Fraser’s work as a critic was noted for his analyses of 20th-century literature, especially in his titles The Modern Writer and His World and Vision and Rhetoric. His pioneering studies of Ezra Pound and Lawrence Durrell appeared at times when those writers did not enjoy general critical favor. Fraser’s criticism, according to Norman MacCaig, “has been remarkable, not only for its perceptiveness, but for its civilised good manners and its consistent aim to see and enlarge the best in whatever work he is dealing with.” Similarly, Janet Adam Smith observed in the Times Literary Supplement that in his capacity as a reviewer of contemporary poetry, Fraser “wanted to do justice to the poet, to pick out the points of growth, to celebrate achievement—never to cut down with a clever word.”
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Fraser’s work as a critic was noted for his analyses of 20th-century literature, especially in his titles The Modern Writer and His World and Vision and Rhetoric. His pioneering studies of Ezra Pound and Lawrence Durrell appeared at times when those writers did not enjoy general critical favor. Fraser’s criticism, according to Norman MacCaig, “has been remarkable, not only for its perceptiveness, but for its civilised good manners and its consistent aim to see and enlarge the best in whatever work he is dealing with.” Similarly, Janet Adam Smith observed in the Times Literary Supplement that in his capacity as a reviewer of contemporary poetry, Fraser “wanted to do justice to the poet, to pick out the points of growth, to celebrate achievement—never to cut down with a clever word.”
