Now that some thirty years of controversy have passed, it is possible to consider the early critical work of T. S. Eliot in fair perspective and to attempt an assessment both of its values and of its limitations. Though the uncollected essays and the later collected essays have their importance, the major influence stems from the handful of essays published in 1920 as The Sacred Wood and the three critiques collected in 1924 under the title Homage to John Dryden. These two small volumes brought much that was new to English criticism and contained all of Eliot's significant contributions to critical theory. By the early thirties they had been widely read, studied, and quoted. In view of the subsequent fame of this early criticism, its limitations may appear surprising. And, in view of its limitations, its influence has been extraordinary.

When The Sacred Wood appeared in 1920, neohumanism was well under...