ENGLISH

Seven Types of Ambiguity

By William Empson

Book information

Publisher
Chatto and Windus
Year
1949
ISBN
081120037X, 9780811200370
LCC
PN1031 .E5 1961
Open Library ID
OL24219410M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
12 MB (12941232 bytes)
Pages
272\272
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

First published in 1930, Seven Types of Ambiguity has long been recognized as a landmark in the history of English literary criticism.Revised twice since it first appeared, it has remained one of the most widely read and quoted works of literary analysis. Ambiguity, according to Empson, includes "any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language." From this definition, broad enough by his own admission sometimes to see "stretched absurdly far," he launches into a brilliant discussion, under seven classifications of differing complexity and depth, of such works, among others, as Shakespeare's plays and the poetry of Chaucer, Donne, Marvell, Pope, Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and T. S. Eliot.

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