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 And the writers of "Time" magazine were similarly baffled by a challenging poem like "The Waste Land". John Crowe Ransom wrote negative criticisms of Eliot's work but also had positive things to say. For instance, though Ransom negatively criticised "The Waste Land" for its "extreme disconnection", Ransom was not completely condemnatory of Eliot's work and admitted that Eliot was a talented poet. Addressing some of the common criticisms directed against "The Waste Land" at the time, Gilbert Seldes stated, "It seems at first sight remarkably disconnected and confused... [however] a closer view of the poem does more than illuminate the