Tag: Mansfield College

Literary Criticism

Prose style – Christopher Ricks on William Empson

Ricks sees  Empson’s perception grounded in his “magnanimity,” i.e., his complete grasp of the sensibility bearing upon literary expression and the real-world circumstances to which it is addressed. So, when Empson examines the select authors in Using Biography, noticing that critical appreciation had focused on their misplaced link to Christianity, Empson finds fertile ground by attacking the question from another side, showing that this lens was in fact a way to misapprehend their work.