He attacked Romanticism, particularly in its American manifestations, and assailed Emerson's reputation as that of a sacred cow. His first book of poems, "Diadems and Fagots," takes its title from one of Emerson's poems. In this he was probably influenced by Irving Babbitt. Winters was sometimes and questionably associated with the New Criticism, largely because John Crowe Ransom devoted a chapter to him in his book of the same name. He bestowed the sobriquet "the cool master" on the American poet Wallace Stevens.