Product Description

The first edition of W. B. Yeats's The Tower appeared in bookstores in London on Valentine's Day, 1928. His English publisher printed just 2,000 copies of this slender volume of twenty-one poems, priced at six shillings. The book was immediately embraced by book buyers and critics alike, and it quickly became a bestseller.

Subsequent versions of the volume made various changes throughout, but this Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly that seminal first edition as it reached its earliest audience in 1928, adding an introduction and notes by esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran.

Written between 1912 and 1927, these poems ("Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children" among them) are today considered some of the best and most famous in the entire Yeats canon. As Virginia Woolf declared in her unsigned review of this collection, "Mr. Yeats has never written more exactly and more passionately." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

The Celtic Twilight
Written in the elegant style of Yeats. Considered by some to be among his finest works. A journey into the heart and soul of Ireland. A time of Fae folk and superstition or some alter reality long forgotten?

Good collection of personal encounter anecdotes
This book is basically a collection of personal encounters with the Faerie as told to Yeats by country folk he encountered during his research.

Wonderful stories and reflections.
I greatly enjoyed the folk stories and mythologies recorded by Yeats in this book.It was very entertaining and enlightening.

Isn't Yeats Great?!
I personally love W.B. Yeats.At first I was a little disappointed by the size of the book (it was thinner than I thought it would be), but it made up for it in content.I highly recommend this book to fans of Yeats, and to anyone following a similiar spiritual path to his.This book opens up Yeats' mind to you, the reader, and I hope you find this book as wonderful as I did! As a college student, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

Faerie Folklore of a Shadowy Ireland of Celtic Mysteries !
In Celtic Twilight, originally published in 1902, Yeats recites several accounts of encounters with the faerie folk and with the people of Ireland of the time which gives us insight into Irish folklore, myth and legend.

Yeats associates poetry with religious ideas and sentiment.And, I believe that he saw himself as writing for Ireland, but a shadowy Ireland of Celtic mysteries and legends, not the Ireland of the modern day.By modern day, of course, I relate this to the modern day of Yeats in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

In the introduction to Celtic Twilight Yeats states; "I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined.I have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, dhouls and faeries, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine."

I got the strong impression from reading Celtic Twilight that Yeats actually believed in the existence of the faeries.Not just as some myth or legend, but as actual beings that exist in this world, though perhaps unseen by the common man.He wrote each story as if it was something that actually happened, having been related to him by the storyteller, or perhaps that which he had seen for himself in some past time, now recalled as he set pen to paper.

There is a depth to Yeats' writing that lies just below the surface, something that'sperceived more than seen.The idea that perhaps magic and the faerie folk are alive in the world of today, but unseen, or perhaps only seen from time to time as a fleeting shadow until one knows just where to look.

It is interesting to note that Yeats was heavily involved in occult studies and practices as part of the Madame Helene Blavatsky's,Theosophical Society and later, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and finally in 1912 the Ordo Templi Orientis.

This would have certainly influenced his outlook on life and his belief in, and dare we say ability to see the unseen things of this world.

I too ask myself from time to time; just what unseen things exist in this world.Perhaps Yeats has seen that which other men can only hope for, or that which they turn away from in dread given the course of their spirits.

Yeats also makes a profound observation: "The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best."

I found Yeats' observation of particular interest, especially when it comes to theological or philosophical thought.If it is those things that we hear and see in life that forms the fabric of our beliefs, then surely we must take care that that which we see and hear forms strong enough threads so that the fabric we weave is not shoddy.

Yeats' works help us build those strong threads in our lives.For, he certainly influenced the world at large with his writings.In 1923 Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1934 he shared the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry with Rudyard Kipling.




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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. ... Read more

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

Product 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.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Love in the air
Beautiful book of love. Would make a great Valentine gift or to wow the one you love

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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One of the greatest poets of the century, Yeats drew upon Irish folklore and myth as inspiration for much of his early poetry. Mythic themes and others are masterfully explored in this rich selection of 134 poems published between 1889 and 1914. Included are such favorites as "Lake Isle of Innisfree," "When You Are Old," "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Stolen Child," "Fergus and the Druid," "To the Rose upon the Rood of Time," "The Song of Wandering Aengus," "The Fascination of What’s Difficult" and many more. Note. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.
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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

Customer Reviews (4)

it's all Greek to me
More a literary morass than guide.For me the Virgil in Latin is easier to comprehend than this alleged guide. Would not recommend it under any circumstances.

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

Product Description
This compelling collection spans Yeats's career: from the poems of his early years, which display his interest in Irish myths and his hopeless passion for Irish patriot Maud Gonne, to the soaring, majestic poems of his old age. Works of precision, economy and sensuous, lyrical beauty, they include "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "The Wild Swans at Coole," "Byzantium," and "Leda and the Swan." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Of those readily available upon the amazon, this is the one to get most favorably
I refer here to the Audio Cd of seventy minutes of Mr. Yeats's poetry as read by Mr. T. P. McKenna issued in 2006 from the 1995 Hodder Headline tape. The cover art upon this CD case is the portrait of Mr. Yeats from 1907 by Augustus John, one of the better portraits of the poet before gray.

There are a number of recordings of Mr. Yeats's poetry available here upon the amazon, and I find this the most straightforward and listenable issue, if you cannot locate the few readings by Mr. Seamus Heaney for the Poetry Room of Harvard. The several readings of Mr. Yeats within Caroline Kennedy's audiobooks recording of her The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis are also worth hearing. I discovered quickly that the Naxos recordings The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats (Naxos Audio) and its abridgement The Great Poets W B Yeats to be annoyingly presented with jarring and arguable narration between each poem, and the narration misplaced in the abridgement.

Here nevertheless we have the poems, straight up, as read by a wonderful Irish actor of Shakespeare calibre. The other review at present refers to a workmanlike quality of the reader, with one comment that it is boring. I find this untrue, but perhaps I am more accustomed to this style of reading. I found the expression of emotion at all times appropriate, and restrained, but present very expressively. It is not carpet chewing in the style of Naxos's Norton, but dignified reading well done. If anything, I found the pace a bit brisk, but then I believe Mr. Yeats is best sipped slowly, quite slowly, with careful attention to the metric scheme. Seamus Heaney in his recordings recalled Yeats's recordings of his own verse to be like chant, mystic, slow with emphasis on the metric beat. Thusly would I love to hear Yeats read, but this here by Mr. McKenna is so far the best I have heard, save Mr. Heaney's own reading.

Mr. McKenna began acting in Dublin in 1954, and has worked extensively upon the boards. He may be a familiar face and voice to you from movies and television. Among other things he has appeared in the Avengers series, in Valmont, in The Scarlet and the Black, in the series Lovejoy and in that wonderful series of Inspector Morse from the books by Colin Dexter. This broad and long experience upon the stage, the big and the small screen certainly establishes Mr. McKenna as an actor of great depth and intelligence. It was a joy for me to hear the profundity of meaning he is able to express in the often obscure, legendary and mystic poetry of Mr. Yeats. To hear him read Politics is an absolute joy; Easter 1916 immediately invites repeated listenings. As I say, I only wish he had read more slowly.

This selection of 52 poems leaves little wanting to the scholar of Mr. Yeats, each read as I say as it ought to be read. We hear:

Down by the Salley Gardens
The MEditation of the Old Fisherman
Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea
The LAke Isle of Innisfree
The Pity of Love
When You Are Old
The White Birds
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
The Song of the Old Mother
The HEart of the Woman
HE remembers Forgotten Beauty
HE Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
The Fiddler of Dooney
In the Seven Woods
The Folly of Being Comforted
Adam's Curse
Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland
The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
O Do NOt Love Too Long
Reconciliation
The Fascination of What's Difficult
The COming of Wisdom with Time
At Galway Races
All Things Can Tempt Me
Brown Penny
September 1913
Running to Paradise
The MAgi
The Wild Swans at Coole
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
A Song
Her Praise
Broken Dreams
Two Songs of a Fool
Easter 1916 ("a terrible beauty is born")
The Second COming ("slouching towards Bethlehem")
A Prayer for my Daughter
sailing to Byzantium
A Prayer for my Son
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz
For Anne Gregory
(from) vacillation
A Prayer for Old Age
What Then?
Beautiful Lofty Things
The Ghost of Roger Casement
The Spur
The Municipal Galley Revisited
Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
Politics
Under Ben Bulben

As you can see the sweep is nearly chronological. Remember these readings are Yeats, straight up, no chaser and little pause for breath. Mr. McKenna reads the title, and the poem with great heart, mind and meaning. We can ask for little more.

I advise you very much to read Professor Helen Vendler's Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form, and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney's selection for Faber in The Faber Yeats: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney (Poet to Poet: An Essential Choice of Classic Verse). Although Finneran is the standard complete collection with The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Vol. 1: The Poems, 2nd Edition, I find most enjoyable reading in the wonderful Everyman edition Poems (Everyman's Library classics) which also has excellent and lively commentary. I only wish I could afford the annotated edition at A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats.

But for now let us listen here, and dream, and remember, and love.

A Good Selection, Competently Done
This is a single cassette in one of those tall boxes that could hold two. The notes are sparse - just a listing of the poems and a capsule bio of Mr. McKenna. The package also claims 80 minutes worth of poetry, but the timings printed on the tape itself for each side (35:29 for side A, 34:04 for B) leave us more than 10 minutes shy of that. I myself have not done the requisite timing, but tend to believe the (spurious?) precision of the tape's numbers.

The readings are workmanlike, and the selections are good. All the famous poems are there, and a good deal more. (Offhand, the only other one I would really like included is "Lapis Lazuli".) Unfortunately, the old recording by Siobhan McKenna (related?) and Cyril Cusack is no longer available. It was truly magical.

My gripe with this is the fact that you need to keep this oversize box around to hold your tape, and to preserve what scanty documentation there is. A regular cassette package with an included info sheet would have been better. ... Read more

Product Description
Immortal verses by one of the 20th century’s greatest poets appear in this compilation of all the poems from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) and Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). Includes "The Second Coming," "A Prayer for My Daughter," "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," many more.
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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

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A collection of 15 of Yeats' most famous poems, including "The Second Coming" and "Easter, 1916."
"The Second Coming" is viewed as a prophetic poem that envisions the close of the Christian epoch and the violent birth of a new age. The poem's title makes reference to the Biblical reappearance of Christ, prophesied in Matthew 24 and the Revelations of St. John, which according to Christianity, will accompany the Apocalypse and divine Last Judgment. Other symbols in the poem are drawn from mythology, the occult, and Yeats's view of history as defined in his cryptic prose volume A Vision. The principal figure of the work is a sphinx-like creature with a lion's body and man's head, a "rough beast" awakened in the desert that makes its way to Christ's birthplace, Bethlehem.

Other poems in this collect include 'Easter, 1916,' which chronicles Yeats' complicated feelings on the execution of Irish patriots of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Slouching toward Bethlehem
In "The Second Coming" Yeats indicts a society and a civilization slowly collapsing ascourtesy, custom and laws are ignored.Finally we find the central mass of those courtesies, customs and laws are no longer valued and anarchy has taken over.
The falconer was the controller and law giver (political or religious according to your beliefs) and modern man is the falcon. The falcon flies farther away from the the civility necessary to keep society functioning well.The end result is 'mere' anarchy bringing death and destruction in its wake. ... Read more

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The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. ... Read more

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Compiling nineteen essays and introductions, a volume with explanatory notes includes Per Amica Silentia Lunae and On the Boiler as well as introductions on Shelley and Balzac and essays on Irish poetry and politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Yeat As Creative Critic
Yeats' literary criticism demonstrates his tenets and poetics-his working notions of poetry and culture-far more immediately and accessibly in his essays than he does in the web of arcana expounded in A Vision (q.v.). Of essays gathered here, some are seminal not only to Yeats' poetics but also to interpretive approaches to literature. The most significant-"The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry" (precursor to archetypal symbolism and to Jungian ideas of the collective unconscious), "The Symbolism of Poetry," "The Celtic Element in Literature," "Certain Noble Plays of Japan" (the model of Yeats' Noh plays), and "A General Introduction for My Work." ... Read more

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"John Sherman" is the only work of realistic fiction Yeats ever completed. The novelette contains many biographical elements and is of interest for its treatment of Yeats's recurring themes. It examines the debate between nationality and cosmopolitan and looks at the conflict between the self and the anti-self. "Dhoya" depicts a liaison between a mortal and a fairy, a motif that recurs in Yeats's poetry and other works. The texts are supplemented by an introduction and detailed explanatory notes by the editor, Richard Finneran. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I wish that Maude had Gonne sooner
He lost his virginity at the age of 51, and his poetry undoubtedly got a great deal better afterwards.Political claptrap marred his works and spoilt some vaguely pleasant ideas.I am afraid that any man who spendshis entire life concerning himself with politics and Celtic twilight misseda great deal of the reality of life.However, I am inclined to attribute agreat deal of this to Ms Gonne, who without a shadow of a doubt was themain factor responsible for his horrendous 'Helen of Troy' images.To anystudent studying this text, I would urge them to remember Dr DerekPezrekier's pithy comment at a lecture given at Berkley University,California: "Mr Yeats - what did you spend the money on?" towhich a student replied "What money?" "The money your mothergave you for brain surgery.". ... Read more

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The life of William Butler Yeats is a remarkable one - poet, playwright, essayist, politician, occultist, astrologer, founder of a national theatre, voluminous correspondent, lover, husband and father. It was a life that extended to a packed, sometimes frantic 73 years and left us with what many consider to be one of the finest collections of poetry from once voice. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Of course you could get the abridged version instead, but miss much
Oddly, Naxos repackaged much of the material here into its The Great Poets W B Yeats, which explains some of the gaps over there, where the narrator prepares us for the death of Maude Gonne, but reads a poem from later in the series, and where the narrator prepares us for the executions of 1916, but then we hear the poem of the Irish Air Man.

Here we get the whole nine yards. Get this one instead. The other is a patchwork; this is whole and entire. The other may have most of these poems in the exact same recordings; here we have them all, plus.

The brochure contains the same four page analytical biography by John Kavanaugh, but here we have more extensive biographical materials upon the two disks themselves, including the death of Olivia Shakespear - but without her poem. The other is only one disk; here two.

Especially welcome is the early long extract (over seven minutes) from the Wanderings of Oisin. We also find only here (if memory serves me well) To the Rose upon the Rood of Time, The Pity of Love, The Sorrow of Love, When You are Old, A Dream of Death, The host of the Air, The Song of Wandering Aehgus, The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love, The Caps and Bells, The Secret Rose, Adam's Curse, No Second troy, To a Child Dancing in the Wind, The Cold Heaven, September 1913, Easter 1916, The Rose Tree, Solomon to Sheba, To a Young Beauty, The Second Coming, In Memory of Eva Gore- . . ., A Dialogue of Self and Soul, At Alcegiras . . ., The Choice, three from the Crazy Jane cycle, Mohini Chatterjee, the Circus Animal's Desertion, plus several more which are not on the other disk, plus all that are available upon that other disk, over two and one half hours of poems and biography.

In brief therefore this serves well for any study of WB "Willie" Yeats and his fifty years of writing. A classroom could well benefit from its hearing while the professor naps; any high school or university library would find this in continual rotation. But please do not go for the other, abridged collection of these same recordings from Naxos, as sinful an abridgment as their abridged edition of Ulysses (Abridged) (Modern Fiction) by two of their voices here, and later corrected in totum with Ulysses (Naxos AudioBooks). For one thing that other disks may leave you scratching your head when the narrator's introduction does not match the poem immediately following, scratching your head with the feeling something is missing. It is. The full collection here.

Excellent, professional recording. You can figure out a way to hear the poems or poem you wish to hear without other voices and interjections from biographical narration on a programmable CD player. You will not be sorry; as the spirit of Mr. Yeats revisits you, comforting as to Cuchulain.

Please see as well his printed The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Vol. 1: The Poems, 2nd Edition in their many volumes divided by type, up through The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Volume X: Later Articles and Reviews : Uncollected Articles, Reviews, and Radio Broadcasts Written After 1900. See also the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney's selection at The Faber Yeats: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney (Poet to Poet: An Essential Choice of Classic Verse). Above all, know your Yeats through the excellent Professor Helen Vendler's Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form.

Above all, read Yeats.

... Read more

Product 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.Amazon.com Review
William Butler Yeats, whom many consider this century'sgreatest poet, began as a bard of the Celtic Twilight, revivinglegends and Rosicrucian symbols. By the early 1900s, however, he wasmoving away from plush romanticism, his verse morphing from theincantatory rhythms of "I will arise and go now, and go toInnisfree" into lyrics "as cold and passionate as thedawn." At every stage, however, Yeats plays a multiplicity ofpoetic roles. There is the romantic lover of "When You AreOld" and "A Poet to His Beloved" ("I bring youwith reverent Hands / The books of my numberless dreams..."). Andthere are the far more bitter celebrations of Maud Gonne, who neveraccepted his love and engaged in too much politicking for his taste:"Why should I blame her that she filled my days / With misery, orthat she would of late / Have taught to ignorant men most violentways, / Or hurled the little streets upon the great, / Had they butcourage equal to desire?" There is also the poet ofconscience--and confrontation. His 1931 "Remorse for IntemperateSpeech" ends: "Out of Ireland have we come. / Great hatred,little room, / Maimed us at the start. / I carried from my mother'swomb / 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, somesnobbish, others occult and spiritualist. As BrendanKennelly writes, Yeats "produces both poppycock and sublimityin verse, sometimes closely together." On the other hand, manyprophetic masterworks are poppycock-free--for example, "TheSecond Coming" ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre /The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centrecannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...") andsuch inquiries into inspiration as "Among School Children"("O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we knowthe dancer from the dance?"). And at his best, Yeats extends themeaning of love poetry beyond the obviously romantic: love becomes arevolutionary emotion, attaching the poet to friends, history, and thepassionate life of the mind. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Understanding What Your Order
I was happy to have found the book I had been seeking, and trusted, (a word that should never be utilized in net-purchases)
it to be new or nearly so, as the price was just that. However when I received the book I found reader notes amuck.
I seldom if ever destroy the sacred pages of a book, especially one by such a beloved author with mindless ramblings but others do it and that is fine for them but they should NEVER attempt their resale with-out notice. This book is useless to me!

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

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more