ABSTRACT
In previous chapters I have remarked from time to time on what I take to be the key shifts of thought and focus in Empson’s career. Insofar as value can or need be attached to such shadowy chronologies, my sense of this career would place the pinnacle of his achievement rather later than has been suggested by others. Unlike those who see the fireworks of Seven Types never again equalled in brilliance (contemporaries like Bradbrook or near-contemporaries like Barbara Hardy are apt to take this view), or those who find the strongest argument and the most rigorous sense of social purpose in Pastoral (a view widespread among American critics, for example, Burke, Hyman, Sale, and Alpers), or those who emphasize the linguistic sophistication of Complex Words (which appeals to many recent commentators who are themselves theorists, like Norris, Wihl, and Culler), I am inclined for my part to vote for Milton’s God.
