Mr. Tate is, as critic, essentially a polemicist, an aggressive and sometimes truculent warrior who for more than twenty years has conducted a skillful defensive action. Believing that the best defense is an offense, he has given no quarter to any in whom he detects, under whatever disguise, allegiance to the Enemy—the reigning tyrant, Positivism. Though I do not come to praise Tate, I am not attempting to bury him, for the corpus of his criticism [displayed in On the Limits of Poetry, Selected Essays: 1928–1948] is still fresh and lively. But the appearance of this collection, together with many other omens, does seem to mark the end of a campaign. The cause that Mr. Tate champions has probably won as much territory as it is likely to obtain without a change of strategy; and it is time now for a consolidation of gains, a check of casualties, a re-grouping of forces. (p. 60)

Mr. Tate's approach to criticism is refreshingly modest. Criticism, he holds, is a form of literature, since it tells us the meaning and value of concrete experience; but it is definitely not autotelic: its purpose is "the protection of that which in itself is the end of criticism"—creative writing. The function of criticism is "to maintain and to demonstrate the special, unique, and complete knowledge which the great forms of literature afford us."… Its function, in thus creating a proper audience for imaginative writing, is highly important, especially in times such as the present; but it is distinctly subordinate. Mr. Tate's criticism fits his own definition: it is intended to educate the reader and guide him to an understanding of literature, and especially of modern poetry. To achieve this purpose, the negative task of preventing the audience from misunderstanding literature through expecting too much, or the wrong things, of it is now most urgent…. For the most part, Mr. Tate aims at the limited objective of destroying popular misconceptions which distort or prevent the reception of poetry among its potential audience. Since he emphasizes this corrective function, he does not elaborate his positive demonstration of the value of literature, which is developed mostly by implication. All criticism, Mr. Tate believes, is limited and partial: there "are all kinds of poetry … and no single critical insight may impute an exclusive validity to any one kind."… [His] own criticism, he points out in his preface, is particularly unsystematic and incomplete: most of his essays are occasional, controversial, and comparatively brief; hence they represent opinion rather than any fully-developed theory. In the face of this disclaimer, to discuss Mr. Tate in terms of general principles may seem unfair or foolish. Yet even negative criticism must proceed from a coherent intellectual position if it is to be valid; and permanent value will depend upon the presence, by implication at least, of a satisfactory positive theory. (pp. 61-2)

Although Mr. Tate has occupied himself mainly with demonstrating that poetry is not what the Positivists variously take it to be—history, emotion, false science, propaganda, religion—he has always maintained positively that its true value is cognitive, that it gives us a unique, true, and complete knowledge…. Usually, he rests his case upon simple assertion, with little explanation. The only systematic exposition of his theory of poetry that I have been able to discover is that in his early essay, "Poetry and the Absolute."… Since his later remarks are more comprehensible in the light of this explicit statement, a brief summary of it will perhaps be useful. Both poet and philosopher, Mr. Tate argues, strive to construct a "portrait of reality" which will be absolute; but the poetic absolute, being "a function of subject-matter in interaction with a personality," is not single and unchanging like the metaphysical; it is capable of infinite recreations. The poetic absolute is achieved, created, in terms of form. The poet may come to terms with his experience through contemplating it in the created absolute of art; he constructs the possibility of this kind of absolute experience first of all for himself, but if the perceptions are perfectly realized, presented free of the disturbance out of which they have sprung, the poem will provide the same absolute experience for others…. This absolute quality, Mr. Tate concludes, explains the necessity for poetry: if the need of the mind for absolute experience could be satisfied adequately in ordinary experience, this experience, metaphysically defined and classified, would be sufficient; but only sentimentalists hope for a world absolute of this sort. Art alone provides absolute experience. (pp. 67-8)

[Mr. Tate's] defense of poetry as knowledge, though effective controversial technique, seems to me ultimately dubious, for it depends on a semantic shift: Mr. Tate's knowledge which is about itself, proves nothing, explains nothing, and "has no useful relation to the ordinary forms of action" … is certainly not knowledge in the Positivist or any ordinary sense. But the important point is that Mr. Tate seems to mean by knowledge precisely what he earlier termed absolute experience: the contemplation or vision or revelation of absolute truth sought usually in philosophy and religion. And this goes beyond art for art's sake; it suggests life for art's sake. In asserting that art, and only art, gives us this absolute knowledge, Mr. Tate seems to be doing (much more subtly and intelligently) what he takes others to task for: making art a substitute for religion. (pp. 69-70)

Mr. Tate sees the social effect of poetry as essentially conservative: poetry is "the instinctive counter-attack of the intelligence against the dogma of future perfection for persons and societies"; it "tests with experience the illusions that the human predicament tempts us in our weakness to believe."… [Mr. Tate is] much more interested in the effect of society on poetry than in the effect of poetry on society. His view is, with some qualifications, deterministic; and its most extreme embodiment is the concept of the "perfect literary situation." The perfect literary situation occurs when a tradition, a culture, is breaking up; the "poet finds himself balanced upon the moment when such a world is about to fall."… The world order can then be assimilated to the poetic vision, "brought down from abstraction to personal sensibility." In such an age the clash of powerful opposites "issues in a tension between abstraction and sensation"; the poet is able to fuse sensibility and thought, perceive abstraction and think sensation…. Poetry "probes the deficiencies of a tradition. But it must have a tradition to probe."… The poet criticizes his tradition, puts it to the test of experience, compares it with something that is about to replace it. (pp. 70-1)

There would seem to be, in Mr. Tate's thought, a fundamental ambiguity, for his two goals—great art and a traditional society—ultimately conflict. And art is largely determined by society: tradition provides its myths, controlling ideas, unification of sensibility, apprehension of total experience; yet for its greatest stimulation it requires the disintegration of tradition. Mr. Tate, however, frequently implies that the two goals agree, when he is discussing social questions or modern poetry. The two problems involved—primacy of values and literary determinism—he never considers directly. My impression is that the aesthetic value is primary for Mr. Tate (though he does not want to change society only for the sake of art); as to literary determinism, the inconsistency results from his double purpose: he wishes to defend modern poetry, and at the same time use its defects as a basis for condemnation of the society which produced it; the first motive leads him to minimize the relationship between literature and society, and the second to emphasize it. Hence Mr. Tate's attitude toward contemporary poetry is curiously ambivalent. (pp. 71-2)

Unable to accept religion (but convinced of its necessity), Mr. Tate is driven to set up art and traditional society (or the moral unity to be attained within it) as absolutes; the two agree imperfectly, and are unreconciled. Mr. Tate's literary criterion is a rigorous one: most poetry lacks absolutism, and he is therefore occupied most of the time with explaining the failure of poetry in terms of its relation to society. Being a poet, he wishes to defend modern poetry (and the poetry of the past which is most like modern poetry); yet, largely on the evidence of the poetry, he condemns the society; and this dual purpose produces further ambiguities. (p. 75)

I do not wish to suggest that Mr. Tate's deficiencies in theory and logical inconsistencies (those I have pointed out; my interpretation cannot be entirely correct, and there may not be as many as I think) invalidate his criticism; many values, and those not the least important, are not dependent primarily on theory. In conclusion, I shall summarize what I take to be the chief permanent values of Mr. Tate's criticism. First, the essays aid one to understand Mr. Tate's own poetry: not only do they define the kind of poetry he is trying to write, but they state explicitly most of the ideas and attitudes found in the poems. And Mr. Tate's poetry is so fine that this use alone would justify the essays (though I doubt that Mr. Tate would entirely approve). Second, the prose exhibits the same gift of language that distinguishes the poetry—the same concentration, imaginative power, boldness combined with restraint. Mr. Tate can sum up a whole indictment, a whole philosophy, in a sardonic sentence or a vivid metaphor. Yet the style is refreshingly simple and unpretentious…. Third, in the realm of ideas, his conception of history—the contrast of the traditional religious imagination which sees the past as temporal and concrete with the modern historical method which sees it as abstract and detemporalized—is, with its corollaries and accompanying insights, his most important contribution. The bold simplification of reducing the enemy to Positivism, which is traced through its multiple metamorphoses, and the conception of poetry as the absolute, are (whatever the difficulties involved) effective and valuable formulations. Finally, Mr. Tate's greatest virtue is one I have had almost wholly to leave out of account in this review. His analyses of specific poems are masterly: their most remarkable feature is that they stress heavily the element of meter, rhythm, music, which most critics tend to neglect; Mr. Tate relates this element to the whole meaning and effect of the poem, and discusses it with an intelligence and sensitivity that are, as far as I know, unique. In reviewing contemporary poets Mr. Tate is free of the note of envy or malice which so often mars reviews of poets by poets; he does not reduce his critical apparatus to a formula, as even such excellent critics as Ransom, Brooks, and Winters tend, in varying degrees, to do. These reviews, generous yet just and penetrating, are perhaps the soundest judgments we have; their only defect is a tendency to blame the society for all the faults of the poetry, and that is a defect compounded of generosity and polemic intent.

The final impression this book leaves is one of admiration for Mr. Tate's independence and common sense and avoidance of cant; for his stubborn honesty and candor; his ideal of poise, integrity, and intelligence. (pp. 76-7)