100 Selected Poems, W. B. Yeats: Collectable Hardbound Edition

by W.B. Yeats

The mastermind behind the Irish literary Renaissance, William Butler Yeats had a remarkable literary career spanning across five decades. This collectable edition brings together his early poems along with some of his finest verses composed in the years following his Nobel Prize. It includes The Wanderings of Oisin, ‘The Sad Shepherd’, ‘The Stolen Child’, ‘The Lake of Innisfree’, ‘The Sorrow of Love’, ‘When You Are Old’, ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’, ‘The Second Coming’, ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, ‘Leda and the Swan’ and ‘Byzantium’. Each poem gives an insight into Yeats’ beliefs, philosophy and also the times in which he wrote. Each is a specimen of his exquisite craftsmanship

285 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 16, 2023

About the author

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).

Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
--from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeats is not an easy read. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like his poetry, but rather the poor formatting of it all. Lines and stanzas were both broken up and combined making reading his works at times downright impossible.