Customer Reviews

Seven Types of Ambiguity

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The prose of the author is delightful: it was originally published in 1930 when better authors had a genteel but sophisticated style. The author's original intention was to set forth a theory of metaphor by distinguishing and analyzing, as the title says, seven forms of (linguistic) ambiguity. He draws the examples on which he exercizes his probative skill mostly from great writers in the English language. But for those schooled after, say, the 1950s it is a wonderful exhortation to read, speak and write with more subtelty than is usually encountered. A corollary of the case he makes is that ambiguity--carefully crafted ambiguity, not ambiguity of the slothful kind--can be very powerful, but it presupposes a precision in reading and writing which is a precondition for well-crafted metaphor. As such it stands for OUR generations as an exhortation to lingusitic sophistication and an implicit disproof that "liberty" goes hand in hand with slovenliness. It certainly does make better readers out of those who go through his book.

This book is for people who love words. Not just love them, but have a serious lust for them, who have such a powerful desire to absorb as much as possible that you can't even fully articulate why. What this novel does is help us remember why we love poetry, and the enormous power it can have. That's not to say it can make you like poetry if you don't already have a healthy understanding of it; indeed, in order to read this book I need complete silence and total concentration. This is not a book to read before you go to bed, or while you're at the gym. This is a book to read on your day off, when you can shut off all outside distraction. That seems like a lot to ask, but the rewards are great. After reading this, take another look at your all time favorite works of literary art. Take a look at "Macbeth," or, "The Sun Also Rises," or even, "Fight Club." This book will help you get more depth of meaning than you ever suspected out of these words.

This is one of the great milestones of twentieth century literary criticism. Published originally in 1930, its relevance has not faded. It is heartily recommended to anyone with an interest in poetry, and is absolutlely essential for anyone working for a college or graduate English degree. It could also be profitably used by younger persons in high school honors English programs.

This is one of the finest introductions to the power of words ever written. I read it when I was the same age as the author, and it etched itself on my mind. I cannot think of a more convincing analysis of how poetry works, beyond the simplicities of rhyme and rhythm. Poetry compresses emotion. It makes the words work hard. That is why it is effective and memorable. A line of poetry contains multiple meanings, which is what I understand by Empson's "ambiguity". Prose attempts to eliminate ambiguity, and the result is legalese, or the writings of the denser philosophers: hopelessly boring, unmemorable, ultimately incomprehensible. This book is a guide. I have kept it with me for the last fifty years.

I thought that William Empson is one of the best writers of his time and now. I have not read book like this one. This book really goes through the English language and the creative uses of ambiguity. Anyone and everyone should read this book.

This book starts on page 225 and when it reaches page 256, starts over at page 17. Then, at the end, it repeats pages 225 to 256. Was there any quality control for this 'new' book?

After reading about this classic in an interview with Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, I bought this book. I confess that I attempted to read it two or three times in the years that followed, but only succeeded in penetrating its first 30 pages before setting it aside. I finally buckled down and read the whole thing this month (and I took notes). I found the experience generally frustrating, though the book does contain a fair amount of interesting information.

The problem for me is that Empson's writing is seasoned with dated witticisms like "...the honest majority who were prepared to fight in the streets [against the invading hordes of psychoanalysts] either learned fire-watching technique or drilled with the Home Guard." That's on page viii. Unfortunately, those sorts of glib apostrophes continue throughout the book, appearing on almost every page, interrupting and derailing the thread of deeper content I was looking for.

If one is prepared to take a casual stroll through Empson's impulsively mapped neighborhood of "ambiguity," and isn't overly concerned with clear exposition regarding the distinctions between the "types" (actually it seems more like a spectrum of ambiguity that he describes, ranging from the simplest to most complex), then I can recommend this book. It's best taken casually, since it is written that way.

It is "written well," as an earlier reviewer observed, but for those of you who are looking to get a clear grasp of the varieties and interrelationships between different ambiguities, the "beautiful" writing will only get in the way. To me, this is a classic case of a self-indulgent style compromising a really good idea.

Under the false guise of literary criticism, William Empson has produced a true comic masterpiece, a book of enormous intellectual energy and verbal wit, which is closer in spirit and "atmosphere" to the impratical, rambling novels of Sterne than to the grave Practical Criticism of I.A. Richards.
At the same time, Empson puts forward his thesis about "ambiguity" in poetry, which actually is not that ambigious and non-sensical, if you could just stop laughing for a second (which you couldn't possibly).

It's a little wordy, Empson goes on and on in some places and doesn't explain very well in others.