Selected Letters of William Empson

This edited collection of letters by William Empson (1906-1984), one of the foremost writers and literary critics of the twentieth century, ranges across the entirety of his career. Parts of the correspondence record the development of ideas that were to come to fruition in seminal texts including Seven Types of Ambiguity , The Structure of Complex Words , and Milton's God . The topics of other letters range from Shakespeare's Dark Lady to Marvell's marriage and Byron's bisexuality. Empson relished correspondence that was combative, if not downright aggressive. As a result, parts of this edition take the form of a serial disputation with other critics of the period, including Frank Kermode, Helen Gardner, Philip Hobsbaum, and I. A. Richards. Other notable correspondents include A. Alvarez, Bonamy Dobr?e, Leslie Fiedler, Graham Hough, C. K. Ogden, George Orwell, Kathleen Raine, John Crowe Ransom, Christopher Ricks, Laura Riding, A. L. Rowse, Stephen Spender, E. M. W. Tillyard, Rosemond Tuve, John Wain, and G. Wilson Knight.All readers of literary history and criticism will stand to benefit from this edition. Empson is universally credited as the man who 'invented' modern literary criticism, so that all of his writings make a signal addition to the canon of his works. This selection provides a context for the evaluation of Empson's total literary output; and in many letters Empson seeks to defend his ideas against both published and personal attacks. This volume not only fills in all the missing links, it adds up to a completely new volume of critical writings by Empson.

Table of Contents:
1: The BBC War 2: The War within the BBC 3: Chinabound 4: Sounding the South: Kenyon College, Summer 1948 5: Siege and Liberation 6: The New China 7: Changes in China; and Kenyon Again 8: Quitting Communist china 9: Final Reckoning: The Affair of Fei Hsiao-t'ung 10: 'A Mighty Raspberry': iThe Structure of Complex Words/i 11: Homing to Yorkshire 12: From Poetry to the Queen 13: Ménage a Trois 14: The Anti-Christian: iMilton's God/i 15: 'They think good literature is a tremendous scolding': From Sheffield to Legon 16: The Road to Retirement 17: Rescuing Donne and Coleridge 18: Roamings in Retirement 19: iFaustus/i: Finale Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Note on the text Table of dates List of resipients and dates Text of letters Glossary of names Index

Review :
`Review from previous edition These letters give us more of the Empson we know from the prose, and like the prose they are a startling education in what reading can be, and why it might matter.' Adam Phillips, London Review of Books `No collection of letters by any writer I'm aware of comes even close to matching these 50 years worth of continuing argument about literature, the criticism and teaching of which made up Empson's life' Washinton Times `this edition is authoritative. impeccable and very usable.' Stefan Collini, Times Literary Supplement `Few critics have done more for poetry than Empson (1906-1984); few have led stranger or more adventurous lives.... Empson's travels make entertaining reading.... The main reason for reading Empson's own writings is to see what he made of the authors he cherished. (He was the best reader Donne ever had.)... In an era when readers debate whether poetry matters, it helps to remember a man who defended it, and pursued his own arguments about it, even to the ends of the earth.' New York Times Book Review