SOURCE: "Gerard Manley Hopkins," in The Athenaeum, No. 4649, June 6, 1919, pp. 425-26.

Murry is recognized as one of the most significant English critics of the twentieth century, noted for his studies of major authors and for his contributions to modern critical theory. Perceiving an integral relationship between literature and religion, Murry believed that the literary critic must be concerned with the moral as well as the aesthetic dimensions of a given work. In the following review of the first edition of Hopkin 's poems, he suggests that the most distinguishing feature of Hopkins' poetry is its musical quality, but claims that it is devoid of substantial content and is, for that reason, an overall failure.

Modern poetry, like the modern consciousness of which it is the epitome, seems to stand irresolute at a crossways with no signpost. It is hardly conscious of its own indecision, which it manages to...