Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
At the time of his death in 1984, the poet and critic William Empson was preparing and revising a collection of his essays on Shakespeare. This collection edited by David Pirie, is a book which the literary world has wanted for over half a century. Here, in a single volume, are major readings of Hamlet and Macbeth; a witty and sometimes impassioned defence of Falstaff, and a new piece on the architecture of the Globe theatre and other Renaissance playhouses, in which Empson explores the problems that the design of contemporary stages posed for a working playwright; there are also essays on the narrative poems, A Midsummer Night's Dream and the last plays. The essays demonstrate the subtlety and agility of Empson's mind, as well as his remarkable breadth of knowledge, while the almost racy wit of his informal prose style argues for a literary criticism which should never become solemn if it is to be truly serious.
Synopsis
A collection of essays on Shakespheare by the late poet and critic William Empson.
Library Journal
Before his death in 1984 Empson revised and expanded these essays, all previously published. In them he argues that the ``mysteries'' and ``inconsistencies'' found in Shakespeare's works are examples of ambiguity, a dramatic shorthand that assumes a universally shared set of perceptions. Empson perceives Shakespeare's plays not as self-contained but as open-ended, dependent as much on what the audience brings to them as on what the author offers. Although his seminal treatment ( Seven Types of Ambiguity , 1930) is perhaps his most cohesive, this varied collection is recommended as a cold dose of common sense much to be desired in the sometimes fevered world of Shakespearean scholarship. James Stephenson, Gelman Lib., George Washington Univ., Washington, D.C.