Using Biography

Written in Empson's typically witty and iconoclastic style, Using Biography is a brilliant exploration of writers as diverse as Marvell, Dryden, Fielding, Yeats, Eliot, and Joyce. The last book he completed before his death in 1984, it is his most recent since Milton's God was published in 1961. Empson's earlier books inspired American New Criticism, but unlike the New Critics Empson has always been an intentionalist. Using Biography is dramatic evidence of his fiercely held view that biographical material can help us appreciate a writer's methods and intentions. It demonstrates a shrewd understanding of human relationships as they occur, not always explicitly, in works of literature.

Sir William Empson (1906–1984) held the Chair of English Literature from 1953 to 1971 at the University of Sheffield.