(say) between 22 and 24 seconds

This essay considers William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930/1947) as a text situated within overlapping cultures editing. Most famously, the book responds to Robert Graves and Laura Riding’s readings Shakespeare’s “unedited” Sonnet 129, but it also closely reads scholarly footnotes. own revisions for 2nd edition his prefatory reflections on them then extend an awareness willingness play with mise-en-page unusual in literary criticism period, though common its poetry. should be seen context Experiment group writers, artists, film-makers, whom editing included montage curation found texts images. As highly self-conscious textual environment predicated editorial intervention read written creative resource scene performance, challenges prospective editor by focusing attention spaces times Further questions about performance are posed this article’s form. All academic articles, like editions, montages: they assemble, significant sequence, elements drawn from different sources. Current conventions referencing tend conceal this, however, that persistently shift authority away process, local effects selections juxtapositions performs, reader’s experience these here now reading. Whereas edition’s draws text’s history into present tense utterance, apparatus directs us past (in form those pre-existing uncut works which cited material originates) scripts future readers will trace restore original location). In order reflect edition, removes most usual reference allow itself predominate; where short quotations incorporated italics substituted quotation marks indicate temporary alteration tone one voice another. These departures do not argue wholesale elimination apparatus; rather, essay’s wider suggestion would creative-critical writing is position question all aspects text, reclaiming formats authorial use so conventional can re-emerge expressive resource.