Seven Types of Ambiguity

Absolutely. Wonderful to rediscover this book I had had when I was at school, and the familiar Peregrine paperback edition. How one misses Peregrines. Nothing similar, today. An excellent service by seller. Book arrived very quickly. Exactly as described. Securely packaged.

After digging so deep for the treasure, following the old charts, in between Caribbean tides or similes for them, that would flood the workings; William Empson, held up his golden doubloons of ambiguity for a while; but all seven were soon reburied by him in the famous book he chose to call “Seven Types of Ambiguity”. As a record of his interminable and ultimately vain labours the book deserves to be credited. It is unlikely that another will revisit the place.That there are SEVEN types of ambiguity might have been an impressive thesis, especially written at the age of 22. It could have laid the foundations for a new type of literary criticism; so that a neophyte, just “up” to Oxford might be impressed, as I am to this day, by the university lecturer who might recite, like an alphabet, the twelve labours of Hercules. The truth is however, that ambiguity is ambiguous itself, and it is made clear in the book, that there are as many types of ambiguity; as there are, in the wild, countless and therefore nameless varieties of hawkweed.By offering so few types, and by his labours making them all pointless to differentiate, Empson, amazingly has secured a critical reputation. In this precocious masterpiece of unintelligibility he has given us the very essence of ambiguity: two things at the same time. First he managed to bluff his way to the end; but second, there is the unfortunate evidence of the debauching of his own literary instrument. Empson has provided the university syllabus compiler with a controversial book that has been in print since 1937; but also has provided our basis for understanding the mercy of Empson’s own complete withdrawal from the writing of poetry itself in 1940; for this which we must be grateful.When Empson came to revise his own book sixteen years after publication he wrote “I was surprised there was so little of the book I should prefer to change.” In one of the footnotes he appended to clarify his original position he says (Page 70) “Effects worth calling ambiguous occur when the possible alternative meanings of word or grammar are used to give alternative meanings to the sentence.” Ambiguity, the basis of metaphor, one of the currents that move within poetry and proof of its very nature, is the way that the words of poetry often say two (or more) things at the same time. The word “move” in that last sentence (“one of the currents that move”) can describe the flow of a current; and at the same time the word can be acknowledging that ambiguity can “move” those of us reading the poetry. If you mess with it for long enough, like Empson, there will be other ambiguities. You may divine that those currents can by themselves, each one, with no assistance from outside, “move”, or move about.Empson is more mathematician than poet. He measures and counts, where those who accept poetry intuit and feel their way.Here is a passage from the chapter on the seventh type of ambiguity, page 197.“If ‘p and –p’ could only be resolved in one way into: ‘If a=a1, then p; if a=a2, then –p,’ it would at least put two statements into one. … But it is evident that any degree of complexity of meaning can be extracted by ‘interpreting’ a contradiction; any xa1 and xa2 may be selected, that can be attached to some xa arising out of p; and any such pair may then be read the other way round, as ‘If xa = xa2, then p; if xa = xa1, then –p.’ The original contradiction has thus been resolved into an indefinite number of contradictions: ‘If a = xay, then p and –p,’ to each of which the same process may be applied.”Few students on earth capable of being exercised by the paroxysms of this critic will be any the wiser, after tackling this book. Every page has examples of Empson’s prophylactic obscurity and obfuscation. A man who purports to be one who is making literature easier to understand is unaware that the soil is falling over his head.Untranslated Dante, snatches from Dryden and the sonnets; along with Marlow and Pope make for very heavy weather.Here is a SIMPLE example of an ambiguity in poetry; which of the seven types it might be, I hesitate to confirm. Here it is:Blue Spanish Eyes.This ambiguity, short and sweet, was crooned by Al Martino. I heard it, too young to know that the eyes of girls in Mexico (Spanish eyes) are never blue; the eyes are brown. In the sixties the words were broadcast so often in so many ways by the BBC and the corruptible Northern Dance Orchestra that it became impossible to experience them again. However, years later, I saw the aging Martino at The Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Blue also means “sad”. I was certainly a late arrival in the poetry lobby where they are talking of Michelangelo. Did I think, as I stood there, of that name? “Fairfield”? No. One of the crowd, I just blundered in; but I listened this time to the words from afar. The idea that brown eyes could be “blue” is the gold that is at the heart of poetry; the truth that words are magic. Crystal Gale was not ambiguous at all when she sang: “Don’t it make my brown eyes blue?”The real ambiguity is that not one of the singers of “Spanish eyes” knew the girl herself; they were just earning a living. As an example of the fourth type of ambiguity, the music used to be known as “Moon Over Naples”.Empson would have improved his work if he’d followed the quotation style of “The Friendship Book of Francis Day”, published just a year later. Frances Day (with an “e”) appears on YouTube with William Empson to the right, just behind her, on clarinet. This is a coincidence not an ambiguity.

"Seven Types of Ambiguity" can claim to be the fountainhead from which modern critical theory in English springs. The argument, made from a number of perspectives with extensive examples is that the resonance of poetry (in particular versus works in other more "exact" languages)is based on the ambiguity conjured by our language, necessitating the reader's involvement with and interpretation of the work. His thesis is not "reader as creator" or any of that sort of horrifying tummywash, but a beautifully argued, expansive and compelling study that celebrates and illuminates the greatest achievements in English Literature. It really is indispensable for any student of literature and a beautifully readable study as well.

Empson's principal theme throughout this book is that metaphor is nothing other than ambiguity but this confessional reveals his lack of understanding of metaphor. There is no ambiguity in metaphor except by those unable to grasp its meaning. The best children's stories and those of Aesop and of the Bible convey obvious metaphorical connotations which, regrettably, few people (including scholars) are able to comprehend. There are occasions when Empson, to prove his point, adds content which does not exist in the writing he is reading then attempts to explain the meaning with the added content!In the middle of page xiv Empson is reputed to have admitted the following where it says, "...but I am much hampered by a doubt as to whether any of it is true." One presumes from this admission that in his critique of English literature he is conscious of guessing.Empson was banished from Cambridge for having on his possession such appalling items as a few condoms (set-up to presumably get rid of him) yet in an extract from the Times Literary Supplement the journalist attempts to correct a statement made by Empson but fails miserably yet goes on to say, "Mr Empson is a young writer only recently down from Cambridge, where he had a brilliant career." Really; with condoms secreted in his room; how dreadful; and in a single sex establishment too? Did his academic elevation arise from this notoriety?Empson wrote in a letter to a friend, "...it is a very amateur sort of book!" Can it be presumed then that his conscience, regarding the bone fide of his views, was troubling him?I read the 1955 edition in which Empson had made numerous corrections to the original 1929 edition. Anyone reading this book with a modicum of understanding of allegory would immediately recognise its author as an impostor and would question why it is so often part of the reading syllabus of some universities. It proves that in the arts and social sciences departments that academe imparts ignorance.Would I recommend this book? Yes, indeed, if only as a study on how, as the old soldiers would say, "Bull.... baffles brains!"It is an appalling boring book!