"Ambiguous Gifts"

William Empson (1906-1984) is a big critic-poet of Britain who spentmost of his energy and genius in the literary criticism, hence came upwith minor poetic output. During all his life, he wrote no more than 80poems, almost half of which belong to the three academic years, from1926 to 1929 when he was a student at Cambridge. His poetry sales havenever been large. But sales tell only part of the story, whether of a poet'sstature or of his talent. Both his great poetry and contribution to theEnglish poetry tradition show his position as an important poet in theBritish poetry history.This thesis focuses mainly on William Empson's early poetry, sincethey represent him the most. It is a regret that Empson's poetic energy randown so soon, but his poems have continued to live and have not fadedinto the silence that stretches between them and the present. The strikingand memorable lines abound throughout Empson's work; not only in the"Aubade" and "Missing Dates," but also in "The Ants", "This Last Pain"etc.From the perspective of science, Empson expressed the relation of manand the universe, soul and body. He used the quotations fromShakespeare, Milton and Pope, and borrowed the poetic traditional style from Donne, Marvell and Hopkins. His poetry expressed the relationbetween human and non-human, poetic and scientific, spiritual andmaterial, personal and impersonal, and above all, it expresses an attitudetowards exploring these relations. For instance, "The Teasers" startedgrousing and grumbling about the conditions of the modem world. Itsrhythmic vitality and variation reflects the changing directions andtensions of its theme, which is presented not as the general humancondition but as a particular and momentous situation with an individualas its centre.Empson expanded the meaning of "ambiguity" in his famous criticwork Seven Types of Ambiguity, pointing out every great poetry isambiguous. His theories are well presented in his poetry writing. Forexample, Ambiguities are bewilderingly dense in "High Dive" throughthe use of technical terms, such as "irrotational," "potential function,""co-ordinates," and its cross-references; and many of its phrases, those inbrackets especially, have the air of clues in crossword. Ambiguity ofstatement and complexity of analogy and structure are Empson'sexcellent skills and make him distinguish of the time. Through thesemantic analysis method, this thesis tries to find out the ambiguities andhow they are represented through the exploration of the poeticsubject-matter and poetic form of his poetry.The thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1, as introductory part, explains clearly various definitions of ambiguity from different scholarsand especially the one brought forward by William Empson, andintroduces the semantic analysis method. Under the influence of his tutorRichards, Empson absorbed the distillation of Richards' critic method andtheories, built up series of ambiguity type in which showed his talentsense and understanding in literary works.Chapter 2 sums up the three groups of subject-matter Empson oftenuses in his poetry. The first group is mathematics and science which iscommon in Empson's poetry, owing to his imitation of Donne and hiswide knowledge of science. The second group is myth and religion. Manyof the subject-matters come from Greek myth and the Bible and there aremuch description of God in the religion and Buddhism. Empson uses therhetoric skills such as conceit, analogy, irony and so on to express hisidea that causes ambiguity. The third group is animal and nature. Empsonuses the animal to express the confusion of human being and the nature tometaphor human society, condition, difficult position, etc.Chapter 3 analyzes through the rhetoric form, music form and styleform of Empson's poetry. Empson insists writing poetry strictly in thetraditional rules and forms. We can also see Empsonian ambiguity here.