«`Translation, forthrightness and literalism are among the themes of Peter Robinson's intriguing new book,...The sheer range of Peter Robinson's work seems to acquit him from charges of normativeness.' Mark Wormald, Times Literary Supplementu»

«'Peter Robinson integrates sensitive close readings with political awareness of originating, and changing, context to produce an historically informed criticism more satisfying than some of the work currently passing as such. In the Circumstances is additionally interesting for its subtle restoration of the idea of the poem as a collective act.' MLR,89.4,1994»

«intelligent and useful...What Robinson has to say about Thomas Hardy and Robert Browning, about Wordsworth's `The Sailor's MOther' or Eliot's The Dry Salvages, is stimulating, lucid, and original...Robinson can bring a very sharp eye to bear on the verbal details of poetic texture, and is adept at highlighting words or constructions in particular poems which carry with them implications for larger patterns of critical understanding of the poet in question.»

Review of English Studies