Responsibilities

by W.B. Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and together with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded a 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 is generally considered one of the few writers whose greatest works were completed after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. His other works include: The Countess Kathleen (1892), The Celtic Twilight (1893), The Land of Heart's Desire (1894), The Secret Rose (1897), The Hour Glass (1903), Stories of Red Hanrahan (1904), Synge and the Ireland of His Time (1912), and Four Years (1921).

Genres: Poetry

56 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2009

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

[c · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things definitely getting going with this one, which ratcheted up material seen in pretty much every one of Yeats's collections so far. There are narratives mired in Irish folklore present here, as always, and some tidy moralistic ones, but there is a foreboding surreal quality to several of these, notably in "The Mountain Tomb", in which we have:
↓"Pour wine and dance if manhood still have pride,
↓Bring roses if the rose be yet in bloom;
↓The cataract smokes upon the mountain side," (a striking play with POV and imagery that I haven't seen in Yeats's material yet)
"Our Father Rosicross is in his tomb."

This stanza especially seems to be a kind of reversal of Wallace Stevens's "The Worms at Heaven's Gate", which has a similar mood:

"Out of the tomb, we bring Badroulbadour,
↑Within our bellies, we her chariot.
↑Here is an eye. And here are, one by one,
↑The lashes of that eye and its white lid.
↑Here is the cheek on which that lid declined,
↑And, finger after finger, here, the hand,
↑The genius of that cheek. Here are the lips,
↑The bundle of the body and the feet.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Out of the tomb we bring Badroulbadour."

Yeats's poem is not anywhere as grotesque, and seems to have a more social or historical quality to it than Stevens's allusory poem, but it is there and similar nonetheless.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

"To a Child dancing in the wind" is a beauty and ends with the following:
'What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of the wind'
I felt this absolutely belonged in a collection entitled "Responsibilities," as it made the poem even stronger. Five stars to this particular poem, but I found the quality of the poems within the entirety of this collection to vary. But overall, I enjoyed "Responsibilities", hence my 3-star rating.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm working my way through a collected Yeats edition in chronological order and there's a great jump in quality between this and his previous publication. Surer in his own voice, at times to me crystal clear and illuminating like the very best poetry. An exceptional collection in its own right. Very rich and rewarding.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Coat

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these are very, very good. This is what I always expected to find from Yeats.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dessa tillhör inte den bästa lyrik jag har läst, men de är väldigt väldigt bra. De flesta av dikterna är korta, slående i sina metaforer, och mycket visuella. Stolthet och människokärlek - och bitterhet - är de genomgående temata. Detta är en av de mest levande samlingarna av Yeats hittills.

[Jógvan Helge · Rating 3 out of 5]

nor the best labourer dead / and all the sheaves to bind