William Empson

Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English literary critic and poet, reckoned by some to be the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt and fitting heir to their mode of witty, fiercely heterodox and imaginatively rich criticism. Jonathan Bate has remarked that the three greatest English Literary critics of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries are, respectively, Johnson, Hazlitt and Empson, "not least because they are the funniest". Empson has been styled a "critic of genius" by Sir Frank Kermode, although the latter has lamented his lapses into what he regards as willfully perverse readings of certain authors, and the scholar and critic Harold Bloom has confessed that Empson is among a handful of critics who matter most to him, in particular, because of the force and eccentricity (Bloom's expression is "strangeness") of character as revealed in their critical work. The eccentricity or perversity of some of his interpretations, as well as Empson's rather blunt and brusque manner of dealing with criticism of his position, landed him a good deal of criticism both during his life and after his death, leading to his reputation in many circles as a "licensed buffoon" (Empson's own phrase). Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOVD Articles that have been linked to this page are the subject of an NPOV dispute (NPOV stands for Neutral Point Of View; see below). ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x922, 79 KB) Summary cover of book Selected Letters of William Empson Licensing This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who created the cover or the publisher of... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x922, 79 KB) Summary cover of book Selected Letters of William Empson Licensing This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who created the cover or the publisher of... is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem specific to England — the anthem of the United Kingdom is God Save the Queen. See also Proposed English National Anthems. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ... William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, often esteemed the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson. ... Jonathan Bate CBE (born June 26, 1958) is a British scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. ... John Frank Kermode (born 1919) is a British literary critic. ... Harold Bloom (b. ...

Education

Empson attended a prep school, where he first discovered his great skill and interest in mathematics. He won an entrance scholarship to Winchester College, where he excelled as a student and received what he later described as "a ripping education" in spite of the rather rough and abusive milieu of the school: a long standing tradition of physical force, especially among the students, figured prominently in life at such schools. Winchester College is a well-known boys independent school, and an example of an English public school, in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, England. ...

In 1925, Empson won a scholarship to study at Magdalene College, Cambridge and achieved a double first in Mathematics and English in 1929. His supervisor in Mathematics, the father of the mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, expressed regret at Empson's decision to pursue English rather than Mathematics, a discipline for which Empson showed great talent; and I.A. Richards, the director of studies in English, recalled the genesis of Empson's first major work, Seven Types of Ambiguity, composed when Empson was not yet 22 and published when he was 24: Full name The College of Saint Mary Magdalene Motto Garde ta Foy Keep your Faith Named after Mary Magdalene Previous names Buckingham College Established 1428 Sister College(s) Magdalen College Master Duncan Robinson Location Magdalene Street Undergraduates 335 Postgraduates 169 Homepage Boatclub Magdalene College (pronounced ) was founded in 1428 as... The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees (bachelors degrees and some masters degrees) in the United Kingdom. ... Frank Plumpton Ramsey (February 22, 1903 – January 19, 1930) was a British mathematician who, in addition to mathematics, made significant contributions in philosophy and economics. ... Ivor Armstrong Richards (February 26, 1893-1979) was an influential literary critic and rhetorician. ...

At about his third visit he brought up the games of interpretation which Laura Riding and Robert Graves had been playing [in A Survey of Modernist Poetry, 1927] with the unpunctuated form of 'The expense of spirit in a waste of shame.' Taking the sonnet as a conjuror takes his hat, he produced an endless swarm of lively rabbits from it and ended by 'You could do that with any poetry, couldn't you?' This was a Godsend to a Director of Studies, so I said, 'You'd better go off and do it, hadn't you?' Laura (Riding) Jackson (January 16, 1901 - September 2, 1991) was a United States poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer. ... Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, scholar, and novelist. ...

Despite Empson's great precocity and skill in both English and Mathematics, he was asked to leave Cambridge due to infractions against propriety - a servant discovered prophylactics in his room - a fitting symbol of Empson's cheerful disregard for prevailing moral norms as well as of his grand appetite for life. As a result, not only did Empson never receive his M.A. in English, but he had his name stricken from the College records, was prevented from assuming a comfortable fellowship at Cambridge, and, astonishingly, was banished from the city of Cambridge, none of which seems, in retrospect, to the detriment of his subsequent critical output or eminence. A standard latex condom still rolled up This article is about the contraceptive device. ...

Professional career

After his banishment from Cambridge, Empson supported himself for a brief period as a freelance critic and journalist, living in Bloomsbury, London until 1930 when he signed a three-year contract to teach in Japan after his tutor Richards had failed to find him a post teaching in China. Bloomsbury is an area of central London between Holborn and Euston station, developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a fashionable residential area. ...

He returned to England in the mid-1930s only to depart again upon receiving a three-year contract to teach at Peking University, where, upon his arrival, he discovered that due to the Japanese invasion of China, he no longer had available a post. Empson joined the exodus, with little more than a typewriter and suitcase, of professors at Peking University in continual evasion of the invading force, teaching whole courses on English poetry without texts or other aids, and would not arrive in England until January of 1939. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

He later became head of the English department at the University of Sheffield, and in 1953 became professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, London, for a year. The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. ... Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of spoken language; however, this definition of rhetoric has expanded greatly since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in universities. ... Sir Thomas Greshams grasshopper crest is used as a symbol of the College Gresham College is an unusual institution of higher learning off Holborn in central London. ...

Critical Focus

Empson's critical work focuses largely on pre-modern works in the English literary canon. He was a significant critic of Milton (see below), Shakespeare (Essays on Shakespeare), Elizabethan drama (Essays on Renaissance Literature: Volume 2, The Drama) and published a monograph on the subject of censorship and the authoritative version of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (Faustus and the Censor); but also an important scholar of the metaphysical poets John Donne (Essays on Renaissance Literature: Volume 1, Donne and the New Philosophy) and Andrew Marvell. Rather more occasionally, Empson would bring his critical genius to bear on modern writers; Using Biography, for instance, contains papers on Henry Fielding's Tom Jones as well as the poetry of Yeats and Eliot and Joyce's Ulysses. Christopher Marlowe (baptised February 26, 1564–May 30, 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. ... Doctor Faustus could refer to: The character of Faust Christopher Marlowes The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus Thomas Manns Doktor Faustus Ferruccio Busonis opera Doktor Faust A 1967 film directed by Richard Burton and Nevill Coghill, see Doctor Faustus (movie) This is a disambiguation page — a... The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them. ... For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 – October 8, 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humor and satirical prowess and as the author of the novel Tom Jones. ... The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (often known simply as Tom Jones) is a comic novel by Henry Fielding. ... William Butler Yeats, 1933. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Irish Séamus Seoighe; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ... Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. ...

Literary Criticism I: Style, Method, & Influence

Empson is today best known for his literary criticism, and in particular his analysis of the use of language in poetical works: his own poetry is arguably undervalued, although it was admired by and influenced English poets in the 1950s. In his critical work he was particularly influenced by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose own work is largely concerned with the nature of language in its relation to the world and to its speakers. Empson's best known work is the book Seven Types of Ambiguity which, together with Some Versions of Pastoral and The Structure of Complex Words, mine the astonishing riches of linguistic ambiguity in English poetic literature. Empson's studies unearth layer upon layer of irony, suggestion, and argumentation in various literary works - a technique of textual criticism so influential that often Empson's contributions to certain domains of literary scholarship remain significant, though they may no longer be recognized as his. The universal recognition of the difficulty and complexity (indeed, ambiguity) of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 94" ("They that have power...") in light of the preceding and following sonnets is traceable to Empson's sophisticated analysis of the sonnet in Some Versions of Pastoral - a virtuosic display of the riches a critic might unearth from a close reading of a poem. Empson's study of "Sonnet 94" goes some way towards explaining the high esteem in which the sonnet is now held (often being reckoned as among the finest sonnets), as well as the technique of criticism and interpretation that has reckoned it thus. Wittgenstein and Hitler in school photograph taken at the Linz Realschule in 1903. ... The Seven Types of Ambiguity was first published in 1930 by William Empson. ...

It would, however, be a mistake to suppose Empson's skill in discovering a rich variety of interpretations of poetic literature amounts to little more than a rather wildly indulged semantic refinement. Empson is as much interested in the human or experiential reality to be discovered in great works of literature: the deep truths communicated, often only by intimation, to the reader. Indeed, it is this commitment to unravelling or articulating the truth in literature that aligns Empson so perfectly with Dr. Johnson and that permits him unusual avenues to explore sociopolitical ideas in literature in a vein very different from contemporary Marxist critics (e.g., Fredric Jameson) or scholars of New Historicism (e.g., Stephen Greenblatt). Thus, for instance, Empson remarks in the first few pages of Some Versions of Pastoral that: For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Fredric Jameson (b. ... New Historicism is an approach to literary criticism and literary theory based on the premise that a literary work should be considered a product of the time, place and circumstances of its composition rather than as an isolated creation of genius. ... Stephen Jay Greenblatt (born 1943) is a noted Shakespeare scholar and a literary critic/theorist often seen as the leader of the school known as New Historicism or as Greenblatt likes to put it, cultural poetics. He believes that all works of literature are a products of their times and...

Gray's Elegy is an odd case of poetry with latent political ideas: Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771), was an English poet, classical scholar and professor of history at Cambridge University. ...

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

What this means, as the context makes clear, is that eighteenth century England had no scholarship system or carrière ouverte aux talents. This is stated as pathetic, but the reader is put into a mood in which one would not try to alter it. ... By comparing the social arrangement to Nature he makes it seem inevitable, which it was not, and gives it a dignity which was undeserved. ... The tone of melancholy claims that the poet understands the considerations opposed to aristocracy, though he judges against them; the truism of the reflections in the churchyard, the universality and impersonality this gives to the style, claim as if by comparison that we ought to accept the injustice of society as we do the inevitability of death.

Already, the heat of Empson's political views might be felt in these lines, though perhaps even here what one feels is nothing more ideological than an ordinary sense of fairness or justice, and he goes on to deliver his political verdict with a subtle, although astute, psychological suggestion:

Many people, without being communists, have been irritated by the complacence in the massive calm of the poem, and this seems partly because they feel there is a cheat in the implied politics; the 'bourgeois' themselves do not like literature to have too much 'bourgeois ideology.'

Should one be in doubt of Empson's estimation and understanding of Gray's achievement, in the face of a tradition of canonization and study of the poem, Empson routs all political quibbles and ideological concerns with some remarks (in the very next paragraph!) reminiscent of Dr. Johnson in their pained insistence: This article is about the literary figure. ...

And yet what is said is one of the permanent truths; it is only in degree that any improvement of society could prevent wastage of human powers; the waste even in a fortunate life, the isolation even of a life rich in intimacy, cannot but be felt deeply, and is the central feeling of tragedy. And anything of value must accept this because it must not prostitute itself; its strength is to be prepared to waste itself, if it does not get its opportunity. A statement of this is certainly non-political because it is true in any society, and yet nearly all the great poetic statements of it are in a way 'bourgeois', like this one; they suggest to readers, though they do not say, that for the poor man things cannot be improved even in degree.

Despite the complexity of Empson's critical methods and attitude, his work, in particular, Seven Types of Ambiguity, had a significant impact on the New Criticism, a school of criticism which directed particular attention to close reading of texts, among whose adherents may be numbered F.R. Leavis, although, as has been noted, Empson could scarcely be described as an adherent or exponent of such a school or, indeed, of any critical school at all (any more than Johnson could be). Perhaps it should be expected, then, that Empson consistently ridiculed, both outrightly in words and implicitly in practice, the doctrine of the Intentional Fallacy formulated by William K. Wimsatt, an influential New Critic. Indeed, Empson's distaste for New Criticism could manifest itself in his distinctive dismissive and brusque wit as when he describes New Criticism, ironically referring to it as "the new rigour", as a "campaign to make poetry as dull as possible" (Essays on Renaissance Literature: Volume 1, Donne and the New Philosophy, pg. 122). Similarly, both the title and content of one of Empson's volumes of critical papers, Using Biography, show a patent and polemical disregard for the teachings of New Critics as much as for those of Roland Barthes and postmodern literary theories predicated upon, if not merely influenced by, the notion of the Death of the Author, despite the fact that some scholars regard Empson as a progenitor of certain of these currents of criticism, which vexed Empson enough to comment: New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ... In literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. ... Frank Raymond Leavis (1895-1978) was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. ... The intentional fallacy, in literary criticism, is the assumption that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. ... William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr. ... New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ... Roland Barthes Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) (pronounced ) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiotician. ... Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Death of the author is a theory proposed by French literary critic Roland Barthes. ...

Now and again somebody like Christopher Norris may, in a pious moment, attempt to "recuperate" a particularly brilliant old-style reputation by claiming its owner as a New New Critic avant la lettre - Empson in this case, now to be thought of as having, in his "great theoretical summa," The Structure of Complex Words, anticipated deconstruction. The grumpy old man repudiated this notion with his habitual scorn, calling the work of Derrida (or, as he preferred to call him, "Nerrida") "very disgusting"... (Kermode, Pleasure, Change, and the Canon) Christopher (Charles) Norris (born November 6, 1947)[1] is a British literary critic and theorist. ... Deconstruction is a term in contemporary philosophy, literary criticism, and the social sciences, denoting a process by which the texts and languages of Western philosophy (in particular) appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions and absences they reveal within themselves. ...

Literary Criticism II: Milton's God

Empson's Milton's God is often described as a sustained attack on Christianity and defence of Milton's attempt to 'justify God's ways to man' in Paradise Lost. Empson argues that precisely the inconsistencies and complexities adduced by critics as evidence of the poem's badness, in fact, function in quite the opposite manner: what the poem brings out is the difficulty faced by anyone in encountering and submitting to the will of God and, indeed, the great clash between the authority of such a deity and the determinate desires and needs of human beings. Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... For other persons named John Milton, see John Milton (disambiguation). ... Title page of the first edition (1667) Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. ...

...the poem is not good in spite of but especially because of its moral confusions, which ought to be clear in your mind when you are feeling its power. I think it horrible and wonderful; I regard it as like Aztec or Benin sculpture, or to come nearer home the novels of Kafka, and am rather suspicious of any critic who claims not to feel anything so obvious. (Milton's God (1965), p13) It has been suggested that Mexica be merged into this article or section. ... Kafka at the age of five Franz Kafka (IPA: ) (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. ...

Empson notes that it is precisely Milton's great sensitivity and faithfulness to the Scriptures, in spite of their apparent madness, that generates such a controversial picture of God: it requires a mind of astonishing integrity to, in the words of Blake, be of the Devil's party without knowing it. William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. ...

[Milton] is struggling to make his God appear less wicked, as he tells us he will at the start (l. 25), and does succeed in making him noticeably less wicked than the traditional Christian one; though, after all, owing to his loyalty to the sacred text and the penetration with which he make its story real to us, his modern critics still feel, in a puzzled way, that there is something badly wrong about it all. That this searching goes on in Paradise Lost, I submit, is the chief source of its fascination and poignancy... (Milton's God (1965), pg. 11)

The tendency in surveys of Empson's achievement in Milton's God is, depending on one's politics, to marvel or bristle at the audacious perversity of his central thesis - though something of the same perversity was tidied up and reinterpreted in Stanley Fish's much lauded work on Milton (see, e.g., Surprised by Sin); this unfortunate tendency eclipses many of Empson's great insights and his grand intelligence, humanity and humour in reading the poem, and ignores the significance of the work as a presentation of one of the few instances of an effort to immunize the aesthetic achievements of the poem from those available only to individuals with certain doctrinaire religious commitments (see also the work of Balachandra Rajan). Stanley Fish (born 1938) is a prominent American literary theorist and legal scholar. ... Balachandra Rajan, a scholar of poetry and poetics, focusing particularly on the poetry of John Milton, is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Western Ontario. ...

Although perhaps not as influential as, say, Fish's work, Milton's God remains of great significance to any critically-minded reader of Paradise Lost and it is a far more human presentation of the reasons for, and the character of, the hold the poem has upon us. Empson portrays the work as the product of a man of astonishingly powerful and imaginative sensibilities and great intellect who had invested much of himself in the poem. Indeed, despite its lack of influence, certain critics view Milton's God as by far the best (that is to say, the most valuable) sustained work of criticism on the poem by a 20th century critic. Harold Bloom includes it as one of the few critical works worthy of canonical status in his The Western Canon (and the only critical work focusing solely on a single piece of literature). Harold Bloom (b. ...

Poetry

Empson's poetry is clever, learned, dry, aethereal and technically virtuosic - not wholly dissimilar to his critical work: his high regard for the metaphysical poet John Donne is to be seen in many places within his work, tempered with his appreciation of Buddhist thinking, and his occasional tendency to satire. He wrote very few poems and stopped publishing poetry almost entirely after 1940. His Complete Poems [edited by John Haffenden, his biographer] is 512 pages long, with over 300 pages of notes. In reviewing this work, Frank Kermode commended him as a most noteworthy poet, and chose it as International Book of the Year at the TLS. For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ... A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by... 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... Professor John Haffenden was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (BA, MA) and Oxford University (D.Phil), Haffenden is an academic at the University of Sheffield, where his renowned research on William Empson developed. ... John Frank Kermode (b. ...

Person & Character

Empson was a charismatic personality, variously described as gruff, scornful, brusque, cold, and of immoderate appetites (sex and alcohol being the most obvious), partly because he was also a roundly paradoxical figure. His sophisticated and subtle intellectual refinement contrasted sharply with his rather lax attention to personal hygiene (the filthiness of his lodgings throughout his life is legendary) and grooming (in later years he affected a bizarre style of facial hair, shaving his chin, but allowing the hair around his neck to grow unimpeded, so that it resembled a shaggy, white cravat). He was deeply sympathetic to the cause of Maoist revolutionaries in China, but was brought up in the cavernous luxury of a rural estate in Yorkshire with all the attendant prerogatives of a member of the landed gentry. He was a scholar of singular imagination, erudition and insight specializing in the highly traditional domain of pre-modern English literature at the heart of the canon (Shakespeare, Milton, the Metaphysical Poets), but his work is marked by great humour, the indulgence of an eloquent and cavalier dismissiveness (reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's critical bon mots), and an astonishingly rich and varied erudition. He was esteemed the revolutionary forefather of modern literary criticism, but disavowed "theory" altogether and evinced a deep concern for distinctly psychological elements in literature: the emotions of desire and love, the sensibility and intentions of authors. He was an intellectual and scholar who spent a good portion of his early years inhabiting the persona of an imperial adventurer (more a Richard Francis Burton than a C.S. Lewis). In short, Empson was as much a grand and exuberant personality as a refined, sophisticated, and erudite scholar; and it is precisely this great reckless energy for life, this willingness to throw his entire self into the interpretation and criticism of literature, that informs his critical work and serves to renew in the common reader a sense of the wholly and inalienably human investment in canonical literature: a sense of how Milton or Shakespeare or Donne can matter deeply to all and any of us. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Look up Yorkshire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Landed gentry is a term traditionally applied in Britain to members of the upper class with country estates often (but not always) farmed on their behalf by others, and who might be without a peerage or other hereditary title. ... The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S... Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. ... For other persons named Richard Burton, see Richard Burton (disambiguation). ... Clive Staples Lewis (November 29, 1898 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, was an author and scholar. ...

Quotes

From "Proletarian Literature" in Some Versions of Pastoral:

As for propaganda, some very good work has been that; most authors want their point of view to be convincing. Pope said that even the Aeneid was a 'political puff'; its dreamy, impersonal, universal melancholy was a calculated support for Augustus . This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos): is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BCE (between 29 and 19 BCE) that tells the legendary story... For other uses, see Augustus (disambiguation). ...

Of course to decide on an author's purpose, conscious or unconscious, is very difficult. Good writing is not done unless there are serious forces at work; and it is not permanent unless it works for readers with opinions different from the author's. On the other hand, the reason an English audience can enjoy Russian propagandist films is that the propaganda is too remote to be annoying; a Tory audience subjected to Tory propaganda of the same intensity would be extremely bored.

From "They That Have Power" in Some Versions of Pastoral:

(regarding Sonnet 94): If this was Shakespeare's only surviving work, it would still be clear, supposing one knew about the other Elizabethans, that it involves somehow their feelings about the Machiavellian, the wicked plotter who is exciting and civilized and somehow right about life; which seems an important though rather secret element in the romance that Shakespeare extracted from his patron. Synopsis Sonnnet 94 is seen as being a particularly difficult to interpret. ... Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. ...

...poets, who tend to make in their lives a situation they have already written about.

...that curious trick of pastoral which for extreme courtly flattery - perhaps to give self-respect to both poet and patron, to show that the poet is not ignorantly easy to impress, nor the patron to flatter - writes about the poorest people; and those jazz songs which give an intense effect of luxury and silk underwear by pretending to be about slaves naked in the fields. Titians The Pastoral Concert Pastoral refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and feed. ...

The feeling that life is essentially inadequate to the human spirit, and yet that a good life must avoid saying so, is naturally at home with most versions of pastoral; in pastoral you take a limited life and pretend it is the full and normal one, and a suggestion that one must do this with all life, because the normal is itself limited, is easily put into the trick though not necessary to its power. Conversely any expression of the idea that all life is limited may be regarded as only a trick of pastoral, perhaps chiefly intended to hold all our attention and sympathy for some limited life, though again this is not necessary to it either on grounds of truth or beauty; in fact the suggestion of pastoral may be only a protection for the idea which must at last be taken alone. The business of interpretation is obviously very complicated. Literary uses of the problem of free-will and necessity, for example, may be noticed to give curiously bad arguments and I should think get their strength from keeping you in doubt between the two methods. Thus Hardy is fond of showing us an unusually stupid person subjected to very unusually bad luck, and then a moral is drawn, not merely by inference but by solemn assertion, that we are all in the same boat as this person who story is striking precisely because it is unusual. The effect may be very grand, but to make an otherwise logical reader accept the process must depend on giving him obscure reasons for wishing it so. It is clear at any rate that this grand notion of the inadequacy of life, so various in its means of expression, so reliable a bass note in the arts, needs to be counted as a possible territory of the pastoral. “Thomas Hardy” redirects here. ...

From "Milton and Bentley" in Some Versions of Pastoral: For other persons named John Milton, see John Milton (disambiguation). ... Richard Bentley (January 27, 1662 – July 14, 1742) was an English theologian, Classics scholar and critic. ...

Surely Bentley was right to be surprised at finding Faunus haunting the bower [Paradise Lost ll. 705 - 707], a ghost crying in the cold of Paradise, and the lusts of Pan sacred even in comparison to Eden. There is a Vergilian quality in the lines, haunting indeed, a pathos not mentioned because it is the whole of the story. I suppose that in Satan determining to destroy the innocent happiness of Eden, for the highest political motives, without hatred, not without tears, we may find some echo of the Elizabethan fulness of life that Milton as a poet abandoned, and as a Puritan helped to destroy. Paradise, Jan Bruegel Paradise is an English word from Persian roots that is generally identified with the Garden of Eden or with Heaven. ... Pan (Greek , genitive ) is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music: paein means to pasture. ... For other uses, see Garden of Eden (disambiguation). ... For other uses see Virgil (disambiguation). ... The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. ...

On Celine's Journey to the End of the Night from Some Versions of Pastoral: Céline Céline redirects here. ... Journey to the End of the Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932) is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. ...

Voyage au Bout de la Nuit...is not to be placed quickly either as pastoral or proletarian; it is partly the 'underdog' theme and partly social criticism. The two main characters have no voice or trust in their society and no sympathy with those who have; it is this, not cowardice or poverty or low class, which the war drives home to them, and from then on they have a straightforward inferiority complex; the theme becomes their struggle with it as private individuals. ... Life may be black and mad in the second half but Bardamu is not, and he gets to the real end of the night as critic and spectator. This change is masked by unity of style and by a humility which will not allow that one can claim to be sane while living as part of such a world, but it is in the second half that we get Bardamu speaking as Celine in criticism of it. What is attacked may perhaps be summed up as the death-wishes generated by the herds of a machine society, and he is not speaking as 'spokesman of the proletariat' or with any sympathy for a communist one. ...before claiming the book as proletarian literature you have to separate off the author (in the phrase that Radek used) as a man ripe for facism. (Note this was written 2 years before Celine's first anti-semitic pamphlet and 9 years before he fled to Germany.) The name, Radek, can refer to several people: Karl Bernhardovich Radek, was a Bolshevik and an international Communist leader. ...

From "The Variants for the Byzantium Poems" in Using Biography:

...she appears to end her penultimate chapter 'Was Yeats a Christian?' with the sentiment that he must have been pretty Christian if he could stay friends with Ezra Pound. Yeats is the surname of a notable Irish family: John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), Irish artist and portrait painter William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and playwright, Nobel prize winner Susan Yeats, also known as Lily, (1866-1949), active in the Arts and Crafts movement and Dun Emer Guild... Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... Ezra Pound in 1913. ...

From "Ulysses: Joyce's Intentions" in Using Biography: Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. ... James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Irish Séamus Seoighe; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ...

When I was young, literary critics often rejoiced that the hypocrisy of the Victorians had been discredited, or expressed confidence that the operation would soon be complete. So far from that, it has returned in a peculiarly stifling form to take possession of critics of Eng. Lit.; Mr. Pecksniff has become the patron saint of many of my colleagues. As so often, the deformity is the result of severe pressure between forces in themselves good. The study of English authors of the past is now centred in the universities, and yet there must be no censorship - no work of admitted literary merit may be hidden from the learners. Somehow we must save poor Teacher's face, and protect him from the indignant or jeering students, local authorities or parents. It thus came to be tactily agreed that a dead author usually hated what he described, hated it as much as we do, even, and wanted his book to shame everybody out of being so nasty ever again. The is often called fearless or unflinching criticism, and one of its ill effects is to make the young people regard all literature as a terrific nag or scold. Independently of this, a strong drive has been going on to recover the children for orthodox or traditional religious beliefs; ... and when you understand all that, you may just be able to understand how they manage to present James Joyce as a man devoted to the God who was satisfied by the crucifixion. The concordat was reached over his dead body. Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Accession to the Throne, June 20, 1837) gave her name to the historic era. ... Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels, which was written and serialized in 1843-1844. ... James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Irish Séamus Seoighe; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ... Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution, where the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead. ...

Bibliography

• Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930)
• Some Versions of Pastoral (1935)
• The Structure of Complex Words (1951)
• Milton's God (1961)
• Using Biography (1985)
• Essays on Shakespeare (1986)
• Faustus and the Censor (1987)
• Essays on Renaissance Literature: Volume 1, Donne and the New Philosophy (1993)
• Essays on Renaissance Literature: Volume 2, The Drama (1994)
• Argufying: Essays on Literature and Culture (1987)
• The Strengths of Shakespeare's Shrew: Essays, Memoirs and Interviews (1996).
• The Complete Poems of William Empson - ed. Haffenden
• The Royal Beasts and Other Works - London: Chatto & Windus, 1986.
• Coleridge’s Verse: A Selection (ed. by David Pirie), 1972 - Introduction

Selected Books on Empson

• Haffenden, John. William Empson: Vol. 1: Among the Mandarins
• Haffenden, John. William Empson: Vol.2: Against the Christians
• Norris, Christopher (ed.). William Empson: The Critical Achievement
• Frank Day. Sir William Empson: An Annotated Bibliography. London: Garland, 1984.
• Gardner, Philip and Averil. The God approached : a commentary on the poems of William Empson. London : Chatto & Windus, 1978

See also

• list of Gresham Professors of Rhetoric

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External links

• Seven Types of Ambiguity The Open Archive copy of the second edition, London, 1949.

• "The Savage Life": Sir Frank Kermode reviews vol. 1 of John Haffenden's biography of William Empson
• "Pleasure, Change, and the Canon": Sir Frank Kermode's Tanner Lectures on Human Values
• "'Seven Types of Ambiguity' anda One-of-a-Kind Critic": The Wall Street Journal