David Jones (artist-poet) unusual, if not unique, in that he created admired and generally recognised important works both in the field of poetry and in the visual arts. However, according to the poet and critic Kathleen Raine, despite"the supreme quality of his art... he has never at any time been a widely-read, still less a fashionable, writer, nor is he ever likely to become so for his work is too subtle and learned for popular tastes" ("Sewanee Review", 1967). In 1938 T. S. Eliot called "In Parenthesis" a 'work of genius', and Graham Greene, in 1980, "among the great poems of the century".
T. S. Eliot of personal difficulty for Eliot—his marriage was failing, and both he and Vivienne were suffering from nervous disorders. The poem is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. Before the poem's publication as a book in December 1922, Eliot distanced himself from its vision of despair. On 15 November 1922, he wrote to Richard Aldington, saying, "As for "The Waste Land", that is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and style." The poem is known for its obscure nature—its slippage between