Author of several major critical works, notably "Seven Types of Ambiguity" (1930) and "Some Versions of the Pastoral" (1935), William Empson (1906-1984) was also professor of English literature at Tokyo and Peking.
It has been said that Empson invented modern literary criticism in English. He certainly played a part in it, along with his such fellow mandarins as Edmund Blunden, I.A. Richards and T.S. Eliot. This first volume of a two-volume biography covers Empson's early life, up to 1940; stresses the critic's forbearers and the early life; and details the Asian travels. It is these, particularly the Tokyo years, which will perhaps most interest the local reader.
In 1931 Empson began a three-year contract as professor of English at the Tokyo University of Literature and Science but this was not his first contact with Japanese culture. That had been "The Tale of Genji" in the Arthur Waley translation. He reviewed it when still at Cambridge, noting with typical ambivalence that "it is a continual delight to read and so is liable to be rated too highly."