William Empson: The Structure of Complex Words

This is the first scholarly edition of one of the classics of literary criticism. William Empson was among the two or three most important and influential literary critics and theorists of the twentieth century. He has long been celebrated as one of the most fertile (as well as one of the funniest) explorers of how meaning works in language, especially in poetry. The Structure of Complex Words (1951) was much his longest book and was intended as a major theoretical statement of his contribution to the subject. Since its publication, it has been constantly referred to, but usually from a respectful distance, since it can seem a forbidding and difficult work.

This edition provides an extensive introduction together with full critical and explanatory notes. The editors trace the book's genesis and development in detail, beginning with Empson's collaboration with I. A. Richards in the early and mid-1930s, and concluding with the extensive writing and re-writing that Empson undertook while in Peking in 1947-50. This edition also reprints a selection of materials (including articles and letters) that illuminate Empson's thinking and contributed to the eventual book. The edition makes Empson's great work more intelligible to a range of readers and will immediately become the standard version of this celebrated text.

William Empson

William Empson (1906-1984), poet, critic and essayist, is most famous for his first book, Seven Types of Ambiguity, begun while he was in Cambridge undergraduate. After a stint teaching in Japan and China, he worked for the BBC throughout the Second World War, afterwards returning to China for a longer stay. He was a professor of the University of Sheffield between 1952 and 1971, and was knighted in 1979. His other notable works include The Structure of Complex Words and Milton's God. Collected Poems was published in 1955, and his Complete Poems was published in 2000 by the Penguin Press.


Helen Thaventhiran is a University Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of Cambridge and fellow of Robinson College. In Radical Empiricists (2015), she considered the work of five modernist close readers, including William Empson. Her research concerns the relations between literature, criticism and the philosophy of language, with further interests in dance and the contemporary critical essay.


Stefan Collini is Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of several books on English literary and intellectual history, including Public Moralists (1991), Matthew Arnold (1994), English Pasts (1999), Absent Minds (2006), Common Reading (2008), Common Writing (2016), and The Nostalgic Imagination (2019). He has also been a prominent contributor to debates about higher education policy and the nature of universities, most notably in What Are Universities For? (2012) and Speaking of Universities (2017). In addition, he is a frequent contributor to The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The Guardian, and other publications.