- Hardcover: 512 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane; First edition (17 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0713992875
- ISBN-13: 978-0713992878
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.2 x 4.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,004,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Empson's poetry occupies a central place in 20th century literature. Acclaimed as the author of "Seven types of ambiguity" (1930). William Empson was applauded also for the dazzling intelligence and emotional passion of his poems. T.S. Eliot praised the "brain power" and "intense feeling" of his poetry; F.R. Leavis hailed him as the first true successor to John Donne. Other writers as diverse as W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas and John Betjeman have admired his elegant, humane and moving work. Robert Lowell told Empson: "I think you are the most intelligent poet writing in our language and perhaps the best. I put you with Hardy and Graves and Auden and Philip Larkin" The poems have a wide range of themes, from metaphysics to melancholy, social climbing to political satire and love to loss. Above all, Empson was stimulated by the the implications of modern science, which he called "the only fertile part of the contemporary mind". His witty and argumentative poetry reflects on the "strangeness of the world", and on the conflicting problems of conduct and belief. This volume brings together for the first time all of the poems Empson published in his lifetime and several more discovered since his death. Drawing on published papers, interviews views, readings and broadcasts, John Haffenden's introduction and annotations identify manuscript sources, allusions and intertexts. The volume also includes Empson's own notes, which he regarded as a vital complement to the poetry: "there is a portentous air about compact verses without notes," he remarked "like a seduction without conversation".
About the Author
William Empson is well-known for his landmark in literary criticism SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY (written at the tender age of 24) but his poetry is regarded as his greatest literary achievement. His academic career was varied and distinguished and throughout the course of his life he published widely. John Haffenden is recognised as being the foremost authority writing on Empson today. He has written a number of books, and is currently working on a biography of Empson.
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Everything, Bhikkhus, is on fire. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Everything, Bhikkhus, is on fire. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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2 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Dare to read him
7 Aug 2006
Format:Hardcover
This book shows how far from our time Empson is--a collection in which the annotations are 3 times the number of pages of the poems---how overscholarly!, we might judge, how nicer to be more spontaneous, direct.
But if you don't mind being challenged in your norms, try a poet whose lines take you on the adventurous ride of one of the most complex minds you can encounter in poetry.
Representative is "Dissatisfaction with Methaphysics," which begins with the floating corpse of Mahomet, tells how it lies on earth's elliptic orbit surrounded by "epicycles" (Ptolemaic, the notes tell us), then how we may descend from Adam & Eve's incest. The lengthy annotations certainly don't wrap up all the meanings, but give further associations to ideas of Empson and others which, in turn, may stimulate the reader to have another go at the poem's fascinations. I would not have picked up, without the notes, the subtle variations of the poem's apparently conventional form. And I'm still not sure what it all means.
If you've had the pleasure of hearing Empson recite, on a recording, one of his villanelles, you'll have an additional appreciation.
But if you don't mind being challenged in your norms, try a poet whose lines take you on the adventurous ride of one of the most complex minds you can encounter in poetry.
Representative is "Dissatisfaction with Methaphysics," which begins with the floating corpse of Mahomet, tells how it lies on earth's elliptic orbit surrounded by "epicycles" (Ptolemaic, the notes tell us), then how we may descend from Adam & Eve's incest. The lengthy annotations certainly don't wrap up all the meanings, but give further associations to ideas of Empson and others which, in turn, may stimulate the reader to have another go at the poem's fascinations. I would not have picked up, without the notes, the subtle variations of the poem's apparently conventional form. And I'm still not sure what it all means.
If you've had the pleasure of hearing Empson recite, on a recording, one of his villanelles, you'll have an additional appreciation.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Dud City
26 Oct 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I got this because I read a William Empson poem in a collection of science writing. I thought the piece was intelligent and deep and mystical. Also I thought it sounded fantastic that a 500 page book would consist of 400 pages commenting and explaining the first 100. Well, it is less funny or fabulous or brash than you'd think. Many of the notes are simply apologies for the poems being failures and needing explanation- fair enough. If its so good why doesn't it speak for itself? But after the first few letters and apologies I just could not care and the detailed notes explaining that a line borrows from this or that obscure thing I also do not care about, did not draw my attentions. I tried to read the actual poems but they are just embaressingly bad. Other than being weird, and requiring "puzzle interest" to solve, one finds they are not enjoyable, musical, spiritual, interesting, or meaningful. Also 12 syllable words do not fit well into sonnets, so I cannot even say they are technically composed well, though others would. They are somewhere between tedious and painful. I'd skip it with exclamation marks, unless all this just makes you wonder: well how bad could a famous poet really be? And learning that he stopped writing for all of middle age because he felt the distractions of life would make any poems he tried stink was interesting, but I just told you that. I give it 2 stars because it stimulated me enough to write a review and get annoyed, rather than put me to sleep.
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