Stewart makes use of an impressive array of theory…. Stewart is a superb close reader, and he writes with both clarity and lucidity. The book is filled with quotations from the various texts, but the analysis always generates an effective momentum. Stewart skillfully organizes an enormous array of detail…. Stewart demonstrates how all five of his writers 'express color and space in verbal imagery that vies with painting; their fascination with the sister art accentuates sensory perception and creativity.' Color, Space, and Criticism sends the reader back to Stewart's novelists with a heightened awareness of the visual and painterly aspects of the art of fiction.
D. H. Lawrence Review
These five writers, displaying the ontological dimensions of color and space, move writing so close to painting that the two forms energize each other. The value of juxtaposing these writers is that one can see, more clearly than before, how modern sensibilities, rejecting Victorian didacticism, can tune the music of language to the pitch of artistic perfection. Jack Stewart’s book excels at locating the intricate designs of writers whose imaginative work, at its best, captures the intimacy of metaphor, meaning, and music. His book is the bounty of a lifetime of admirable scholarship.
Modern Philology