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Let It Go -- William Empson

       
(Poem #233) Let It Go
It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
    The more things happen to you the more you can't
        Tell or remember even what they were.

The contradictions cover such a range.
    The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
        You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.
-- William Empson
After a dazzling start [1], Empson's poetic career seemed to slow down in his
later years, as he concentrated on literary analysis [2]. Let It Go should
perhaps be interpreted in this light, as a sort of apology for not writing more
poetry. Beyond that, it's fairly self-explanatory (in marked contrast to much of
Empson's work), so I won't spend any more time boring you :-)

thomas.

[1] He was celebrated for his writing while still an undergraduate at Cambridge
(where he read Mathematics).
[2] In which field he earned a reputation as perhaps the most important critic
of the twentieth century; his only real challenger to the title is the young T.
S. Eliot. Empson's book Seven Types Of Ambiguity is probably the single most
influential work of criticism since, oh, I don't know, Bradley's Shakespearean
Tragedy (at the very least).

[Links]

Empson's villanelle Missing Dates can be read at poem #202
The commentary at this site includes an analysis of Empson's poetic style,
his philosophy and influence on other poets. Worth a dekko.

25 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

Godfrey Rust (Ontologyx) said...

I just found this on your site. I've always loved this piece and wanted
a copy for my noticeboard. I heard Empson reading in Warwick around
1975 and asked him to read this. I asked him if it was (as you suggest)
a sort of explanation for stopping writing poetry, and he was ambivalent
about it. I don't remember his response exactly but he gave the
impression that he had something else in mind.

Thanks

Godfrey Rust

London

Mike Farman said...

I love this poem, particularly for Empson's creative mangling of the syntax...and for the brevity. Features of other poems of his too. His reason for not writing more poetry should be attended to by many other poets who have too much to say about too little.

Mike Farman.

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Occasionally, Empson brought his critical genius to bear on modern writers; Using Biography, for instance, contains papers on Henry Fielding's Tom Jones as well as the poetry of William Butler Yeats and T. S. Eliot, and Joyce's Ulysses.

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