Amazon.com
William Butler Yeats, whom many consider this century's greatest poet, began as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, reviving legends and Rosicrucian symbols. By the early 1900s, however, he was moving away from plush romanticism, his verse morphing from the incantatory rhythms of "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree" into lyrics "as cold and passionate as the dawn." At every stage, however, Yeats plays a multiplicity of poetic roles. There is the romantic lover of "When You Are Old" and "A Poet to His Beloved" ("I bring you with reverent Hands / The books of my numberless dreams..."). And there are the far more bitter celebrations of Maud Gonne, who never accepted his love and engaged in too much politicking for his taste: "Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery, or that she would of late / Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, / Or hurled the little streets upon the great, / Had they but courage equal to desire?" There is also the poet of conscience--and confrontation. His 1931 "Remorse for Intemperate Speech" ends: "Out of Ireland have we come. / Great hatred, little room, / Maimed us at the start. / I carried from my mother's womb / A fanatic heart."

Yeats was to explore several more sides of himself, and of Ireland, before his Last Poems of 1938-39. Many are difficult, some snobbish, others occult and spiritualist. As Brendan Kennelly writes, Yeats "produces both poppycock and sublimity in verse, sometimes closely together." On the other hand, many prophetic masterworks are poppycock-free--for example, "The Second Coming" ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...") and such inquiries into inspiration as "Among School Children" ("O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?"). And at his best, Yeats extends the meaning of love poetry beyond the obviously romantic: love becomes a revolutionary emotion, attaching the poet to friends, history, and the passionate life of the mind. --Kerry FriedBook Description
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the entire arc of his career, from luminous reworkings of ancient Irish myths and legends to passionate meditations on the demands and rewards of youth and old age, from exquisite, occasionally whimsical songs of love, nature, and art to somber and angry poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising. In observing the development of rich and recurring images and themes over the course of his body of work, we can trace the quest of this century's greatest poet to unite intellect and artistry in a single magnificent vision.

Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeats's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.

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Customer Reviews (19)

Great poems, poor paper.
Yeats' poems should not be questioned, thus I do not.

Good about this edition is that it covers a great scope of his works. I think there's almost everything. Nice typeface used, font is nor small nor huge (exception for appendix). It is good to read, easy to find.

Bad thing is: paper. Yes, its paperback and this sort of books is always cheap. There was no hardcover available at the moment nor any book of such size either. Not to speak of any choice in Russia (Translations? No, thanks). Still, paper is roughly cut and, what makes things worse, I won't give a penny on whether this edition will survive more than 30 years. I'd get a better book later.

Awesome Collection
This book contains all of Yeat's published poetry and I believe alot of his dramatic writings. Yeat's has to be one of the best english poets of all time. I put him up next to Shakespeare. His poems are full of mystery, and alot of romance and polotics. It's really great stuff.

Yeats, one of the greatest
The short space that is offered here for reviews is nowhere near sufficient to review the life's works of one of Ireland's and the world's greatest poets. However I must at least try to describe the beauty that is the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

Perhaps Yeats is at his finest when reflecting on love, usually unrequited. Yeats manages to produce love poems that have a genuine passion that is surprisingly rare in poetry, specifically that of the modern day. Perhaps Yeats is representative of a type of romanticism that is moribund in modern literature, this is surely a tragic shame.

However Yeats' examination of the human condition is not restricted to the romantic. In 'What Then?', Yeats examines the frantic and vain human search for an ultimate meaning or significance. He manages this in a far more poetic and succinct way than many poets who have gone before him. In 'A Man Young and Old', Yeats runs us through the gamut of human experience in a wonderous,yet harrowing manner.

These are but a handful of examples of this beautiful poetry that demands to be read by any lover of literature.

Great poet, great work, amazing compilation!
A great compilation of Yeats works, while other compilations have excellent notes and essays regarding his works this one has many of his poems (and series of poems) all in one book. An outstanding book to own, beautifully compiled in this soft cover book (which has surprisingly held up quite well against years of battering as I carry it with me from time to time).

magnificent poems on cheap paper
I trust it goes without saying that William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest English-language poets of all time. This volume contains his entire body of verse, and is a magnificent treasure trove that will delight and stun the reader for decades.

I give two stars to the cheap materials used to create this masterpiece. I literally had this book out of the Amazon box for a matter of hours before the cover started to curl of its own accord, as though possessed by a poetry-hating demon. The paper is low-grade and coarse, with an unappealing brownish tinge.

Despite my love of Yeats, I find that I unconsciously tend to keep this book on the shelf just to keep its ugliness out of site, and I am by no means an aesthete. If you can find a slightly nicer version, it is worth paying a little extra. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

A great poet is rare indeed
Yeats is without question one of the greatest English language poets of modernity. But I have also found the great mystical and memorable beauty of the verses to speak musically and poetically in a deeper way than the Yeatsian ideology. The whole Yeatsian world of gyres and perhaps gimbels, of spiraling apocalypses and oujii board seances , of automatic writing and ideas of a New Age Slouching to be Born never seemed to me historically compelling.
The lyrical Yeats( And we shall wander hand in hand, through hilly lands and hollow lands, and pluck till Time and Times are done, The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the son,) is what has been most appealing to me.
And here there comes to mind a whole medley of immortal Yeatsian lines from " We must all lay down where the poem starts/ in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart" to " The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity" from " Let us go now to Innisfree " to " How many loved your moments of glad grace, but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face" the lines which appear again and again in all the anthologies made of English lyrical poetry.
A great poet is rare indeed and Yeats is one of them. So this collection provides much the reader can read and reread and have in heart and mind, always.

A poet/prophet with a broad and compassionate vision
"'Easter 1916' and Other Poems" is a rich and challenging collection by William Butler Yeats.I read this book as a Dover Thrift Edition.The book includes a 4-page introductory note that discusses the life and career of Yeats (1865-1939), who received the Nobel Prize in Literature.A bibliographic note on the copyright page states that the Dover edition contains Yeats' poems from the volumes "The Wild Swans at Coole" and "Michael Robartes and the Dancer."

Although I found many of these poems obscure and hard to penetrate, I also found many of them haunting and beautiful.And many of the difficult poems opened up to me after additional readings.A mystical thread, as well as an attentiveness to nature, runs throughout this collection.

This book is rich in literary, religious, and mythological allusions.Yeats writes of war, death, grief, aging, love, and beauty.Many of the poems are quite musical--Yeats uses interesting variations in line length, rhyme scheme, poem length, and other effects.

Interestingly, I found the most effective poems in this collection to be those that deal with the relationships and encounters between humans and animals: the majestic "The Wild Swans at Coole," the tender "To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-Gno," the haunting "On a Political Prisoner," the playful and mystical "The Cat and the Moon," and others.

Of course, there are many additional memorable poems in this collection, such as the deliciously satiric "The Scholars," or "The Second Coming," which has a real prophetic flavor.Overall, a remarkable volume by a significant figure in 20th century literature.

A wee bit of great poetry
"Easter 1916" is one of the finest poems regarding the Dublin insurrection both in its historical account and its encapsulation of raw emotion. Another of my favorites is "The Rose Tree" which relays a conversation between Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, two of themartyred leaders of the Easter Rising. The other poems included are a goodcross-section of works from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) and MichaelRobartes and the Dancer (1921)--collections that show the kind of talentYeats possessed. And there's no arguing with the price; I have found DoverThrift Editions to be lifesavers in those times when you desperately needto find a poem or short story but don't have $10 or $20 to spend on it. Allthings considered, this is a fantastic buy. ... Read more

Book Description
THE CLASSIC ONE-VOLUME INTRODUCTION TO IRELAND'S RICH FOLKLORE: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS'S MAGICAL SELECTION OF TRADITIONAL IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES

Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland combines two books of Irish folklore collected and edited by William Butler Yeats -- Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, first published in 1888, and Irish Fairy Tales, published in 1892. In this delightful gathering of legend and song, the familiar characters of Irish myth come to life: the mercurial trooping fairies, as ready to make mischief as to do good; the solitary and industrious Lepracaun and his dissipated cousin, the Cluricaun; the fearsome Pooka, who lives among ruins and has "grown monstrous with much solitude"; and the Banshee, whose eerie wailing warns of death. More than an ambitious and successful effort to preserve the rich heritage of his native land, this volume confirms Yeats's conviction that imagination is the source of both life and art. As Benedict Kiely observes in his foreword, Yeats was seeking "not for the meaning of any mystery but for what he had already determined to find...a world of the imagination...a world that fed on dreaming and not on the painted toy of grey truth."

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Customer Reviews (5)

All of Granny's weird tales written down
Yeats took ambitious pride in his Irish heritage, and his records of Irish fairy and folk tales demonstrate the value he placed in the traditional culture.This book, Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland, combines two separate folklore books written by Yeats: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, and Irish Fairy Tales.They were collected in one volume and first published in 1889, in which Yeats says, "The two volumes make, I believe, a fairly representative collection of Irish folk tales" (p. 299 of 1983 ed.).

Fairly representative, indeed--not comprehensive.One only has to read Yeats's frequent references to contemporary researchers of Irish folklore, such as Lady Wilde (Oscar Wilde's mother) and Douglas Hyde, to see that there is much more out there.But Yeats's presentation and format, i.e. recording tales in varying dialects from sundry sources, makes it seem like you're reading the notes of a linguist or researcher who traveled the Irish countryside looking for data, Brothers Grimm style.Consequently, the original atmosphere of these stories is preserved remarkably well.It feels like you're listening to your eons old Irish grandmother rambling about a neighbor from two decades ago.

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry takes up about ¾ of the book, and is divided into thematic sections with explanatory introductions.The introductions alone make this book work buying; they are clear, concise, and interesting.The stories themselves range widely in length, readability, and overall quality.Some delighted me, while others couldn't keep my attention.Sometimes the dialects were painful, but sometimes they provided just the right amount of flavor.My favorite sections were on the Merrows, Banshees, and Fairy Doctors, primarily because I learned the most on those topics.

Irish Fairy Tales is a fitting companion.It's much shorter but fills in a few of the gaps left by the previous collection.You'll find a little repetition and/or mirroring of certain events or storylines with slight changes here and there, but that's normal when collecting primary sources.The section on Land and Water Fairies particularly filled out my picture of "the good people."

Yeats also provides bibliographies that are perfect if you're looking for contemporary writings on fairies. If you're interested in Irish mythology and folklore, this book is a necessity.If you're just looking for something fun to read, some of the stories may be too dull or trying.

Comprehensive!
Everything you can think of, and all the things you can't think of are in this book.It runs the gamut of Folk/ Fairy tales from Ireland.

A fascinating look at the tradition of folklore in Ireland.
In this delightful volume, first published in 1892, William Butler Yeats has collected all manner of Irish folklore (mostly short stories, with a few poems) from a wide variety sources. He has divided the works into categories as follows: the "Trooping Fairies" (fairies, changelings, and the "merrow" or mermaids); the "Solitary Fairies" (the lepracaun, the pooka - an animal spirit, and the banshee); "Ghosts"; "Witches & Fairy Doctors"; "T'yeer-na-n-Oge" or "Tir-na-n-Og" (a legendary island said to appear and disappear); "Saints & Priests"; "The Devil"; "Giants"; and "Kings / Queens / Princesses / Earls / Robbers." Yeats introduces each section with background information on the creature the stories in that category will concern. He also includes numerous footnotes of interest, making this book a valuable resource for anyone seeking to learn about the tradition of Irish folklore.

While I have given this anthology a five-star rating based on it's value as a source of information on Irish mythology, it would probably be worth only four stars for entertainment value alone. Some of the stories are very short and/or don't have much of a point, and are less interesting. These tend to serve more as testimony to the nature of a particular mythical being rather than being an actual story with a plot and message for the reader. Nevertheless, the book as a whole offers a very comprehensive look at just what defines Irish folk culture. The stories that do have a point sometimes take the form of "how things came to be this way" tales, or provide a moral lesson, etc. Many of the stories are rather dark, as that tends to be the nature of lore from this region, but there are also some lighthearted and cheerful pieces.

Despite the book having been compiled more than one hundred years ago, most of the stories are quite easy to read. Yeats makes things even more simple for the reader by making footnotes where old Irish words or phrases are used, giving us their meaning. However, there are a few stories that have been left in a more archaic form, which is distracting and a bit harder to decipher. Take, for example, the following excerpt:

". . . the minit he puts his knife into the fish, there was a murtherin' screech, that you'd the life id lave you if you hurd it, and away jumps the throut out av the fryin'-pan into the middle o' the flure; and an the spot where it fell, up riz a lovely lady - the beautifullest crathur that eyes ever seen, dressed in white, and a band o' goold in her hair, and a sthrame o' blood runnin' down her arm."

One of the things I enjoy most about literature is finding connections with other works I've read, and "Irish Fairy & Folk Tales" does not disappoint in this regard. Many of the pieces are derivations of other, more common fairy tales. For instance, "Smallhead and the King's Sons" (Ghosts) incorporates some elements from both "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel," while "The Giant's Stairs" (Giants) has some similarities to the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk." There are more connections like this. On the whole I found this book to be very enjoyable, and also a valuable read from a literary / academic standpoint. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone interesting in the history of Irish culture, the study of fairy tales and folklore, or both.

A literate touch to classic Irish tales
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. I purchased it as one of a numberof books for a friend. This edition has an attractive cover and a solid construction, important for a volume that will be kept and re-read many times.

Yeats is listed as editor of this volume but I feel that probably underplays his importance. The stories are not his invention, but it seems his writing throughout. The stories are well chosen to cover a large part of Irish myth and are well written. This volume and "Mythologies" show Yeats abiding love for the Celtic heritage that surrounded him.

I always enjoy Yeat's writing, from his poetry all the wy to his essays. This volume shows that he can have a masterful touch for myths.

The only shortcoming is that to the modern reader the language may sometimes appear slightly archaic or stilted, though this is rare and somehow seems to fit for a collection of legends.

Traditional Tales from Ireland
Well, I read a different edition, but I'm sure they contain essentially the same stories.The collection contains many traditional folk stories and several poems from Ireland.The stories are entertaining, and somecontain folk wisdom in their morals.Many are told in dialect, with someIrish words left intact.The similarities between these tales and folktales around the world is striking, though of course characters such as thebanshee and leprachaun are distinctly Irish.There is a strong Christianinfluence in these stories, which makes an interesting blend with the olderDruidic elements.I found them entertaining, and they definately aredistinctly Irish.Anyone interested in traditional Irish culture, or fairytales in general will enjoy these stories. ... Read more

Amazon.com
William Butler Yeats, whom many consider this century's greatest poet, began as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, reviving legends and Rosicrucian symbols. By the early 1900s, however, he was moving away from plush romanticism, his verse morphing from the incantatory rhythms of "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree" into lyrics "as cold and passionate as the dawn." At every stage, however, Yeats plays a multiplicity of poetic roles. There is the romantic lover of "When You Are Old" and "A Poet to His Beloved" ("I bring you with reverent Hands / The books of my numberless dreams..."). And there are the far more bitter celebrations of Maud Gonne, who never accepted his love and engaged in too much politicking for his taste: "Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery, or that she would of late / Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, / Or hurled the little streets upon the great, / Had they but courage equal to desire?" There is also the poet of conscience--and confrontation. His 1931 "Remorse for Intemperate Speech" ends: "Out of Ireland have we come. / Great hatred, little room, / Maimed us at the start. / I carried from my mother's womb / A fanatic heart."

Yeats was to explore several more sides of himself, and of Ireland, before his Last Poems of 1938-39. Many are difficult, some snobbish, others occult and spiritualist. As Brendan Kennelly writes, Yeats "produces both poppycock and sublimity in verse, sometimes closely together." On the other hand, many prophetic masterworks are poppycock-free--for example, "The Second Coming" ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...") and such inquiries into inspiration as "Among School Children" ("O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?"). And at his best, Yeats extends the meaning of love poetry beyond the obviously romantic: love becomes a revolutionary emotion, attaching the poet to friends, history, and the passionate life of the mind.Book Description
Since its first appearance in 1962, M. L. Rosenthal's classic selection of Yeats's poems and plays has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. This newly revised edition includes 211 poems and 4 plays. It adds The Words Upon the Window-Pane, one of Yeats's most startling dramatic works in its realistic use of a seance as the setting for an eerily powerful reenactment of Jonathan Swift's rigorous idealism, baffling love relationships, and tragic madness. The collection profits from recent scholarship that has helped to establish Yeats's most reliable texts, in the order set by the poet himself. And his powerful lyrical sequences are amply represented, culminating in the selection from Last Poems and Two Plays, which reaches its climax in the brilliant poetic plays The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory.

Scholars, students, and all who delight in Yeats's varied music and sheer quality will rejoice in this expanded edition. As the introduction observes, "Early and late he has the simple, indispensable gift of enchanting the ear....He was also the poet who, while very much of his own day in Ireland, spoke best to the people of all countries. And though he plunged deep into arcane studies, his themes are most clearly the general ones of life and death, love and hate, man's condition, and history's meanings. He began as a sometimes effete post-Romantic, heir to the pre-Raphaelites, and then, quite naturally, became a leading British Symbolist; but he grew at last into the boldest, most vigorous voice of this century." Selected Poems and Four Plays represents the essential achievement of the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in English.

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Customer Reviews (4)

Questions
During a recent fright when we were escaping our apartment down a ladder, I took two books with me, thinking that perhaps I would need something strong.Happily Yeats's SELECTED POEMS AND FOUR PLAYS was at hand, together with, well, something private.This book, edited by the late M.L. Rosenthal, is an expanded edition of a previous book by Rosenthal that had the same title except it was called, SELECTED POEMS AND TWO PLAYS.This present edition doubles the number of plays it prints in one stroke, adding the very late THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN as well as the strange, feverish THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW-PANE.Previously we had only the two plays PURGATORY and CALGARY.Did I say CALGARY?I meant, CALVARY, and neither of them are worth the paper they're printed on.In college my professor used to tell us that Yeats, together with his patron Lady Gregory, invented the Abbey Theater and kept it going by writing plays annually and encouraging their society friends not only to attend but to pledge money in exchange for participation in a community-based theater.However, according to Rosenthal, some of Yeats' plays were distinctly unpopular even with this sudsidized theater and neither the actors nor the audience loved them to death.

As a boy, my dad used to quote Yeats on every occasion and he (Yeats) was a patron saint to many Irishfolk.Today not so much, but as I made my way down the ladder I was glad I had the Yeats book tucked into my pants.He is the epitome of the artist who keeps changing through circumstance, open to new influence, even partial to drugs, for many credit his late flowering to the monkey glands he took in Switzerland to rejuvenate his sex life, the precursor to today's Viagra.In his youth he became a member of a secret band called the Order of the Golden Dawn, and spiritualist interests fueled his poetry and politics both.On his honeymoon he discovered that his wife, Georgie, had mediumistic leanings, and they spent many night holding seances and conversing with the spirits of the dead, all of whom, or so Yeats claimed, had arrived to dispense new metaphors for his poetry.He later wrote up these events in his book A VISION.

Rosenthal was a superb editor who went back and checked all of the original manuscripts and who could distinguish Yeats' handwriting in all its different avatars, and this helped him date the poems to within an inch of their lives.His task was made no easier by Yeats' habit of revision and by his need to provide an income for his sisters, who wound up producing elaborate private, limited printings of much of his work to sell to collectors only at absurdly inflated prices.These books are beautiful but useless, like so many of the romantic Irish flourishes the poet's late work commemorates only to condemn.It is a poetry of questions, which always appeals to young people, those who know the answers."What's water but the generated soul?"(That one always threw me.)"How can we tell the dancer from the dance?""Is every modern nation like the tower,/ Half dead at the top?"(Makes you think about our nation, caught up in a senseless war against Iraq.)"Those masterful images because complete/ Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?""What voice more sweet than hers/ When, young and beautiful,/ She rode to harriers?"Riding to harriers doesn't sound so fabulous now, but we've all got something we look back on and say, everything's been changed, changed utterly.

The golden apples of the moon, the silver apples of the sun
Yeats lives in the minds of most lovers of great modern poetry through lines of incredible beauty.

"And we will wander hand in hand
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The golden apples of the moon,
The silver apples of the sun.

"We must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag- and- bone shop of the heart"

"But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
and loved the sorrows of your changing face"

"An aged man is but a paltry thing
a tattered soul upon a stick
unless soul claps its hand and sing..

Yeats believed in much nonsense in his life, and apparently was not the kindest of human beings but he wrote some very great poetry.

Poems Not To Be Read, But Learned By Heart
In 250 years the mass of pablum we currently pass as literature will be blown away like chaff in the wind.

One of the hard and nourishing kernals left on the threshingroom floor will certainly be Yeats.

These are poems not to be read, but learned by heart.

Among my favorites from this collection (with years of composition) are: "The Stolen Child", "To an Isle in the Water" and "Down by the Salley Gardens" (1889); "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "When You Are Old" (1893); "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" (1899); "The Folly of Being Comforted" and "Adam's Curse" (1904); "All Things Can Tempt Me", "Brown Penny" and "To a Child Dancing in the Wind" (1910); and "The Cat and the Moon" and "Two Songs of a Fool" (1919).

A wonderful introduction to Yeats
I picked up this book of poems as an introduction to Yeats and found it to be wonderful.It contains major works from all of his periods and four plays as well.Highly recommended, for poetry lovers and those with only apassing interest. ... Read more

Amazon.com
William Butler Yeats, whom many consider this century's greatest poet, began as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, reviving legends and Rosicrucian symbols. By the early 1900s, however, he was moving away from plush romanticism, his verse morphing from the incantatory rhythms of "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree" into lyrics "as cold and passionate as the dawn." At every stage, however, Yeats plays a multiplicity of poetic roles. There is the romantic lover of "When You Are Old" and "A Poet to His Beloved" ("I bring you with reverent Hands / The books of my numberless dreams..."). And there are the far more bitter celebrations of Maud Gonne, who never accepted his love and engaged in too much politicking for his taste: "Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery, or that she would of late / Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, / Or hurled the little streets upon the great, / Had they but courage equal to desire?" There is also the poet of conscience--and confrontation. His 1931 "Remorse for Intemperate Speech" ends: "Out of Ireland have we come. / Great hatred, little room, / Maimed us at the start. / I carried from my mother's womb / A fanatic heart."

Yeats was to explore several more sides of himself, and of Ireland, before his Last Poems of 1938-39. Many are difficult, some snobbish, others occult and spiritualist. As Brendan Kennelly writes, Yeats "produces both poppycock and sublimity in verse, sometimes closely together." On the other hand, many prophetic masterworks are poppycock-free--for example, "The Second Coming" ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...") and such inquiries into inspiration as "Among School Children" ("O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?"). And at his best, Yeats extends the meaning of love poetry beyond the obviously romantic: love becomes a revolutionary emotion, attaching the poet to friends, history, and the passionate life of the mind.

Though this edition has been reset and revised, the changes are not as shocking as the 1984 edition, which included 100 extra pages of notes, changes in language and punctuation, and, most significantly, a redefinition of the Last Poems. Richard Finneran has had the courage to reorder the poems according to notes that Yeats made shortly before his death. Readers may be surprised to find that "Under Ben Bulben," the poet's powerful and self-mythologizing epitaph, no longer ends the collection, as it has for more than 30 years. In its place they will discover the wistful "Politics": "How can I, that girl standing there, / My attention fix / On Roman or on Russian / Or on Spanish politics..." Yet devotees of either ending will agree that this is a truly necessary volume--indeed, one of the few. As Seamus Heaney writes, "All readers of Yeats will need this book; when they open it they will feel a surprise like that experienced by St. Brendan the Navigator and his crew when they disembarked upon an island that turned out to be the back of a dormant sea monster." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent Volume
This is a wondedrful collection for anyone who loves Yeats Poetry.I highly recommend it.

The reason to buy this edition
There are two editions of Yeats' poetry with similar titles, this one (The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats:Volume 1:The Poems, edited by Richard Finneran, with 751 pages and published by Macmillan) and The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (also edited by Finneran, but published by Scribner with only 576 pages).

The Collected Works: Volume 1:The Poems, contains all of Yeats' verse, including the poems from his plays and essays (hence the almost 200 additional pages in length).If you want every poem Yeats wrote, buy this edition.

Complete but costly
If you are, like me, a huge fan of the William Butler Yeats then you will find yourself slowly accumulating the 'Collected Works' volume by volume and not concern yourself with the cost. You will probably start with this volume, enjoy reading every poem written and feel this is an excellent volume.

If, however, you are looking for a volume to study Yeats or enjoy the best of his verse you may be better served by 'The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats" or "The Yeats Reader: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama and Prose", both edited by Richard J. Finneran and less expensive, more portable paperbacks.

A "must have" book
W.B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the English language.If you're not sure why, then get this book and find out.It is a staple of any poetry library.

Yeats enthusiast here
This is a must have book for any Yeats lover, or some one studying William Butler Yeats for a school report or such. The Book has almost everything you can possibley want, tuns of poems. Although I found Volume 4 of the collected Yeats poems the best, because its short, but full, warm andinviting, and has 4 plays. (but i can't find it on amazon to review) ... Read more

Book Description
A strong visionary poet, Yeats's work involves concepts of reality that extend human imagination to reach a heightened sense of the world and the myths that shape it. Numerous critics examine his work including such titles as A Vision, The Moods, Leda and the Swan, and But Now I Add Another Thought.

This title, William Butler Yeats, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Modern Critical Views series, examines the major works of William Butler Yeats through full-length critical essays by expert literary critics. In addition, this title features a short biography on William Butler Yeats, a chronology of the author's life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good book
In terms of understanding the writings of WB Yeats, this book is a must. It provides insights into otherwised missed subtleties that allows for a greater appreciation of the work of a great artist. (I use the diction of great artist because this truely describes his work). Anyway, this book is well written and recommended by myself.

Guide of Choice
Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the apprentice
or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic
analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self.

Latchkey to Yeats
Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the novice or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Musings of a master
This book should be in print!If you can't find it, borrow it.If you want to know about poetry, Ireland, the occult, or Yeats himself, this is the book you need.Not for sustained argument, or surgical analysis; but for the breath and cadence of reminiscence, deep-drawn thought, agonizing self-criticism and a well of images that seep into his poems.Sometimes the pleasure of a phrase obscures accuracy, as he himself admits; but if you can write like this it doesn't matter.Includes the three pivotal essays of the three parts of his life: 'Symbolism and Poetry', 'J.M.Synge and the Ireland of his Time' and 'A General Introduction for my Work' written as preface to a deluxe collected edition of his work that never appeared.Not for the casual browser maybe but rich and deeply rewarding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An unforgettable portrait of Yeats - the man, and the poet
So, why should you read this book?(Especially if it's not assigned reading in your college class.)

Because it's a fascinating read, recording (among many other things) Yeats' relationships with contemporaries Oscar Wilde, John Synge, Madame Blavatsky,George Moore, and others.It also lends a great insight into his passions for cabalistic thoughts, occultism, the Irish theatre, politics and poetry.

Yeats covers 58 years of his life, from his earliest memories to his winning of the Nobel Prize.The man considered to be 'the greatest master of the English language in verse' comes to life here in his own words. He was complex, preoccupied with seeking answers to life's most compelling and elusive questions, and intensely devoted to his art.This autobiographical account provides an unforgettable portrait of Yeats - and offers a great look at the era in which he lived. ... Read more

Book Description
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume IV: Early Essays is part of a fourteen-volume series under the general editorship of eminent Yeats scholars George Bornstein and George Mills Harper. These volumes include virtually all of the Nobel laureate's published work, in authoritative texts with extensive explanatory notes.

Early Essays, edited by the internationally esteemed Yeats scholars George Bornstein and the late Richard J. Finneran, includes the contents of the two most important collections of Yeats's critical prose, Ideas of Good and Evil(1903) and The Cutting of an Agate(1912, 1919). Among the seminal essays are considerations of Blake, Shakespeare, Shelley, Spenser, and Synge, as well as an extended discussion of the Japanese Noh theatre. The first scholarly edition of these materials, Early Essays offers a corrected text and detailed annotation of all allusions. Several appendices gather materials from early printings which were later excluded, as well as illuminating black-and-white illustrations.

Early Essays is an essential sourcebook for understanding Yeats's career as both writer and literary critic, and for the development of modern poetry and criticism. Here, Yeats works out many of his key ideas on poetry, politics, and the theater. He gives interpretations of writers critical to his development and presents a compelling vision of Ireland and the modern world during the last decade of the nineteenth century and first two decades of the twentieth. As T. S. Eliot remarked, Yeats "was one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them." This volume displays a crucial part of that history.

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Book Description
Ireland is home to some of the world's most enchanting myths and tales. But many of these stories would have been lost if they hadn't been recorded and written down. Poet and Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats was one of these fortunate witnesses. In "The Celtic Twilight," originally published in 1893, he collected some of the most delightful myths and folktales of his native land.Download Description
She met the spirit a third time in the bogeen. She asked what kept it from its rest. The spirit said that its children must be taken from the workhouse, for none of its relations were ever there before, and that three masses were to be said for the repose of its soul. "If my husband does not believe you," she said, "show him that," and touched Mrs. Kelly's wrist with three fingers. The places where they touched swelled up and blackened. She then vanished. For a time Montgomery would not believe that his wife had appeared: "she would not show herself to Mrs. Kelly," he said--"she with respectable people to appear to." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Inspired Prose
I had heard of William Butler Yeats, and I must say he is quite an excellent poet. The dreams I had of the old worlds came to life in this.

An Excellent Guide to Understanding Yeats' Early Poetry
When Robert Frost (A not very likable fellow, when you read his biographies, despite his excellent poetry.) visited Yeats in Ireland, he made a comment to the effect that, "It's no wonder he believes in faeries."He was responding to the beautiful, mystical Irish landscape Yeats grew up in.This book, even though you're (probably) not in Ireland when you read it, will have you responding much as Frost did.The peasantry have so much of their pagan ancestry in their blood that, despite their ostensible Catholicism, their deep belief in "the little people" comes out as strong as ever when questioned about it.Reading these anecdotes, some of them grafted directly onto Yeats' early poetry, gives them a power they would not have had you not read this book and realized how "here and now" faeryland was to the common people at the time.The Celtic belief that death (into Faeryland)is far more desirable than birth is made beautifully apparent in this book.Hence, by the way, the celebratory Irish wake.Hence also this lovely poem

Heardst thou not sweet words among That Heaven-resounding minstrelsy? Heardst thou not that those who die Awake in a world of ecstacy? That love, when limbs are interwoven, And sleep when the night of life is cloven, And thought, to the world's dim boudaries clinging, And music, when one beloved is singing, Is death?

These sorts of things, as well as Yeats' poetry, are worth deep consideration in this present world where medicine is deemed omnipotent...and yet, nevertheless, we all die. ... Read more

Book Description
No other series of classic texts achieves the editorial standard of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with contextual and critical materials that bring the work to life for students. Careful editing, first-rate translation, thorough explanatory annotations, chronologies, and selected bibliographies make each text accessible to students while encouraging in-depth study. Each volume in the series is printed on acid-free paper, and every text remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice of excellence for scholarship for students at more than 2,500 colleges and universities worldwide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Another fine edition of the works of a great poet
There are by this time many collections of the works of Yeats, and this is one of the good ones. Aside from containing the major plays and poems it has critical essays by contemporaries of Yeats and important critical voices of our own time, such as Helen Vendler, Harold Bloom, and the poet Seamus Heaney.
As for the work itself, however historically important the plays, and however of curiosity value 'The Autobiography' and other prose writings the Yeats that lives is in the poetry.
It is that lyrical greatness the power of song manifested early on which later was deepened into even greater poetry. From 'Innisfee' and "Song of the Wandering Aengus ' to the poetry of 'Byzantium' and 'Among the Schoolchildren'.
The great lines, a small sample of which follows"

And we will wander hand in hand / through hollow lands and hily lands/
And pluck till time and times are done/ The silver apples of the moon/ The golden apples of the sun/


"We must lie down where all the ladders start/ in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

" The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionateintensity"

"But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you/ and loved the sorrows of your changing face."

Very nice compilation, especially regarding prose!
This is an excellent book, produced with excellent quality. While it isn't the most complete anthology in the world as far as his poems are concerned (for this reason The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I by Finneran is a much better choice), the prose found within the book are excellent. Another thing worth noting is the lengthily essays by other well known authors which tend to either be criticisms or praise for Mr. Yeats, truly magnificent in that department! Again, the focus of this anthology is much different from other supremely divine works (such as the one previously mentioned). ... Read more

Book Description
As a young man, William Butler Yeats was deeply affected by the idea of romantic love, or, as he called it, "the old high way of love." Characteristically, much of his early poetry that which was written prior to 1910, is poetry that belongs to courtship.When Yeats was twenty-three years old, he met and fell in love with the beautiful Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne. Although she repeatedly refused to marry Yeats, Maud would become the object of his passion and his poetry. The emotional power in many of Yeats' early poems is shaped by the one-sidedness of his affair with Maud, but the poems themselves remain hopeful and bitter-sweet, pure in their language and attitudes about love.The forty-one poems collected in A Poet to his Beloved represent some of Yeats's most evocative and passionate early love poems. These versed are simple, lyrical, and often dreamy, and they speak knowingly of innocence and beauty, passion and desire, devotion and the fear of rejection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A dark and brooding kind of love
I purchased this slim little hardcover volume as a romantic gift on St. Valentine's day. Its attractive Victorian styled jacket, and artificially yellowed pages, along with the eye-catching, if poorly reproduced, artwork scattered throughout, seemed just the thing to set my love's literary heart on fire.I should, perhaps, have read the very brief introduction prior to purchase.

Yeats seems to have had a rather severe case of youthful angst, being rejected by Maud Gonne, a local beauty, it would seem.The poetry, pretty much all 41 poems, while beautiful, lyrical and emotionally-charged, is that of a young man of unrequited passions.If you are looking for the bittersweet emotions of love, the sorrows of love never gained, the pleading heart that doesn't know if love is heaven or hell and the poet who wishes his lover dead or in his arms, you have the right book at hand.While this is a fine example of romantic poetry, if you're looking to cheer up your own lover, you may want to steer clear of this book and get flowers or chocolate instead.

That said, it's a very pretty little book and if you're feeling unlucky at love, this may resonate with the inner turmoil roiling in your soul.
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Product Description
Four Years; Stories of Red Hanrahan; The Hour Glass; Synge and the Ireland of His Time; The Celtic Twilight; The Land of Heart's Desire ... Read more

Book Description
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume II: The Plays is part of a fourteen-volume series under the general editorship of eminent Yeats scholars Richard J. Finneran and George Mills Harper. This complete edition includes virtually all of the Nobel laureate's published work, in authoritative texts and with extensive explanatory notes.

The Plays, edited by David R. Clark and Rosalind E. Clark, is the first-ever complete collection of Yeats's plays that honors the order in which the plays first appeared. It provides the latest and most accurate texts in Yeats's lifetime, as well as extensive editorial notes and emendations.

Though best known as one of the most important poets of the twentieth century, from the beginning of his career William Butler Yeats understood the value of his plays and his poetry to be the same. In 1923, when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yeats suggested that "perhaps the English committees would never have sent you my name if I had written no plays...if my lyric poetry had not a quality of speech practiced on the stage." Indeed, Yeats's great achievement in poetry should not be allowed to obscure his impressive and innovative accomplishments as a dramatist.

In The Plays, David and Rosalind Clark have restored the plays to the final order in which Yeats planned for them to be published. This volume opens with Yeats's introduction for an unpublished Scribner collection and encompasses all of his dramatic work, from The Countess Cathleen to The Death of Cuchulain.

The Plays enables readers to see clearly, for the first time, the ways in which Yeats's very different dramatic forms evolved over the course of his life, and to appreciate fully the importance of drama in the oeuvre of this greatest of modern poets.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Cathleen ni Houlihan and the Modern Irish Woman
Professor David Clark and his daughter Rosalind have done yeoman service bringing Yeats' plays to those interested in reading them. Since they are rarely performed, they must be read to be appreciated. Women are given oddly distant treatment in these plays. Heroes seem confused at times while women seem compelled to help them fulfill their destinies. Heroic CuChulain of the ancient Irish tales spends his life in military service for Ulster, opposing Queen Maeve and her warriors. Yeats' language is modern, cool and elegant but lacks the emotional intensity of J.M. Synge, who was more able to grasp the rhythms in Irish speech than Yeats was. Comparing the two Deirdre plays, Synge's is richer in emotional language, more poetic than Yeats' very modern version of the Deirdre story. The power of women in both writers' work is evident; modern Irish women were the first to organize, wear uniforms and demand the vote. Maybe they were inspired by Cathleen ni Houlihan. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

The early and great Yeats
This work contains the poems written by Yeats from 1889 to 1914. It includes some of the classic poems of twentieth century Literature, "No Second Troy", "The Song of the Wandering Aengus"
" The Lake Isle of Inisfree" " When you are old" and many others.
Yeats is a poetry who draws on Irish folklore and myth but his great power is in the music of his language, and his lyric celebration of life.
Enjoy.

Excellent Introduction to Yeats
As a student, who is hard on cash, I found that this collection of poems by the great Irish author and poet W.B. Yeats was definitely an excellent collection to buy and read. This collection encompasses all of the collections written by the young poet during his early period. Particularly notable are "The Shepherd to His Beloved", "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and other poems that have become immortal over the years. There are also poems that deal with Irish myths and legends and several poems written as dialogues or plays. This is an excellent collection that will introduce you to the worldd of Yeats if you haven't yet been introduced and further your understanding of this Irish genius. ... Read more