[In The Seamless Web, Mr. Burnshaw] tries to show how mankind, in replacing biological evolution which was imperceptibly slow with cultural progress which is massive and speedy, lost its at-oneness with nature, its seamlessness with living things, to suffer thereafter the dichotomy between the so-called "higher" centres of the brain and the "lower" areas of motor action and instinctive response. None of this sounds very new or greatly in need of further clarification, you might say. Yet much of the first part of Mr. Burnshaw's argument is to show how it is the cultural, linguistic structuring of the higher centres that compel us to trust in the truth of this split and to make so often the derogatory distinction between primitive qualities and those we call civilised. In fact, he spends a long section on showing that the split is not so certain, nor so complete as the cultured structuring of our thoughtways would have us believe. (p. 33)

The book now proceeds to investigate the creation of works of art. And here Mr. Burnshaw's experience as a poet helps him to give one of the clearest expositions of the creative trace that I have yet read. He intends to show how the "higher" centres which so often consider themselves in charge of the creative process are in fact nudged and directed almost without their knowledge and certainly without their consent all along the line even when it comes to revision, rightly called re-vision here…. (p. 34)

Mr. Burnshaw now turns his mind to consider the thing made by the creative process, concentrating again on poems. This section is the most directly useful to the reader or writer dismayed by the range of science in the first parts. It contains some of the wisest and clearest things ever said about prosody, syntax, language and sound as used in a poem. He does not, like an academic, come to poetry with his ideas over his eyes and select only those samples which suit his case but takes a wide range of works rather like the mythical general reader and considers what differences or samenesses they reveal.

The "poem" is then shown to consist of an amalgam of syntaxes from different levels of use, conscious, unconscious, rational, informative, questioning, common, unique and so on. What all the poets do is to blend such various strata of language into the union of a poem—each being unique in its blending. Rhythm and sound cannot be separated from syntax and meaning; unique beyond metrical naming, the rhythmic language-area of the poem cannot be distinguished from its meaning. The whole union acts on the reader as a respondent body.

Where so many previous theorists have concentrated on what a poem is or means and have sought sketchily embracing generalisations for their chosen samplings, Mr. Burnshaw concentrates on what a poem does…. (p. 36)

The importance of his book is manifold: it cuts through much of the oversophistication of the critics and gives the poem back as of right to readers; catholic itself, it encourages a greater openness in readers and critics to the way a poem works, the multiple unions of different types of meaning, resonance and response it can create. It states clearly some of the most overlooked truisms about the nature of writing and reading; while emphasising bodily wisdom it does not deny the mind, while emphasising individual responsiveness, it does not set aside the culture or tradition. It is a book that shows creation as a magnificent compromise; it is the best way to understand most and more of what Coleridge meant when he defined a poem, or described it, in his famous pairings.

But what makes it most valuable is that the book itself is a creative experience. It is written with considered passion and it reads with excitement, an excitement for me only paralleled by such books as Collingwood's Principles. (p. 38)