By Michael Wood

From one in all latest so much exceptional critics, a fantastically written exploration of 1 of the 20 th century's most crucial literary critics

Are literary critics writers? As Michael wooden says, "Not all critics are writers—perhaps such a lot of them are not—and a few of them are higher once they do not try and be." The British critic and poet William Empson (1906–84), the most vital and influential critics of the 20th century, used to be an exception—a critic who was once not just a author but in addition an excellent one. during this short ebook, wooden, himself the most proficient writers between modern critics, explores Empson as a author, a exceptional poet whose feedback is a superb literary performance—and facts that the act of interpreting may be an unforgettable adventure.

Drawing out the singularity and energy of Empson's writing, together with its unfailing wit, wooden strains the connections among Empson's poetry and feedback from his first and best-known severe works, Seven varieties of Ambiguity and Some types of Pastoral, to later books resembling Milton's God and The constitution of advanced Words. wooden indicates why this pioneer of shut analyzing was once either extra and no more than the inventor of latest Criticism—more simply because he was once the best English critic due to the fact Coleridge, and did not belong to any institution; and not more simply because he had critical alterations with many modern critics, specifically those that brushed off the significance of an author's intentions.

Beautifully written and wealthy with perception, On Empson is a chic advent to a different author for whom literature was once a nonstop kind of living.

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