An address given at the General Meeting of the Modern Language Association in New York, December 29, 1948. I am indebted to the following publishers for permission to quote from copyright books: to New Directions for quotations from Mr. John Crowe Ransom's The New Criticism; to Charles Scribner's Sons for quotations from Mr. Ransom's The World's Body; to the Princeton University Press for the quotation from The Intent of the Critic, ed. Allen Tate; to William Morrow and Company for the quotation from Mr. Allen Tate's On the Limits of Poetry; and to Harcourt, Brace & Company for the quotation from Mr. Eliot's Collected Poems.