At the beginning of The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (New York, 1962), W. H. Auden states, “so long as a man writes poetry or fiction, his dream of Eden is his own business, but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he describe it to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgments.” He then goes on to answer a questionnaire devised by himself with a view to doing exactly that. Although a blow-by-blow description of any particular dream of Eden is hardly necessary to ground a judgment on Elliott’s book, it will not be out of place to say that this reviewer supports the Catalan pacifist pro-independence movement and is in favor of an independent Catalan republic. After all, as Auden pointed out, “All the judgments, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them,...

You do not currently have access to this content.