4 h 14 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when the dream world of fairies meets the hard truths of love, politics and old age?
In Poems, W. B. Yeats moves from Irish folk tales and lost love to war, public life and death. This gathering follows a poet who keeps changing his voice. Dreamy songs give way to blunt speech, while Ireland’s legends and struggles remain close to the heart of his work.
The long early poem The Wanderings of Oisin draws on Ireland’s old stories. Elsewhere, love poems for Maud Gonne give longing a personal face, and poems about the Easter Rising turn toward the nation. Through visions of history moving in great circles, Yeats searches for a lasting form amid change.
What you’ll discover
- Ireland’s world of legend Enter poems shaped by fairies, ghosts and ancient heroes from the stories Yeats remembers.
- Love that keeps longing Meet the yearning behind poems for Maud Gonne, the woman Yeats courts for years.
- A poet faces Ireland Explore the tension between a private inner life and the demands of a nation.
- History turns in circles Follow Yeats’s visions of civilisations rising, reaching their peak and breaking down.
- Rhythms worth reading aloud Feel how steady rhythms and clear rhymes carry poems about love, ageing and doubt.
Who will love it
For readers who love sound and image, Irish myth and history, and poems about love, ageing and doubt.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A young poet draws on Irish folklore
- Myth and legend give him a language
- Love and longing for Maud Gonne
- Ireland, politics and the poet as citizen
- Gyres, ageing and the search for a lasting form
- Reading Yeats aloud, with his forms and symbols
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- 15-minute summary
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Poemas
by W. B. Yeats
Yeats moves from Irish fairies and lost love to war and old age, asking what beauty and art can hold.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A young poet draws on Irish folklore
Yeats was born in Dublin in 1865, but much of his childhood belonged to the west of Ireland, especially County Sligo. He heard stories there of fairies, ghosts and ancient heroes, and he never forgot them. His early poems turn those tales into songs. The land itself, its lakes, hills and sea, becomes a kind of character.
This early work is often grouped under the name Celtic Twilight, a phrase tied to the mood of a faded, dreamy Ireland. The poems are soft in sound. They use colours such as silver, grey and gold, and they speak of dusk, mist and water. The effect is like a half remembered dream.
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What are the poems of W. B. Yeats about?
They deal with love, Irish myth and folklore, politics and war, ageing, and the rise and fall of civilisations. His early poems are dreamy and musical, while his later poems are plainer, tougher and more personal.
Which Yeats poems should I read first?
Many readers start with The Lake Isle of Innisfree, When You Are Old and The Wild Swans at Coole. Then they try Easter, 1916, The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium to hear his later voice.
Who was Maud Gonne in Yeats's poetry?
She was an Irish nationalist and actress whom Yeats loved for many years. She refused to marry him. She appears, openly or by suggestion, in many of his love poems and in poems about Irish politics.
The author
W. B. Yeats
1865–1939 · Irish poet and playwright
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and playwright. He was born in Dublin and lived in Ireland and England. His poetry collections included Poems (1895) and The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). He helped establish Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1904. He died in Menton, France.
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