This 1984 volume is a collection of essays written during the 1960s-1980s, by on

e of the greatest living critics of poetry. Upon reading Ricks s biography of Tenn
yson, W. H. Auden called Ricks exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of fi
nding . But Ricks is also a brilliant writer too, with a fondness (some would say
weakness) for puns and wordplay of all kinds. He clearly has great fun pondering
the significance of a semi-colon or set of parentheses, or the meaning of a par
ticular image or word. This volume includes essays on, among others, medieval po
et John Gower, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, Geoffrey Hill, Stevie Smith, and
ind
eed, William Empson, author of our next book recommendation.
ANother Book
illiam Empson (1906-1984) was a poet as well as a critic, and this probably help
ed him to get under the skin, as it were, of many of the poems he analyses in th
is pioneering work of poetry criticism, published in 1930 and written when he wa
s still only in his early twenties (and completed shortly after he had been expe
lled from the University of Cambridge when contraceptives were found in his room
s). Taking his examples from Geoffrey Chaucer as well as T. S. Eliot, Empson wit
tily examines the various ways in which poets generate ambiguity in their work,
from simple examples to more complex and less easily resolved instances. Jonatha
n Bate called Empson the funniest critic of the twentieth century. He is also on
e of the most illuminating.