Böcker av William Empson

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.

Some Versions of Pastoral is one of the most famous books of literary criticism of the twentieth century, with chapters of unrivalled brilliance that include celebrated discussions of Shakespeare, Milton, and Lewis Carroll. This is the first edition to supply a full critical commentary, bringing the book into a new currency for a modern audience.

This is the first scholarly edition of William Empson's The Structure of Complex Words (1951), a classic of literary criticism and a major statement of his work. An extensive introduction and explanatory notes are included, together with a selection of related writings. It will immediately become the standard version of this celebrated text.

The English poet, philosopher, and literary critic William Empson considered 'The Face of the Buddha' to be one of his finest works and was heartbroken when he lost the only copy in the wake of World War Two. Its recent rediscovery means the book can now be offered for the very first time exactly as he intended.

Reprint of the ed. published by New Directions, Norfolk, Conn. in 1961.

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passionate and controversial essays on John Donne in the context of contemporary science, and includes previously unpublished pieces on some of the most influential Renaissance writers and scientists.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

At the time of his death in 1984, the poet and critic William Empson was preparing and revising a collection of his essays on Shakespeare. This collection edited by David Pirie, is a book which the literary world has wanted for over half a century. Here, in a single volume, are major readings of Hamlet and Macbeth; a witty and sometimes impassioned defence of Falstaff, and a new piece on the architecture of the Globe theatre and other Renaissance playhouses, in which Empson explores the problems that the design of contemporary stages posed for a working playwright; there are also essays on the narrative poems, A Midsummer Night's Dream and the last plays. The essays demonstrate the subtlety and agility of Empson's mind, as well as his remarkable breadth of knowledge, while the almost racy wit of his informal prose style argues for a literary criticism which should never become solemn if it is to be truly serious.

This collection of William Empson's vibrant essays on drama, the second volume of his writings on Renaissance literature, includes essays on Kyd, Johnson, Webster and Shakespeare, all are written with Empson's incomparable zest and intelligence.

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.