William Empson, New Criticism, and Dream-Worlds

There's no doubt much to say about William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity, but I want to hone in specifically on what he has to say about the English Romantic poets because I think it highlights a problem about criticism that I will have to solve if I ever hope to make sense of contemporary poetry. Before even getting into his description and exemplification of the first type of ambiguity, Empson takes the time to viciously (though humorously) dismiss the English Romantics. His primary complaint seems to be that these poets mine their childhood for private experiences and perspectives upon which they reflect as adults:

"Almost all of them, therefore, exploited a sort of tap-root into the world of their childhood, where they were able to conceive things poetically, and whatever they might be writing about they would suck up from this limited and perverted world an unvarying sap which was their poetical inspiration."

The psychological material of childhood is not, for Empson, a suitable subject for poetry. And if the above quote isn't slighting enough, his specific charge against Wordsworth turns blistering: "Wordsworth frankly had no inspiration other than his use, when a boy, of the mountains as a totem or father-substitute." Ouch. Snarky. But I don't believe it's as damning as it seems. Empson unknowingly confesses his shortcoming when he continues his sharp criticism:

"One might expect, then, that [these poets] would not need to use ambiguities of the kind I shall consider to give vivacity to their language, or even ambiguities with which the student of language, as such is concerned; that the mode of approach to them should be psychological rather than grammatical" (emphasis added).

In essence, he admits that it is his critical perspective that fails to respond to the poem. He reveals that his contempt is based on the inapplicability of his tools for the job at hand.

But I think this is an unfortunate admission. I don't think that psychology and grammar necessarily oppose one another. The poetry of quality that uses the "tap-root" he describes still creates the ambiguities and ironies that New Critics love to uncover, but they happen at a different level.

I could probably only prove this point by mobilizing a full interpretation of the type I'm describing, but I don't have that kind of time. Instead, I'll suggest that a poem like Wordsworth's Prelude is not a direct route to the past; it is a speech act like an analysand's, full of its own grammar of desire and restriction.