William Empson

Matthew Bevis (University of Oxford)
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William Empson, poet and critic, was born on 27 September 1906 at Yokefleet Hall in Howden, Yorkshire. He was the youngest of five children of Arthur Reginald Empson (landowner and squire) and his wife Laura. Empson later looked back on the “romantic charm” of the estate where he was brought up and his comments on it demonstrate three qualities that were characteristic of him: candour, wit, and an awareness of his own diverse sympathies: “I was terribly shy about this [estate] as a young man. Like any other poet around 1930, I could tell the family I was a socialist and disapproved of land-owning, but I felt it would be horrible bad taste to tell anybody else about Yokefleet, though I was secretly proud of it and thought it was very fine””.

In 1920 Empson won a scholarship to

3933 words

Citation: Bevis, Matthew. "William Empson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1427, accessed 29 March 2024.]

1427 William Empson 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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