Michael Wood is professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University and the author of many books, including Yeats and Violence, Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction (Princeton). He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He lives in Princeton.

"A brilliant introduction to one of the most original and beguiling intellects of the 20th century."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post "An elegant and concise study of the great British literary critic William Empson (1906-1984)... If we come away with one thing from On Empson, it is the reminder, in the age of STEM courses, of just how much poetry matters--matters not on ethical or political grounds but simply for its own sake, for its exposure of the possibilities of the language that we use every waking moment of every day without taking into account its astonishing possibilities for knowledge, power, and, especially, pleasure."--Marjorie Perloff, Weekly Standard "Part of the dexterity of Wood's own critical idiom lies in using the resources of the colloquial register to say just enough, leaving us to complete and digest the thought. His stylish brevity avoids the dogmatising implicit in all attempts to turn an observation into a theory ... Wood even manages to make Milton's God (1961), Empson's grumpiest, most obsessive book, seem attractive ... An appropriately subtle yet spirited introduction to the seductive power of a particular form of literary criticism."--Stefan Collini, The Guardian

• 1 Empson's Intentions 1 2 The Strangeness of the World 26 3 Large Dreams 55 4 The Other Case 82 5 All in Flight 113 6 Sibylline Leaves 143 7 The Smoke of Hell 171 Acknowledgments 201 Abbreviations 203 Bibliography 207

Michael Wood is professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University and the author of many books, including Yeats and Violence, Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction (Princeton). He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He lives in Princeton.

"A brilliant introduction to one of the most original and beguiling intellects of the 20th century."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post "An elegant and concise study of the great British literary critic William Empson (1906-1984)... If we come away with one thing from On Empson, it is the reminder, in the age of STEM courses, of just how much poetry matters--matters not on ethical or political grounds but simply for its own sake, for its exposure of the possibilities of the language that we use every waking moment of every day without taking into account its astonishing possibilities for knowledge, power, and, especially, pleasure."--Marjorie Perloff, Weekly Standard "Part of the dexterity of Wood's own critical idiom lies in using the resources of the colloquial register to say just enough, leaving us to complete and digest the thought. His stylish brevity avoids the dogmatising implicit in all attempts to turn an observation into a theory ... Wood even manages to make Milton's God (1961), Empson's grumpiest, most obsessive book, seem attractive ... An appropriately subtle yet spirited introduction to the seductive power of a particular form of literary criticism."--Stefan Collini, The Guardian

• 1 Empson's Intentions 1 2 The Strangeness of the World 26 3 Large Dreams 55 4 The Other Case 82 5 All in Flight 113 6 Sibylline Leaves 143 7 The Smoke of Hell 171 Acknowledgments 201 Abbreviations 203 Bibliography 207

Michael Wood is professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University and the author of many books, including Yeats and Violence, Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction (Princeton). He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He lives in Princeton.

"A brilliant introduction to one of the most original and beguiling intellects of the 20th century."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post "An elegant and concise study of the great British literary critic William Empson (1906-1984)... If we come away with one thing from On Empson, it is the reminder, in the age of STEM courses, of just how much poetry matters--matters not on ethical or political grounds but simply for its own sake, for its exposure of the possibilities of the language that we use every waking moment of every day without taking into account its astonishing possibilities for knowledge, power, and, especially, pleasure."--Marjorie Perloff, Weekly Standard "Part of the dexterity of Wood's own critical idiom lies in using the resources of the colloquial register to say just enough, leaving us to complete and digest the thought. His stylish brevity avoids the dogmatising implicit in all attempts to turn an observation into a theory ... Wood even manages to make Milton's God (1961), Empson's grumpiest, most obsessive book, seem attractive ... An appropriately subtle yet spirited introduction to the seductive power of a particular form of literary criticism."--Stefan Collini, The Guardian

• 1 Empson's Intentions 1 2 The Strangeness of the World 26 3 Large Dreams 55 4 The Other Case 82 5 All in Flight 113 6 Sibylline Leaves 143 7 The Smoke of Hell 171 Acknowledgments 201 Abbreviations 203 Bibliography 207