[William Empson's] poetry has been used again and again for special purposes. I. A. Richards quoted his pupil's poems in his lectures since, among other reasons, they might have been written to prove his own theory of poetry; for example, they clearly and energetically took so many other disciplines in their stride. Then a poem like "High Dive" or "Part of Mandevil's Travels" makes me think that Empson himself used his own poetry; the puns, references and provocative, open syntax seem designed to prove the value and efficacy of the critical method he used in Seven Types. F. R. Leavis, too, used Empson's verse. His praise at the end of New Bearings is part of the argument of the book. Leavis's subject was the significant reorientation of English poetry brought about by Eliot. So Empson was praised not just for his own achievement—which was qualified as "very...