W B Yeats Selected Poetry

by W.B. Yeats, A. Norman Jeffares (Editor)

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published January 1, 1970

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

[Sarah Deeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shy one of my heart

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lecturer at university, though he spoke in praise of W B Yeats as a poet, suggested that there was a good deal of silliness about the works of Yeats at all stages of his development as an artist. I have wished to resist such a judgement, since I suppose any writer can be seen as being silly if you view them captiously enough. Nonetheless I must reluctantly admit that the lecturer (though often silly himself) was probably right about Yeats.

Yeats went through many phases in his beliefs and in his poetry, especially since one inspired the other. His early works are comparatively conservative, delving into Irish mythology, and celebrating his country in lyrical terms that are at time ridiculously idealistic.

The poet had an almost lifelong love for the nationalist Maud Gonne, who firmly friendzoned him at every opportunity. Even when she consummated the relationship (just once) she backtracked, and spent some time trying to persuade Yeats that the artist should abstain from sex. Poor Yeats. Was he that bad in bed?

This does not prevent Yeats from endlessly hankering after Gonne, inserting veiled allusions to her in many of his poems. She is Kathleen Ni Houlihan (the mythical symbol of Ireland) and Helen of Troy. Meanwhile Gonne married instead a fanatical nationalist.

Gonne played some part in drawing Yeats into nationalist politics, but Yeats soon became disillusioned with the intensity and violent tendencies of the movement. Nonetheless he helped to mythologise the nationalists who led the unsuccessful Easter Rising in his poem ‘Easter 1916’, helping to turn an uprising that had little support in Ireland into a romantic enterprise, something that it probably was not.

The best gift Yeats had was for making fine poetry, even when the sentiments were a bit off. ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ is a pleasure to read, even though it presents a version of Ireland that belongs on a cake tin. ‘Easter 1916’ idealises the rising, but is so beautifully written that it achieves poignancy. In any case the content of the poem is more nuanced than I have suggested. Regarding the insurrectionists, Yeats remarks ‘Too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart’.

That blend of beauty and silliness reaches its apotheosis in ‘The Second Coming’. In this poem, Yeats eloquently deplores the state of the modern world in terms that still apply today: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” At the poem’s end, he offers a frightening view of a sinister second coming: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

As described, the poem sounds wonderful, and of course it is. However its power is slightly undermined when we reflect that Yeats partly believed that this would actually happen. He was deeply involved in all kinds of mystical mumbo-jumbo, and it was from this he got the idea that every 2,000 years there would be another Coming, but next time would be evil.

By the end of his life, Yeats, always something of an authoritarian, was flirting with Fascism. Admittedly this was common among writers of his age, and lamentably it is back in fashion today. Nonetheless it is another sign of how silly Yeats could be.

The best Yeats poetry contains wonderful and resonant phrasing. The worst Yeats poetry involves endless namedropping and esoteric allusions that seem designed to show off how much Yeats knew. Unfortunately there is rather more of that kind of poem in this selection. I love Yeats at his best, but I must admit that most of the time I find him a little boring.