William Empson: Against the Christians by John Haffenden

Abstract

MLR, 103.2, 2008 529 their collaboration in such fancifully inappropriate terms.Likewise, the playful-if sinister-theatricality of Eliot's 'deviant' behaviour (greenish make-up etc.) hardly suggests furtive concealment. There were evidently some odd angles to his life;but itno longer surprises us that, biographically and poetically, Eliot's diverted erotics produced unusual inflections (whatAuden termed 'thehermit's sensual ecstasy'). It is unclear whom Miller's book will satisfy: scholars may not find enough sig nificantly new, nor does it effectively shape Eliot's life into biographical narrative. Indeed, itsomewhat resembles awork of reference: anyone curious about themutual acquaintance 'Prichard' referred to byVerdenal, or about Eliot's Harvard or Boston backgrounds, and theirgayer recesses, can findsuchmaterial here. The research has, however, been more copious thandiscerning, and contains errors, some glaring (Rim baud did not shootVerlaine); speculation about thedating ofWaste Land manuscripts has been overtaken by Lawrence Rainey's systematic investigations. Offering in sup port inertly reductive biographical readings of selected poems, Miller, regrettably, persists inbeckoned bafflement before the contents ofEliot's lifeand art.His book, lengthy and handsomely produced though it is, does not finally justify dust-jacket claims to be a 'milestone inEliot scholarship' and 'indispensable'. LANCASTERUNIVERSITY TONY SHARPE William Empson: Against the Christians. By JOHNHAFFENDEN. Oxford: Oxford Uni versity Press. 2oo6. xxii+797 pp. 030. ISBN 978-0-I9-927660-8. JohnHaffenden's second volume seesWilliam Empson in a series ofwartime and post-war careers: the BBC from 1940 (and marriage toHester Henrietta Crouse, 'Hetta', in I941) and then a post inChina at theNational Peking University from I947 to I952. He continued teaching inhis traditionalway during and after the civil war, the six-week siege of Peking in I948, and the subsequent Communist revolu tion and creation of thePeople's Republic ofChina. No reasonable man would have expected tobe allowed to retainhis intellectual autonomy, or indeed his personal free dom, in thispolitical climate, but Empson was not reasonable. Out of love of theEast and personal obstinacy he hung on until August I952, when he and his family-by this time theEmpsons had two children-sailed fromHong Kong back toEngland. He settled inLondon, inhis huge ramshackle house inHampstead-acquiring Stu dio House, Hampstead Hill Gardens, was the best financial decision that Empson ever took.When he was appointed to theChair of English at SheffieldUniversity in I953 (he served there until I971) theHampstead house remained his major home. In Sheffield he lived in considerable squalor in a cheap and insanitary basement flat ('the burrow'). His indifference tohis physical surroundings was more than equal to this. So long as he could work-whether he was typing out Shakespeare's plays for his students (frommemory) on a battlefield inChina orwriting combative reviews and violent challenges to theold enemy,God, inhis Sheffield basement, he remained oblivious and contented. JohnHaffenden iscalm and accepting inhis account ofEmpson's private life.Emp son liked casual sexual encounters with men, and he and Hetta, a big and impulsive South African artist, had an open marriage. Hetta's taste in loverswas often alarm ingly rough. The most rough was a painter and decorator called Joshwho lived in Studio House for some years.When Empson was there fromSheffield he and Hetta would share Josh's sexual favours in a menage a trois.Empson records his gratitude for this arrangement in a hitherto unpublished poem, 'TheWife isPraised', printed in fullhere as an appendix to thebiography. In 1956 Hetta had a child by one of her other lovers (Peter Duval Smith) and 530 Reviews offeredEmpson a divorce. Their subsequent exchanges show Empson's characteris tic steeliness and equanimity, though he was clearly hurt. But Hetta stayed inplace, Duval Smith was soon off the scene, and husband and wife remained on surprisingly good termswith each other until the end ofEmpson's life. After his retirementEmpson found thathis pension was pitiful (because his career inBritish academic lifehad been relatively short) and he was to be found teaching for money at odd American institutions and reviewing, again for money, with prolific energy rightup tohis death. The creativeness was fuelled by alcohol, and thishad its downside: in I984 he died, ineffect,of drink, a factpolitely obscured inhis obituaries but set out with compassionate...