Mr. Empson sees the pastoral convention as including not only poems of shepherd life but any work "about the people but not by or for" them. Finding examples in the writing of every country and century, from Mencius to William Faulkner or Celine, he concentrates on an analysis of certain works and forms in English literature, several of them, like Alice in Wonderland, Troilus and Cressida, and proletarian novels not traditionally considered pastoral. His chapter on Milton and Bentley is a precursor of Mr. Empson's 1961 book, Milton's God. With virtuoso clarity and perception throughout he brings the student to a new awareness of hidden values in individual works and to the creative possibilities of the language.

Revised twice since it first appeared, it has remained one of the most widely read and quoted works of literary analysis. Ambiguity, according to Empson, includes "any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language." From this definition, broad enough by his own admission sometimes to see "stretched absurdly far," he launches into a brilliant discussion, under seven classifications of differing complexity and depth, of such works, among others, as Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of Chaucer, Donne, Marvell, Pope, Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and T. S. Eliot.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, Volume 227 Sydney Smith, William Empson, Henry Reeve, Harold Cox Leonard Scott Publication Co., 1918 English literature

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

SEVEN TYPESOF AMBIGUITY By the Same Author SOME VERSIONS OF PASTORAL POEMS Chatto T MnJus THE GATHERING STORM Faber 5 Faber Seven Types Of Ambiguity William Empson 1949 Chatto and Windus LONDON Contents CHAPTER I Page i The sorts of meaning to be considered the problems of Pure Sound and of Atmosphere. First-type ambiguities arise when a detail is effective m several ways at once, e. g. by com parisons with several points of likeness, antitheses with several points of difference p. 22, comparative adjectives, subdued metaphors, and extra meanings suggested by rhythm. Annex on Dramatic Irony p. 38. CHAPTER II Pagpfi In second-type ambiguities two or more alternative meanings are fully resolved into one. Double grammar in Shakespeare Sonnets. Ambiguities in Chaucer p. 58, the eighteenth century, T. S. Eliot. Digressions p. 80 on emendations of Shakespeare and on his form The A and B of C. . CHAPTER III Page 102 The condition for third-type ambiguity is that two apparently unconnected meanings are given simultaneously. Puns from Milton, Marvell, Johnson, Pope, Hood. Generalised form p. in when there is reference to more than one universe of discourse allegory, mutual comparison, and pastoral. Ex amples from Shakespeare, Nash, Pope, Herbert, Gray. Dis cussion of the criterion for this type. CHAPTER IV Page 133 In the fourth type the alternative meanings combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the author. Complete poems by Shakespeare and Donne considered. Examples p. 145 of alternative possible emphases in Donne and Hopkins. Pope on dowagers praised. Tintern Abbey accused of failing to achieve this type. vi CONTENTS CHAPTER V Page 155 The fifth type is a fortunate confusion, aswhen the author is discovering his idea in the act of writing examples from Shelley or not holding it all in mind at once p. 163 examples from Swinburne. Argument p. 166 that later metaphysical poets were approaching nineteenth-century technique by this route examples from Marvell and Vaughan. CHAPTER VI Page 176 In the sixth type what is said is contradictory or irrelevant and the reader is forced to invent interpretations. Examples from f Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, Tennyson, Herbert p. 183, Pope, Yeats. Discussion of the criterion for this type and its bearing on nineteenth-century technique. CHAPTER VII Page 192 The seventh type is that of full contradiction, marking a divi sion in the authors mind. Freud invoked. Examples pp. 198-211 of minor confusions in negation and opposition. Seventh-type ambiguities from Shakespeare, Keats, Crashaw, Hopkins, and Herbert. CHAPTER VIII Page 234 General discussion of the conditions under which ambiguity is valuable and the means of apprehending it. Argument that theoretical understanding of it is needed now more than previ ously. Not all ambiguities are relevant to criticism example from Jonson p. 242. Discussion of how verbal analysis should be carried out and what it can hope to achieve. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE first and only previous edition of this book was pub lished sixteen years ago. Till it went out of print, at about the beginning of the war, it had a steady sale though a smajl one and in preparing a second edition the wishes of the buyers ought to be considered. Many of them will be ordering a group of books on this kind of topic, for a library, compiled from bibliographies some of them maybe only put the book on their list asan awful warning against taking verbal analysis too far. Anyway, such a buyer wants the old book, not a new one, even if I could make it better. On the other hand, there was obviously room to tidy up the old one, and I would not want to reprint silently anything I now think false. It seemed the best plan to work the old footnotes into the text, and make clear that all the footnotes in this edition are second thoughts written recently. Sometimes the footnotes dis agree with the text above them this may seem a fussy process, but I did not want to cut too much...

Empson has long been applauded for the dazzling intelligence and emotional passion of his poems. Praised in his lifetime by the likes of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and John Betjeman, his reputation contines to be high.

His poems take a wide range of themes from metaphysics to melancholy, social climbing to political satire, and from love to loss.

This is the first scholarly edition of one of the classics of literary criticism. William Empson was among the two or three most important and influential literary critics and theorists of the twentieth century. He has long been celebrated as one of the most fertile (as well as one of the funniest) explorers of how meaning works in language, especially in poetry. The Structure of Complex Words (1951) was much his longest book and was intended as a major theoretical statement of his contribution to the subject. Since its publication, it has been constantly referred to, but usually from a respectful distance, since it can seem a forbidding and difficult work. This edition provides an extensive introduction together with full critical and explanatory notes. The editors trace the book's genesis and development in detail, beginning with Empson's collaboration with I. A. Richards in the early and mid-1930s, and concluding with the extensive writing and re-writing that Empson undertook while in Peking in 1947-50. This edition also reprints a selection of materials (including articles and letters) that illuminate Empson's thinking and contributed to the eventual book. The edition makes Empson's great work more intelligible to a range of readers and will immediately become the standard version of this celebrated text.

Passionate, controversial and illuminating - this collection contains Empson's best short pieces on Shakespeare, a sally on George Herbert, a defence of Coleridge, and an eager introduction to a French farce, a group of incomparably witty autobiographical articles, and the text to his extraordinary Inaugural Lecture as Professor of English Literature at Sheffield University.

This collection of William Empson's essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama is the second volume of his writings on Renaissance literature. Edited with an introduction by the leading Empson scholar John Haffenden, the contents range from famous essays on The Spanish Tragedy, Volpone, The Alchemist and The Duchess of Malfi to a sprightly piece on Elizabethan spirits. In addition, there are previously unpublished essays which revisit critical controversies, and a magnificent, provocative study of A Midsummer Night's Dream which ventures a major new reading of the play. 'I am attracted by the notion of a hearty indifference to one's own and other people's feelings, when a fragment of the truth is in question,' Empson stated. The incomparable Empson here fights his own critical corner with unequalled zest, intelligence and insight.

Following the success in paperback of William Empson's Essays on Shakespeare (1986), this first volume of his Essays on Renaissance Literature (1993) now appears in an accessible format. The volume gathers Empson's passionate and controversial essays on John Donne in the context of contemporary science, and includes previously unpublished pieces on some of the most influential Renaissance writers and scientists. Edited and introduced by leading Empson scholar John Haffenden, this is a book for anyone interested in the Renaissance, the history of science, and the history of literary criticism. 'Some of these passages have a sweep as grand as Empson found in Donne.' Eric Griffiths, The Times Literary Supplement 'Empson's achievement here as elsewhere comes from the generosity of spirit which made him consistently a great critic.' The New York Review of Books

This collection of William Empson's essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama is the second volume of his writings on Renaissance literature. Edited with an introduction by the leading Empson scholar John Haffenden, the contents range from famous essays on The Spanish Tragedy, Volpone, The Alchemist and The Duchess of Malfi to a sprightly piece on Elizabethan spirits. In addition, there are previously unpublished essays which revisit critical controversies, and a magnificent, provocative study of A Midsummer Night's Dream which ventures a major new reading of the play. 'I am attracted by the notion of a hearty indifference to one's own and other people's feelings, when a fragment of the truth is in question,' Empson stated. The incomparable Empson here fights his own critical corner with unequalled zest, intelligence and insight.

Featuring major analyses of Hamlet and Macbeth, this collection of the late critic's works encompasses recent advances in Shakespearian scholarship; a witty and passionate defense of Falstaff; and an original essay on Renaissance playhouse architecture.