Selected Letters of William EmpsonJohn Haffenden OUP Oxford, 2006 M03 9 - 792 páginas 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 Dobrée, 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. |
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Página xv
... criticism not yet finished off; but even so, given his temperament, it would seem to me that he would never have got round to writing any memoirs. His memory for persons and encounters was selective, and in any case it would have gone ...
... criticism not yet finished off; but even so, given his temperament, it would seem to me that he would never have got round to writing any memoirs. His memory for persons and encounters was selective, and in any case it would have gone ...
Página xxiv
... criticism is continuous with ordinary talk, just as literary values should never be separated from all human values. He loathed the pretensions of a specialized discourse, and would have concurred with Orwell that 'the inflated style is ...
... criticism is continuous with ordinary talk, just as literary values should never be separated from all human values. He loathed the pretensions of a specialized discourse, and would have concurred with Orwell that 'the inflated style is ...
Página xxv
... critics on matters of principle, especially during the post-war years when he would cry down what he dubbed 'neoChristian' critics for their 'disgusting' beliefs. He was never more scornful than when tackling fellow critics (such as ...
... critics on matters of principle, especially during the post-war years when he would cry down what he dubbed 'neoChristian' critics for their 'disgusting' beliefs. He was never more scornful than when tackling fellow critics (such as ...
Página xli
... criticism by Enright, he was probably anticipating an insight regarding the loaded term 'common' that he would hit ... critic who could introduction xli.
... criticism by Enright, he was probably anticipating an insight regarding the loaded term 'common' that he would hit ... critic who could introduction xli.
Página xliv
... critic who undertook to explicate his writings. He had written what he had written, explaining his ideas and insights to ... criticism, and am so accustomed to being shocked by its emptiness, that I feel I must do otherwise at all costs ...
... critic who undertook to explicate his writings. He had written what he had written, explaining his ideas and insights to ... criticism, and am so accustomed to being shocked by its emptiness, that I feel I must do otherwise at all costs ...
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