Seven Types of Ambiguity

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Seven Types of Ambiguity was first published in 1930 by William Empson. The book is organized around seven types of ambiguity that Empson finds in the poetry he criticises. The first printing in America was by New Directions in 1947.

Seven Types of Ambiguity ushered forth New Criticism in the United States. The book is a guide to a style of literary criticism practiced by Empson. An ambiguity is represented as a puzzle to Empson. We have ambiguity when "alternative views might be taken without sheer misreading." Empson reads poetry as an exploration of conflicts within the author.

[edit] The Seven Types

1. The first type of ambiguity is the metaphor, that is, when two things are said to be alike which have different properties. This concept is similar to that of metaphysical conceit.
2. Two or more meanings are resolved into one. Empson characterizes this as using two different metaphors at once.
3. Two ideas that are connected through context can be given in one word simultaneously.
4. Two or more meanings that do not agree but combine to make clear a complicated state of mind in the author.
5. When the author discovers his idea in the act of writing. Empson describes a simile that lies halfway between two statements made by the author.
6. When a statement says nothing and the reader is forced to invent a statement of their own, most likely in conflict with that of the author.
7. Two words that within context are opposites that expose a fundamental division in the author's mind.