William Empson – Seven Types of Ambiguity – Exam Based MCQs
1. William Empson is best known for his work: (UGC NET 2016; SET 2019; PGTRB 2021)
A) The Meaning of Meaning
B) Seven Types of Ambiguity
C) Anatomy of Criticism
D) The Well Wrought Urn
Ans: B) Seven Types of Ambiguity
2. Seven Types of Ambiguity is mainly a book of: (SET 2018; UGC NET 2017)
A) Linguistics (phonology)
B) Literary criticism and close reading
C) Drama history
D) Cultural studies
Ans: B) Literary criticism and close reading
3. Empson’s method in Seven Types of Ambiguity is closest to: (PGTRB 2019; SET 2020)
A) Historical criticism
B) Close textual analysis
C) Biographical criticism
D) Myth criticism
Ans: B) Close textual analysis
4. In Empson’s usage, “ambiguity” primarily refers to: (UGC NET 2015; PGTRB 2018)
A) Printing errors in texts
B) Multiple meanings and interpretive possibilities in language
C) Only grammatical mistakes
D) Author’s personal confusion
Ans: B) Multiple meanings and interpretive possibilities in language
5. Empson’s analysis often shows how poetic meaning is produced by: (SET 2017)
A) Single fixed denotation
B) Tension among several meanings at once
C) Only rhyme scheme
D) Purely historical references
Ans: B) Tension among several meanings at once
6. Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity was first published in: (UGC NET 2014; SET 2016; PGTRB 2020)
A) 1910
B) 1930
C) 1950
D) 1970
Ans: B) 1930
7. Empson is often associated with the tradition of: (SET 2019; UGC NET 2018)
A) Practical Criticism
B) Marxist criticism
C) Feminist criticism
D) Postcolonial criticism
Ans: A) Practical Criticism
8. Empson’s critical practice overlaps with New Criticism mainly in its emphasis on: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020)
A) Authorial intention as final meaning
B) Text-centred close reading
C) Social class analysis
D) Reader-response surveys
Ans: B) Text-centred close reading
9. The “seven types” in Empson’s title refer to: (PGTRB 2022; SET 2018)
A) Seven poetic genres
B) Seven forms of interpretive multiplicity
C) Seven historical periods
D) Seven rhetorical figures only
Ans: B) Seven forms of interpretive multiplicity
10. Empson argues that ambiguity in poetry is usually a: (UGC NET 2016; PGTRB 2019; SET 2021)
A) Defect to be eliminated
B) Creative resource that enriches meaning
C) Sign of incompetence
D) Proof of plagiarism
Ans: B) Creative resource that enriches meaning
11. Empson’s approach tends to treat language in literature as: (SET 2016)
A) Transparent and single-valued
B) Layered and context-dependent
C) Purely referential
D) Unrelated to meaning
Ans: B) Layered and context-dependent
12. Empson’s “ambiguity” is closest in spirit to the idea that a poem can have: (UGC NET 2017)
A) Only one correct paraphrase
B) Multiple valid interpretations
C) No meaning at all
D) Meaning only from biography
Ans: B) Multiple valid interpretations
13. Which is NOT typically central to Empson’s method? (PGTRB 2020; SET 2019)
A) Close attention to wording
B) Analysis of irony and paradox
C) Detailed philological and semantic scrutiny
D) Statistical analysis of readership
Ans: D) Statistical analysis of readership
14. Empson’s criticism is often described as combining literary insight with: (UGC NET 2015; SET 2018)
A) Pure autobiography
B) Linguistic sensitivity to meaning
C) Archaeological evidence
D) Dramatic staging
Ans: B) Linguistic sensitivity to meaning
15. Empson’s “Type 1 ambiguity” broadly involves: (SET 2017; PGTRB 2018)
A) A single word taking two relevant meanings at once
B) A poem that is meaningless
C) Only punctuation ambiguity
D) Only typographical ambiguity
Ans: A) A single word taking two relevant meanings at once
16. Empson’s later “types” tend to involve ambiguity at the level of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2020)
A) Only spelling
B) Whole statements, attitudes, or conceptual structures
C) Only meter
D) Only rhyme
Ans: B) Whole statements, attitudes, or conceptual structures
17. The “seven types” move generally from: (PGTRB 2021)
A) Simple to complex forms of ambiguity
B) Complex to simple forms of ambiguity
C) Grammar to biography only
D) History to psychology only
Ans: A) Simple to complex forms of ambiguity
18. Empson’s work is influential because it shows how meaning emerges from: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2018; PGTRB 2022)
A) One dictionary definition
B) Interaction of words within context
C) Only author’s notes
D) Only cultural history
Ans: B) Interaction of words within context
19. Empson’s criticism is often contrasted with purely “impressionistic” criticism because it is: (SET 2019)
A) Unreadable
B) Textually grounded and analytical
C) Only plot summary
D) Anti-interpretation
Ans: B) Textually grounded and analytical
20. Empson’s attention to ambiguity supports the idea that poetic language is: (UGC NET 2016)
A) Unambiguous and scientific
B) Densely meaningful and multi-layered
C) Only ornamental
D) Always literal
Ans: B) Densely meaningful and multi-layered
21. Empson’s analysis commonly discusses poetic effects like: (PGTRB 2019; SET 2020)
A) Ambiguity, irony, and paradox
B) Only allegory
C) Only satire
D) Only epic conventions
Ans: A) Ambiguity, irony, and paradox
22. Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity is most often linked with: (UGC NET 2015; SET 2017)
A) Structuralism
B) The Cambridge school of criticism / Practical Criticism
C) Post-structuralism
D) Deconstruction only
Ans: B) The Cambridge school of criticism / Practical Criticism
23. The “ambiguity” Empson discusses usually does NOT mean: (SET 2016; PGTRB 2018)
A) Multiplicity of meaning
B) Productive interpretive openness
C) Confusion caused by careless writing only
D) Overlapping senses in context
Ans: C) Confusion caused by careless writing only
24. Empson’s work most directly encourages readers to: (UGC NET 2018)
A) Ignore diction
B) Attend closely to words and their contexts
C) Read only biographies
D) Focus only on morals
Ans: B) Attend closely to words and their contexts
25. A key idea in Empson’s criticism is that meaning in poetry is often: (PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2017; SET 2019)
A) Fixed by author alone
B) Generated by internal relations within the text
C) Determined only by history
D) Purely random
Ans: B) Generated by internal relations within the text
26. Empson’s “Types” are best understood as: (SET 2018)
A) Strict scientific laws
B) A heuristic classification for reading poetic language
C) Historical periods
D) Political categories
Ans: B) A heuristic classification for reading poetic language
27. Empson’s approach is MOST useful for analysing: (UGC NET 2019; PGTRB 2021)
A) Mathematical proofs
B) Poetic and figurative language
C) Newspaper advertisements only
D) Census reports
Ans: B) Poetic and figurative language
28. Empson is frequently grouped with critics who emphasise: (SET 2017)
A) Reader-response interviews
B) The text itself as primary evidence
C) Only social history
D) Only author’s life
Ans: B) The text itself as primary evidence
29. Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity is most closely connected to the rise of: (UGC NET 2016; SET 2019)
A) Renaissance humanism
B) Twentieth-century English literary criticism
C) Victorian moral criticism only
D) Medieval scholasticism
Ans: B) Twentieth-century English literary criticism
30. Empson’s use of examples is typically drawn from: (PGTRB 2018; SET 2020)
A) Only scientific writing
B) English poetry and literary texts
C) Only government documents
D) Only oral folktales
Ans: B) English poetry and literary texts
31. The general aim of Empson’s book is to show that poetic language often: (UGC NET 2017)
A) Avoids complexity
B) Depends on multiplicity of meanings
C) Is always literal
D) Rejects interpretation
Ans: B) Depends on multiplicity of meanings
32. Which of the following is a common exam statement about Empson? (SET 2018; PGTRB 2020)
A) He rejected close reading
B) He treated ambiguity as central to poetic meaning
C) He wrote only plays
D) He was a Romantic poet
Ans: B) He treated ambiguity as central to poetic meaning
33. Empson’s book is often cited as an early landmark of: (UGC NET 2015; SET 2017; PGTRB 2019)
A) Formalist criticism in English
B) Purely sociological criticism
C) Psychoanalytic therapy
D) Colonial historiography
Ans: A) Formalist criticism in English
34. Empson’s “ambiguity” often arises from: (SET 2016)
A) Contradictory emotions or attitudes embedded in a line
B) Only foreign words
C) Only punctuation errors
D) Only plot holes
Ans: A) Contradictory emotions or attitudes embedded in a line
35. Empson’s theory is useful for understanding how poetry can be: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2021)
A) Single-layered and plain
B) Rich, compressed, and interpretively complex
C) Only narrative
D) Only documentary
Ans: B) Rich, compressed, and interpretively complex
36. Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity is most closely tied to the practice of: (PGTRB 2018)
A) Close reading of difficult passages
B) Listing authors’ biographies
C) Dating manuscripts only
D) Counting syllables only
Ans: A) Close reading of difficult passages
37. Which critical term is most compatible with Empson’s view of poetry? (SET 2019)
A) Monosemy (single meaning)
B) Polysemy (multiple meanings)
C) Literalism only
D) Anti-interpretation
Ans: B) Polysemy (multiple meanings)
38. Empson’s book is typically placed in the context of: (UGC NET 2016; SET 2018)
A) 18th-century neoclassicism
B) 20th-century criticism and modernist-era scholarship
C) Medieval allegory
D) Post-2000 digital humanities
Ans: B) 20th-century criticism and modernist-era scholarship
39. The “ambiguity” Empson values is most often: (PGTRB 2021; UGC NET 2017)
A) Accidental and meaningless
B) Structurally and aesthetically meaningful
C) Always a grammatical mistake
D) Only a pun
Ans: B) Structurally and aesthetically meaningful
40. Empson’s classification implies that ambiguity can operate at: (SET 2020; UGC NET 2018)
A) Only word level
B) Word, phrase, and whole-poem levels
C) Only sound level
D) Only punctuation level
Ans: B) Word, phrase, and whole-poem levels
41. Empson’s work encourages critics to see poetry as: (UGC NET 2015; PGTRB 2019)
A) A single message in decorative form
B) A complex structure of meaning
C) Only moral preaching
D) Only historical record
Ans: B) A complex structure of meaning
42. The “seven types” framework is primarily meant to: (SET 2017)
A) Replace reading with memorization
B) Help analyse how meaning multiplies in texts
C) Prove authors are inconsistent
D) Reject interpretation entirely
Ans: B) Help analyse how meaning multiplies in texts
43. Empson is often cited as a key figure in: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Close-reading tradition in English studies
B) Only theatre performance studies
C) Only comparative mythology
D) Only linguistics phonetics
Ans: A) Close-reading tradition in English studies
44. Which term best captures Empson’s focus on how meanings “co-exist”? (PGTRB 2022; SET 2020)
A) Monotony
B) Ambiguity / multiple meaning
C) Chronology
D) Etymology only
Ans: B) Ambiguity / multiple meaning
45. Empson’s critical writing is known for being: (UGC NET 2016)
A) Entirely abstract without examples
B) Dense, example-driven, and analytical
C) Only biographical narrative
D) Only philosophical aphorisms
Ans: B) Dense, example-driven, and analytical
46. Which statement best matches Empson’s view? (SET 2018; PGTRB 2019)
A) A poem should be reduced to one paraphrase
B) A poem’s power often lies in multiple meanings interacting
C) Meaning is irrelevant to poetry
D) Only biography decides interpretation
Ans: B) A poem’s power often lies in multiple meanings interacting
47. Empson’s influence can be seen in later critical ideas about: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2021)
A) Textual complexity and interpretive openness
B) Rejecting textual analysis
C) Only stage directions
D) Only reader statistics
Ans: A) Textual complexity and interpretive openness
48. The book Seven Types of Ambiguity is most often taught under: (PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2017)
A) Literary Criticism / Theory
B) Pure Grammar
C) Translation Studies only
D) Journalism
Ans: A) Literary Criticism / Theory
49. Empson’s approach generally treats “difficulty” in poetry as: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2021; UGC NET 2018)
A) Something to avoid completely
B) A source of richness that invites interpretation
C) A sign the poem has failed
D) A purely historical problem
Ans: B) A source of richness that invites interpretation
50. Overall, Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity demonstrates that English poetry is: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2020; PGTRB 2022)
A) Always single-meaning
B) Often multi-meaning, layered, and structurally complex
C) Only historical record
D) Only decorative sound
Ans: B) Often multi-meaning, layered, and structurally complex
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