Little is wrong with The Hidden God that a new title would not remedy, for actually Cleanth Brooks' book is less about God than about the contemporary search for human dignity. Prof. Brooks' initial premise is that Hemingway, Faulkner, Yeats, Eliot, and R. P. Warren are concerned with the position of man in a hostile or an indifferent universe. (p. 366)

None of this departs much from what seems to be general critical opinion; in fact, The Hidden God is most successful when Brooks says clearly and well what lesser critics have said obscurely and badly. The difficulty occurs when he tries to realize the implications of his title by placing his authors within the Christian tradition. (In all fairness, Brooks does not try very hard, but he does try.) He seems forced to the rather parochial assumption that whoever looks at truth courageously and honestly, whoever refuses to...