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Critical Provisions

scraps of literary criticism–from the classroom, works in progress, private musings, public soliloquies, barroom disputations, and more.

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Tag: William Empson

275. (Charles Baudelaire)

There’s much agreement that he speaks to and of a modern malaise like no other poet. He seems, at times, … More

Baudelaire, French poetry, pastoral, William Empson

265. (William Empson)

With each return to Empson’s criticism, a new fulcrum point on which it can be turned. The chapter on “Candid … More

Foucault, Literary Criticism, William Empson

239. (Matthew Arnold)

Matthew Arnold suggests how a thoroughgoing Platonism might help us think through art, criticism, and more: “the application of ideas … More

Criticism, Matthew Arnold, plato, Samuel Johnson, William Empson

236. (Christopher Ricks)

What is the appeal of criticism, of reading or doing it? It must rest in beguilement at judgment itself, and … More

Christopher Ricks, Kafka, T.S. Eliot, William Empson

234. (William Empson)

William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity is an acknowledged classic of literary criticism, but it is also among the most … More

Literary Criticism, Poetry, William Empson

230. (William Empson)

In the blog posts lately, I’ve discussed literature as happening when an author gets a condition of judgment inside of … More

Aristotle, Criticism, William Empson

205. (William Empson)

That great literature balances great forces judiciously, that it calms a turbulence of mind, and that it communicates truths that … More

Anthropology, Humanities, Literary Criticism, William Empson

181. (William Empson)

Empson’s final words on the poem “Bacchus,” a poem about drink, in one of his statements on it: “I think … More

Poetry, William Empson

176. (Robert Burns)

It’s difficult to know what to do with Robert Burns, besides read and enjoy him, and take fortification from him; … More

Christopher Ricks, Donald Davie, Eighteenth-Century Poetry, Matthew Arnold, Poetry, Robert Burns, Romanticism, Samuel Johnson, Scottish Literature, Thom Gunn, William Empson

151. (William Empson)

Curiously, coming as late in the book as it does, the chapter on Bentley and Milton in Some Versions of Pastoral … More

Literary Criticism, Milton, Paradise Lost, pastoral, Poetry, William Empson

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