William Empson

thumb|upright=1|The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own. Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an influential English literary critic and poet. Quotes 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. Some Versions of Pastoral (London: Chatto & Windus, 1935), p. 5 To produce pure proletarian art the artist must be at one with the worker; this is impossible, not for political reasons, but because the artist never is at one with any public. Some Versions of Pastoral (London: Chatto & Windus, 1935), p. 15 The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own. Milton's God (1961; repr. London: Chatto & Windus, 1965), p. 261 Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful. . . . any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language. Preface The fundamental situation, whether it deserves to be called ambiguous or not, is that a word or a grammatical structure is effective in several ways at once. To take a famous example, there is no pun, double syntax, or dubiety of feeling, in    Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,but the comparison holds for many reasons; because ruined monastery choirs are places in which to sing, because they involve sitting in a row, because they are made of wood, are carved into knots and so forth, because they used to be surrounded by a sheltering building crystallised out of the likeness of a forest, and coloured with stained glass and painting like flowers and leaves, because they are now abandoned by all but the grey walls coloured like the skies of winter, because the cold and Narcissistic charm suggested by choir-boys suits well with Shakespeare's feeling for the object of the Sonnets, and for various sociological and historical reasons (the protestant destruction of monasteries; fear of puritanism), which it would be hard now to trace out in their proportions; these reasons, and many more relating the simile to its place in the Sonnet, must all combine to give the line its beauty, and there is a sort of ambiguity in not knowing which of them to hold most clearly in mind. Clearly this is involved in all such richness and heightening of effect, and the machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry. Ch. I (2nd ed., 1949, pp. 2-3) The Complete Poems John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) thumb|His smooth wood creeps with all the creeds of the world. There is a supreme God in the ethnological section; . . . His smooth wood creeps with all the creeds of the world. "Homage to the British Museum" (1935), stanza 1 Attending there let us absorb the cultures of nations And dissolve into our judgement all their codes. Then, being clogged with a natural hesitation (People are continually asking one the way out), Let us stand here and admit that we have no road. Being everything, let us admit that is to be something, Or give ourselves the benefit of the doubt; Let us offer our pinch of dust all to this God, And grant his reign over the entire building. "Homage to the British Museum", stanza 2 Man, as the prying housemaid of the soul. "This Last Pain" (1930), line 5 All those large dreams by which men long live wellAre magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell. "This Last Pain", line 21 Feign then what's by a decent tact believedAnd act that state is only so conceived,And build an edifice of formFor house where phantoms may keep warm. "This Last Pain", line 29 Ripeness is all; her in her cooling planetRevere; do not presume to think her wasted.Project her no projectile, plan nor man it;Gods cool in turn, by the sun long outlasted. "To an Old Lady" (1928), stanza 1 Stars how much further from me fill my night.Strange that she too should be inaccessible,Who shares my sun. He curtains her from sight,And but in darkness is she visible. "To an Old Lady", stanza 6 It is the pain, it is the pain, endures.Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.Poise of my hands reminded me of yours. "Villanelle" (1928), line 1 Twixt devil and deep sea, man hacks his caves;Birth, death; one, many; what is true, and seems;Earth's vast hot iron, cold space's empty waves. "Arachne" (1928), line 1 Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men. "Legal Fiction" (1928), line 1 Your rights reach down where all owners meet, in Hell'sPointed exclusive conclave, at earth’s centre(Your spun farm's root still on that axis dwells);And up, through galaxies, a growing sector. "Legal Fiction", line 9 Life involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis. "Bacchus" (1935), note Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake.My house was on a cliff. The thing could takeBookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row.Then the long pause and then the bigger shake.It seemed the best thing to be up and go. "Aubade" (1937), line 1 But as to risings, I can tell you why.It is on contradiction that they grow.It seemed the best thing to be up and go.Up was the heartening and the strong replyThe heart of standing is we cannot fly. "Aubade", line 38 Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.It is not the effort nor the failure tires.The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. "Missing Dates" (1937), line 1 Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills. "Missing Dates", line 12 Shall I make it clear, boys, for all to apprehend,Those that will not hear, boys, waiting for the end,Knowing it is near, boys, trying to pretend,Sitting in cold fear, boys, waiting for the end? "Just a Smack at Auden" (1937), line 15 Buddhists and Christians contrive to agree about deathMaking death their ideal basis for different ideals.The Communists however disapprove of deathExcept when practical. "Ignorance of Death" (1940), line 3 Liberal hopefulnessRegards death as a mere border to an improving picture. "Ignorance of Death", line 11 It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.The more things happen to you the more you can'tTell or remember even what they were.The contradictions cover such a range.The talk would talk and go so far aslant.You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there. "Let It Go" (1949), line 1 Quotes about Empson The man writes with such genuine passion for the books he's discussing. With so many critics you feel they're writing so people will say they're good critics. W. H. Auden, recorded in Alan Ansen (ed. Nicholas Jenkins) The Table Talk of W. H. Auden (London: Faber, 1991) p. 44. The plain fact is that many of the reputations which today occupy the poetic limelight are such as would crumble immediately if poetry such as Empson's, with its passion, logic, and formal beauty, were to become widely known. John Wain "Ambiguous Gifts", in The Penguin New Writing no. 40 (1950); cited from John Lehmann and Roy Fuller (eds.) The Penguin New Writing 1940-1950: An Anthology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) p. 492. Johnson, Hazlitt and Empson are the greatest English critics of their respective centuries not least because they are the funniest. Jonathan Bate, in the London Review of Books January 24, 1991. External links Category:Poets from England Category:Literary critics Category:Academics from the United Kingdom Category:1906 births Category:1984 deaths Category:University of Cambridge alumni Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Formalist poets