Empson was all about analyzing what makes poetry so rich and so interesting. In his view, this was... ambiguity. You know, all those words, images, ideas, etc. that allow a poem to be open to different interpretations.
In Seven Types of Ambiguity, Empson, like most of the New Critics, focused his attention on poetry. Do you think we can lift his ideas and use them for novels, too? Are novels just as full of ambiguity? Would we ever get a proper night's rest again if we were always trying to close read every novel we got our hands on?
Oh, and here's a real stumper: Do you think that ambiguity is a necessary ingredient for literature to be Literature with a capital L? (Can you think of a totally straightforward poem or novel?)