Harriet Ritvo, writing in The Threepenny Review, gave high praise for the book: Hartman flatly rejects the distinction between literature and criticism.

Throughout the volume, he alternates between analysis or "reading" of conventionally literary works and of criticism with no apparent alteration of method: in one chapter, for example, he discusses his colleague Harold Bloom right alongside Thomas Carlyle.

Succeeding brilliantly in the critic's double task of responding to 'the extraordinary language-event' while yet maintaining 'a prose of the center,' Hartman returns us 'to a larger and darker view of art as mental charm, war, and purgation.

'"[7] Daniel Hughes in Modern Language Notes wrote that "[o]ne of the strengths of Hartman's work has always been the depth of his understanding and the generosity of his response to other critics.

He works through and around them, saving what suits him and even praising what he cannot accept...."[8] Richard Levin reviewed Criticism in the Wilderness in Modern Philology, and wrote that "[i]t is in many respects a very impressive achievement—prodigiously learned, deeply engaged, charged with energy and excitement, and written in a finely honed and often eloquent style.

"[9] Sarah Lawall, reviewing the book in Comparative Literature, wrote that "it is clear from Criticism in the Wilderness that Hartman (especially in the three 'polemical pieces' at the end) sees himself as the herald of a contemporary humanistic re-vision blending analytical and creative consciousness, the English-American and continental European heritage.