William Empson

20th-century British literary critic well-known for his atheism, as professed in his book Milton's God.

---

"Empson was much concerned with John Donne. As an atheist he could not conceive how an intelligent man like Donne could swallow a theologian's nonsense about God." - http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200109/ai_n8958772

---

"...the Christian critic C.S. Lewis observed archly that many objections to Milton's God seemed not to be against Milton but against God, a charge to which the atheist critic William Empson pleaded guilty with positive gusto." - http://www.jackmiles.com/default.asp?id=36&newsaction=newsdetail&articleid=35