in the literary world in general there is still an intransigent minority—vocal again recently when...