William Empson

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William Empson (around 1930)

Sir William Empson (born September 27, 1906 in Yokefleet Hall near Kingston upon Hull , † April 15, 1984 in London ) was a British poet and literary critic. He is one of the main exponents of British New Criticism .

Life

Empson was born to Arthur Reginald Empson of Yokefleet Hall, Yorkshire and his wife Laura in the British Landed Gentry . Early on he showed an interest in mathematics and he was a good student, receiving scholarships to Winchester Public School and, in 1925, Magdalene College at Cambridge University . There he first studied mathematics, then switched to English at IA Richards . His first and best-known literary critical work, Seven Types of Ambiguity , was created during his studies . Even before he finished his studies, Empson was expelled from college and town in 1929 because contraceptives found on his premises, which did not meet the moral standards of the time. He initially worked briefly as a freelance journalist and critic in Bloomsbury , but then went to Japan as a teacher for three years. In the mid-1930s he briefly returned to England, but soon left for China with the prospect of a teaching position at Peking University . There he was surprised by the Second Sino-Japanese War and he spent the following years at the United Southwest University in Kunming . He returned to England in 1939 and was with the BBC during the war years . Shortly after the war, he returned to China as a teacher at Peking University. Since the teaching conditions worsened because of the emerging communism, he first went to Gresham College in London in 1953 , until he was offered the direction of the faculty of English at the University of Sheffield . He held this position until 1972. In 1974 he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1982 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1976 he was a member of the British Academy .

Lyric and literary critical work

In all of his work as a poet and critic, Empson was largely influenced on the one hand by the mathematical and scientific thinking that determined the intellectual climate in Cambridge, but on the other hand just as lastingly shaped by the new style that TS Eliot rediscovered in the 1920s who established metaphysical poetry . Empson published the 67 poems he wrote in the volume Collected Poetry , which was first published in 1949 and then in 1955 in an expanded version. All of these poems are not the result of a momentary experience, but have a well thought-out argumentative and logical structure. They reflect a specific way of thinking and show a high degree of self-control both with regard to the elaboration of the topic and the design of the form. The choice of genre names such as Aubade and Villanelle as poem titles makes it clear that Empson preferred traditional, ornate metric forms for his work. Despite this orientation towards classical forms, Empson also contributed to modern mannerism with a tendency towards the "dark style". In his lyrical work, he linked ambiguities and paradoxes, looked for connections between images and ideas, and interwoven images and abstract scientific terminology with refinement and calculation. His poems have often been compared to labyrinths of words and are often difficult to understand without the author's own comments.

In his work as a literary critic Empson was in Cambridge under the influence of IA Richards and the new theory of poetry and literary criticism developed by him on a psychological basis. Empson saw the analysis of the organization of psychic impulses based on this as the appropriate approach for the interpretation of poetic works from the most varied of epochs and centuries. His book Seven Types of Ambiguity , published in 1930 at the age of 24, was considered groundbreaking and made Empson famous as a critic at one stroke. This work has secured Empson an outstanding place in the multifaceted development of literary criticism of New Criticism up to the present day.

Although the number seven in the systematization of the ambiguities has been criticized as being relatively arbitrary in some cases and some of the interpretations presented by Empson have met with clear contradiction or sharp criticism, Empson nevertheless has the readers' awareness and sense for with his method of criticism and interpretation sharpened the ambiguity of central concepts and figurative expressions throughout the tradition of English-language poetry. Empson provided a supplement to his original critical approach with his book The structure of complex words , published in 1951, and with his more thematic publications Some versions of pastoral (1935) and Milton's God (1961 and in a revised form 1965).

His literary-critical research led to invitations to teach at the University of Tokyo (1931 to 1934) and at the National University in Beijing (1937 to 1939). After the Second World War he returned to China and taught there from 1947 to 1952. From 1953 until 1972 he held a chair at Sheffield University.

Despite the sharp attacks on his poetic works due to their obscurity , Empson exerted a decisive influence on the younger generation of English poets up to the present day. Above all, authors such as John Wain , Philip Larkin , Donald Davie, Alfred Alvarez and DJ Enright resorted to his poetic concepts and techniques.

Works (selection)

Literary criticism

  • Seven types of ambiguity (=  Pelican books ). 2nd Edition. Penguin, Harmondsworth 1973, ISBN 0-14-021478-X (English, first edition: 1930).
  • Some versions of pastoral. A study of the pastoral form in literature (=  Peregrine books . Y-56). Penguin, Harmondsworth 1966, ISBN 0-7012-0611-X (English, first edition: 1935).
  • The Structure of Complex Words . Chatto & Windus, London 1951 (English).
  • Milton's God. A study of Paradise Lost . Chatto & Windus, London 1961 (English).

Essays

  • Using biography (1984)

Poetry

  • Collected Poems (1955)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Willam Empson at The Poetry Archive
  2. ^ Frank Kermode: The Savage Life , London Review of Books
  3. ^ Honorary Members: William Empson. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 9, 2019 .
  4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 25, 2020 .
  5. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 148 f.
  6. ↑ See Bernhard Fabian (Ed.): The English literature. Volume 2: Authors . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 149.
personal data
SURNAME Empson, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British poet and literary critic
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Yokefleet Hall at Kingston upon Hull
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1984
Place of death London