Cold Feet
Frank Kermode, 22 July 1993
Essays on Renaissance Literature. Vol. I: Donne and the New Philosophy
by William Empson, edited by John Haffenden.
Cambridge, 296 pp., £35, March 1993,0 521 44043 2 Show More
by William Empson, edited by John Haffenden.
Cambridge, 296 pp., £35, March 1993,
William Empson: The Critical Achievement
edited by Chistopher Norris and Nigel Mapp.
Cambridge, 319 pp., £35, March 1993,0 521 35386 6 Show More
edited by Chistopher Norris and Nigel Mapp.
Cambridge, 319 pp., £35, March 1993,
“... William Empson maintained that there was a right and a wrong moment to bring theory into the business of intelligent reading, and that the professionals chose the wrong one, but he could not do without theory altogether. His book The Structure of Complex Words (1951) contains quite a lot of it; so it is not surprising that a generation of literary theorists, not wishing to remain totally out of touch with the best critic of his time, has decided to appropriate Complex Words, a work hitherto much less influential than the very early (and prodigious) Seven Types of Ambiguity ... ”
