W.B.YEATS.SELECTED POEMS

by W. B. Yeats

Paperback, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

821.8

Genres

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Phoenix. 1 Paperback(s) (2010)

Description

"All things can tempt me from this craft of verse: ""One time it was a woman's face, or worse-""The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;""Now nothing but comes readier to the hand""Than this accustomed toil.""--"From" All Things Can Tempt Me" Nobel Prize winner W.B. Yeats laid the foundations for an Irish literary revival, drawing inspiration from his country's folklore, the occult, and Celtic philosophy. A writer of both poems and plays, he helped found Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre. The poems here provide an example of his life's work and artistry, beginning with verses such as "The Stolen Child" from his debut collection "Crossways "(written when he was 24) through "Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?" from "On the Boiler," published a year prior to his death.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member themythicalcodfish

I actually knew Sweet Fanny Adams about Yeats before going into this book. His works are some of the saddest I've ever read, especially "Politics", written a year before his death. As the poems in this volume are arranged in chronological order, you can see his movement from a young, impassioned

poet, obsessed with Irish myth and legend and seeking to tie it into the Revolution, to an old man who is simply tired of war. I would sincerely suggest taking a snowy or rainy day and sitting down and reading this little paperback in its entirety.

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LibraryThing member charlie68

Very good poetry, well read.

LibraryThing member wishanem

A great selection of poems, mostly concerned with love, death, and/or the beauty of nature. There are a handful that are autobiographical or concerned with historical events (though I think half of those events would've been contemporary at the time the poems were written).

My favorite was "The

Realists":

HOPE that you may understand!
What can books of men that wive
In a dragon-guarded land,
Paintings of the dolphin-drawn
Sea-nymphs in their pearly waggons
Do, but awake a hope to live
That had gone
With the dragons?

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