(no subject)

The Milton and Marvell are my co-favorites in the book (the first half of the Shakespeare one my least). In my personalized heaven I could spend an infinite tenth of eternity reading the former and its booklength expansion to John Milton while watching his face.

The funnest ambiguity in the book is the first sentence of the Marvell essay. Another great part of which is the cliff chimney climbing paragraph, which anticipates both Derrida and the case against Derrida, and possibly Davidson.

Even that Shakespeare essay lets you laugh at Empson if you wish, contrasting the sonnet and his extravagant final unpacking of it - likewise the tour de force Freudian reading, tongue half in cheek, of the Alice books. His refusal to shut down rival interpretations isn't just liberating (if dangerous when used by others - I start to wonder if we owe Zizek and various other excruciators to well-meaning Empson) but a surprisingly consistent source of humor.

And Empson's abstracted version of "pastoral" is both hilariously far from what the term makes you think of and fascinatingly apt and ubiquitous.

Wish I had time to read more Empson. Maybe I can justify his Prelude essay at least.