Seven Types of Ambiguity

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.

Author: William Empson
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 01/17/1966
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.64lbs
Size: 7.89h x 5.21w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780811200370
3rd Edition