|
Showing 1 - 25 of
457 matches in All Departments
The first edition of W. B. Yeats's "The Tower" appeared in
bookstores in London on Valentine's Day, 1928. His English
publisher printed just 2,000 copies of this slender volume of
twenty-one poems, priced at six shillings. The book was immediately
embraced by book buyers and critics alike, and it quickly became a
bestseller.
Subsequent versions of the volume made various changes throughout,
but this Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly that seminal
first edition as it reached its earliest audience in 1928, adding
an introduction and notes by esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J.
Finneran.
Written between 1912 and 1927, these poems ("Sailing to
Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children" among
them) are today considered some of the best and most famous in the
entire Yeats canon. As Virginia Woolf declared in her unsigned
review of this collection, "Mr. Yeats has never written more
exactly and more passionately."
W. B. Yeats's "The Winding Stair and Other Poems "was published in
1933 when Yeats was sixty-eight, ten years after he won the Nobel
Prize and six years before his death in 1939. Yeats famously
invoked in "Adam's Curse" the time he spent "stitching and
unstitching" the lines of his work, but he also spent considerable
time stitching and unstitching his poems to each other. "The
Winding Stair "demonstrates that care, combining and reordering the
poems of two earlier publications in an edition intended as the
companion volume to "The Tower," published in 1928.
This Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly the pages of the
elegantly planned and designed first edition of "The Winding Stair
and Other Poems "as it first appeared, including a photo of the
cover design on which Yeats collaborated. It adds an introduction
and notes by celebrated Yeats scholar George Bornstein.
Yeats's longest separate volume of verse, it features sixty-four
poems written in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Among them are
such masterpieces as "Blood and the Moon," "Byzantium," the Coole
Park poems, "Vacillation," and two separately titled long sequences
ending with the exquisite lyric "From the 'Antigone.'" These poems
amply justify T. S. Eliot's contention that Yeats was one of the
few poets "whose history is the history of their own time, who are
a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood
without them."
Since its first appearance in 1962, M. L. Rosenthal's classic selection of Yeats's poems and plays has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. This newly revised edition includes 211 poems and 4 plays. It adds The Words Upon the Window-Pane, one of Yeats's most startling dramatic works in its realistic use of a seance as the setting for an eerily powerful reenactment of Jonathan Swift's rigorous idealism, baffling love relationships, and tragic madness. The collection profits from recent scholarship that has helped to establish Yeats's most reliable texts, in the order set by the poet himself. And his powerful lyrical sequences are amply represented, culminating in the selection from Last Poems and Two Plays, which reaches its climax in the brilliant poetic plays The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory. Scholars, students, and all who delight in Yeats's varied music and sheer quality will rejoice in this expanded edition. As the introduction observes, "Early and late he has the simple, indispensable gift of enchanting the ear....He was also the poet who, while very much of his own day in Ireland, spoke best to the people of all countries. And though he plunged deep into arcane studies, his themes are most clearly the general ones of life and death, love and hate, man's condition, and history's meanings. He began as a sometimes effete post-Romantic, heir to the pre-Raphaelites, and then, quite naturally, became a leading British Symbolist; but he grew at last into the boldest, most vigorous voice of this century." Selected Poems and Four Plays represents the essential achievement of the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in English.
With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of
English, University of Sussex. W. B. Yeats was Romantic and
Modernist, mystical dreamer and leader of the Irish Literary
Revival, Nobel prizewinner, dramatist and, above all, poet. He
began writing with the intention of putting his 'very self' into
his poems. T. S. Eliot, one of many who proclaimed the Irishman's
greatness, described him as 'one of those few whose history is the
history of their own time, who are part of the consciousness of an
age which cannot be understood without them'. For anyone interested
in the literature of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth
century, Yeats's work is essential. This volume gathers the full
range of his published poetry, from the hauntingly beautiful early
lyrics (by which he is still fondly remembered) to the magnificent
later poems which put beyond question his status as major poet of
modern times. Paradoxical, proud and passionate, Yeats speaks today
as eloquently as ever.
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the entire arc of his career, from luminous reworkings of ancient Irish myths and legends to passionate meditations on the demands and rewards of youth and old age, from exquisite, occasionally whimsical songs of love, nature, and art to somber and angry poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising. In observing the development of rich and recurring images and themes over the course of his body of work, we can trace the quest of this century's greatest poet to unite intellect and artistry in a single magnificent vision. Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeats's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.
Rooted in myth, occult mysteries, and belief in magic, these
stories are populated by a lively cast of sorcerers, fairies,
ghosts, and nature spirits. The great Irish poet heard these
enchanting, mystical tales from Irish peasants, and the stories'
anthropologic significance is matched by their timeless
entertainment value.
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) is a collection of poems and plays
by W.B. Yeats. Containing many of the poet's early important works,
The Wind Among the Reeds provides a rich sampling of Yeats' poems,
illuminating his influence on the Celtic Twilight, a
late-nineteenth century movement to revive the myths and traditions
of Ancient Ireland, while charting his developing sense of the
poet's place in history and a changing world. "The Song of
Wandering Aengus" dramatizes aesthetic and romantic longing. The
poem follows a man with "a fire...in [his] head" who peels "a hazel
wand," hooks it with a berry, and catches himself "a little silver
trout." Satisfied, he returns home to light a fire and cook himself
a meal of fresh fish when, suddenly, the trout transforms into "a
glimmering girl / With apple blossom in her hair." Haunted by her
beauty, Aengus wanders the "hollow lands and hilly lands" in search
of the girl, leaving his home and forsaking the promise of
hard-earned comfort for the hope and hunger of vision . "The Song
of the Old Mother," a deceptively simple lyric reminiscent of
William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, is a brief
meditation on the life of an elderly domestic worker. Rising at
dawn, she ensures that "the seed of the fire flicker and glow,"
preparing the home for the day ahead while "the young lie long and
dream in their bed" with no sense of the nature of work. The Wind
Among the Reeds, Yeats' third collection of poems, introduces some
of the poet's most enduring characters and personas, including
Michael Robartes and Red Hanrahan, who dramatize for poet and
reader the moods and minds which move a creative spirit. With a
beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of W.B. Yeats's The Wind Among the Reeds is a classic
of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.
Ideas of Good and Evil (1903) is a collection of wide-ranging
essays by Irish poet W.B. Yeats. Writing on such subjects as the
art of poetry, politics, and the occult, Yeats proves himself to be
not only a master of verse and drama, but an immensely talented
essayist and thorough scholar. "What is 'Popular Poetry'?" reflects
on a changing Irish literary landscape which has, over the course
of Yeats' career, established its own place in world literature
apart from, and perhaps surpassing, its English counterpart.
Juxtaposing "the poetry of the coteries, which presupposes the
written tradition" and "the true poetry of the people, which
presupposes the unwritten tradition," Yeats argues that the spirit
of Irish poetry depends on its unfaltering connection to the
itinerant bards and storytellers whose gift for musicality and
memory kept language alive for a widely illiterate people. In
"Magic," Yeats, a longtime member of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn, discusses his belief in the occult. Musing on the
power of symbol to evoke memories, as well as the revelation of his
past lives, Yeats provides personal anecdotes and secondhand
accounts of magical occurrences and experiences, exposing a world
secrets and hidden meaning for believers and the uninitiated alike.
"The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry" is an academic essay in which
Yeats argues that Shelley's poems far surpass the radical
ideologies of such figures as William Godwin. Ideas of Good and
Evil showcases the diverse intellectual and spiritual interests of
W.B. Yeats, an icon of Irish literature and one of the twentieth
century's leading poetic voices. With a beautifully designed cover
and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's
Ideas of Good and Evil is a classic of Irish literature reimagined
for modern readers.
Gathered by the renowned Irish poet, playwright, and essayist William Butler Yeats, the sixty-five tales and poems in this delightful collection uniquely capture the rich heritage of the Celtic imagination. Filled with legends of village ghosts, fairies, demons, witches, priests, and saints, these stories evoke both tender pathos and lighthearted mirth and embody what Yeats describes as “the very voice of the people, the very pulse of life.”
“The impact of these tales doesn’t stop with Yeats, or Joyce, or Oscar Wilde,” writes Paul Muldoon in his Foreword, “for generations of readers in Ireland and throughout the world have found them flourishing like those persistent fairy thorns.”
"Sword Against the Sea" is an adaptation of William Butler Yeats'
six one-act plays and some of his most stirring poems about the
Celtic hero Cuchulain. Arranged in the chronological order of
Cuchulain's life and drawing exclusively on Yeats' own magnificent
poetry, this two-act play presents the hero's failed attempt as a
young man to achieve eternal life at the Hawk's Well; his tragic
slaying of his own son and the realization that drives him in
despair to fight the sea; his wife Emer's noble sacrifice to save
his life by renouncing her love; and Cuchulain's death and
spiritual transcendence as an aged warrior. Like the original
Yeats' Cuchulain plays themselves, this adaptation calls for
collaborations among different kinds of artists in the creation of
masks, the use of dance and the possibility of including
instrumental and sung music. These Cuchulain plays and poems are
compressed, simplified, and reshaped for a rich, uplifting evening
of theater.
NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names And then away, away,
like whirling flames; And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound; "Gaze no more on the
phantoms, ' Niamh said, And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright
head And her bright body, sang of faery and man
|
Poems (Paperback)
William Butler Yeats; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R246
R205
Discovery Miles 2 050
Save R41 (17%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Poems (1920) is a collection of poems and plays by W.B. Yeats.
Containing many of the poet's early important works, Poems
illuminates Yeats' influence on the Celtic Twilight, a
late-nineteenth century movement to revive the myths and traditions
of Ancient Ireland. The collection opens with Yeats' verse drama
The Countess Cathleen, which he dedicated to the actress and
revolutionary Maud Gonne. Set during a period of famine in Ireland,
The Countess Cathleen tells the story of a wealthy landowning
Countess who sells her soul to the devil in order to save her
starving tenants. The Land of Heart's Desire, Yeats' first
professionally performed play, follows a young fairy child who
disrupts the lives of two newlyweds and shakes a simple village to
its core. The Rose contains some of the writer's most beloved early
poems, including "To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time"-a symbolist
lyric alluding to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn-and "Fergus
and the Druid," a dialogue in verse. In "Who Goes With Fergus," a
poem blending ancient legend with modern Irish nationalism, Yeats
asks the youth of his country to "brood on hopes and fears no
more," to follow Fergus who "rules the shadows of the wood, / And
the white breast of the dim sea / And all disheveled wandering
stars." Yeats' writing, mysterious and rich with symbolism,
demonstrates not just a mastery of the English language, but an
abiding faith in the cause and principles of Irish independence.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's Poems is a classic of
Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) is a collection
of stories edited by W.B. Yeats. Compiled at the height of the
Celtic Twilight, a movement to revive the myths and traditions of
Ancient Ireland, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
captures a wide range of stories, songs, poems, and firsthand
accounts from artists and storytellers dedicated to the
preservation of Irish culture. In "Frank Martin and the Fairies," a
sickly man discusses the presence of dozens of fairies inside his
weaving shop. When a child in his village falls ill, he claims to
have seen the fairies building a small, simple coffin, preparing to
convey the poor youth from the world of men to their own, shadowy
realm. "Bewitched Butter," a tale from Donegal, recounts a strange
event involving two farming families and a prized Kerry cow. When
the young Grace Dogherty arrives on the Hanlon's doorstep asking to
milk their cow, Mrs. Hanlon initially refuses her. But after
several entreaties, the matriarch relents, allowing the girl to
take some of the Kerry cow's milk. When Moiley stops producing
milk, the Hanlon's fear that Grace has cast an evil eye on the cow,
thereby threatening their livelihood. Fairy and Folk Tales of the
Irish Peasantry compiles numerous tales of giants, gods, devils,
kings and heroes, preserving the legends of Ireland's past, an age
threatened with erasure by science, reason, and modern
industrialization. With a beautifully designed cover and
professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry is a classic of Irish
literature reimagined for modern readers.
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) is a collection of poems by W.B.
Yeats. Written while the poet was at the height of his career, The
Wild Swans at Coole presents Yeats' typical concerns-aging, love,
and the nature of art-against the backdrop of a decade of war.
These poems, written during the First World War and the formative
years of the Irish independence movement, reflect the harsh
political and social realities of the era while remaining true to
the mind of one of Ireland's greatest artists. The title poem, a
meditative lyric on art, love, and aging, uses the image of wild
swans to reflect the fleeting nature of years and worldly beauty.
Having watched the swans for nineteen years, the poet wonders how,
after so much time, "Their hearts have not grown old," while
"Passion of conquest, wander where they will, / Attend upon them
still." Disturbed that the world will not reflect his inner
torment, he wonders what will happen when, one day, he awakes "To
find they have flown away?" In "An Irish Airman Foresees His
Death," Yeats reflects on the First World War from the perspective
of a serviceman doomed by his own conflicting allegiances: "I know
that I shall meet my fate / Somewhere among the clouds above; /
Those that I fight I do not hate / Those that I guard I do not
love." Despite this poem's political theme, Yeats includes another
poem in the collection that questions the place of poetry in
politics altogether. "On Being Asked for a War Poem" suggests that
"A poet keep his mouth shut," his words being better suited to "A
young girl in the indolence of her youth, / Or an old man upon a
winter's night." The Wild Swans at Coole is a moving portrait of
the poet's anxieties, of his fear of death and aging, of his faint
suspicion that poetry, though beautiful, fails to address the
issues of the era. With a beautifully designed cover and
professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's The
Wild Swans at Coole is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for
modern readers.
The Secret Rose (1897) is a collection of poems by W.B. Yeats.
Written in response to demands that the poet write "a really
national poem or romance," The Secret Rose exhibits Yeats' devotion
to personal mythology and occult orders, and is a brilliant display
of symbolism by one of Irish literature's premier poets. "To the
Secret Rose" opens the collection. The poem, inspired by Yeats'
membership in the Rosicrucian Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
uses symbolism to evoke religion, myth, and history. The "Far off,
most secret, and inviolate Rose" is an image of utopian longing, an
ideal moment the poet awaits, envisions, and longs for. "The
Crucifixion of the Outcast" is a parable in which a wandering bard
is led by Christian brothers to his execution. As his cross is set
in the earth, he offers a portion of his last meal to the beggars
who have gathered to watch. When he is nailed to the cross,
however, he finds that mercy without humility is a seed that cannot
grow. In "The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows," Puritan
soldiers storm an abbey and attack a group of friars. Before he
dies, the abbot raises the cross upon the altar, and promises
divine vengeance. Immediately afterward, the soldiers are told that
two messengers have escaped on horseback to warn and gather the
people for a counterattack. The Secret Rose explores themes of
faith and persecution while illuminating the proximity of life and
myth for a poet whose subject is the soul. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition
of W.B. Yeats's The Secret Rose is a classic of Irish literature
reimagined for modern readers.
Ideas of Good and Evil (1903) is a collection of wide-ranging
essays by Irish poet W.B. Yeats. Writing on such subjects as the
art of poetry, politics, and the occult, Yeats proves himself to be
not only a master of verse and drama, but an immensely talented
essayist and thorough scholar. "What is 'Popular Poetry'?" reflects
on a changing Irish literary landscape which has, over the course
of Yeats' career, established its own place in world literature
apart from, and perhaps surpassing, its English counterpart.
Juxtaposing "the poetry of the coteries, which presupposes the
written tradition" and "the true poetry of the people, which
presupposes the unwritten tradition," Yeats argues that the spirit
of Irish poetry depends on its unfaltering connection to the
itinerant bards and storytellers whose gift for musicality and
memory kept language alive for a widely illiterate people. In
"Magic," Yeats, a longtime member of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn, discusses his belief in the occult. Musing on the
power of symbol to evoke memories, as well as the revelation of his
past lives, Yeats provides personal anecdotes and secondhand
accounts of magical occurrences and experiences, exposing a world
secrets and hidden meaning for believers and the uninitiated alike.
"The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry" is an academic essay in which
Yeats argues that Shelley's poems far surpass the radical
ideologies of such figures as William Godwin. Ideas of Good and
Evil showcases the diverse intellectual and spiritual interests of
W.B. Yeats, an icon of Irish literature and one of the twentieth
century's leading poetic voices. With a beautifully designed cover
and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's
Ideas of Good and Evil is a classic of Irish literature reimagined
for modern readers.
The Countess Cathleen (1892) is a verse drama by W.B. Yeats.
Dedicated to Maud Gonne, an actress and revolutionary whom Yeats
unsuccessfully courted for years, The Countess Cathleen underwent
several editions before being performed in its final version at
Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1911. Based on an Irish legend, the play,
set during a period of intense famine, follows a land-owning
Countess who decides to sacrifice her wealth and property in order
to save the starving Irish people. As dusk gathers, a family
prepares for dinner in their rural home. The fire is lit, and
Shemus, the father, has returned home from a day of hunting with
nothing to show for it. As they scrounge what they can to make
themselves a meal, the Countess Cathleen arrives to ask them for
directions. Touched by their suffering, the Countess returns home
and begins to wonder what she can do to alleviate their difficult
circumstances. Impatient, Shemus yells to the darkening woods to
welcome whatever being, angel or devil, that would bring them money
or something to eat. When two merchants arrive offering him gold
for his services, it appears that the Countess, despite her good
intentions, may already be too late. The Countess Cathleen is a
drama written in blank verse that explores themes of poverty,
faith, and Irish independence. With a beautifully designed cover
and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's
The Countess Cathleen is a classic of Irish literature reimagined
for modern readers.
|
Poems (Hardcover)
William Butler Yeats; Contributions by Mint Editions
|
R491
R402
Discovery Miles 4 020
Save R89 (18%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Poems (1920) is a collection of poems and plays by W.B. Yeats.
Containing many of the poet's early important works, Poems
illuminates Yeats' influence on the Celtic Twilight, a
late-nineteenth century movement to revive the myths and traditions
of Ancient Ireland. The collection opens with Yeats' verse drama
The Countess Cathleen, which he dedicated to the actress and
revolutionary Maud Gonne. Set during a period of famine in Ireland,
The Countess Cathleen tells the story of a wealthy landowning
Countess who sells her soul to the devil in order to save her
starving tenants. The Land of Heart's Desire, Yeats' first
professionally performed play, follows a young fairy child who
disrupts the lives of two newlyweds and shakes a simple village to
its core. The Rose contains some of the writer's most beloved early
poems, including "To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time"-a symbolist
lyric alluding to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn-and "Fergus
and the Druid," a dialogue in verse. In "Who Goes With Fergus," a
poem blending ancient legend with modern Irish nationalism, Yeats
asks the youth of his country to "brood on hopes and fears no
more," to follow Fergus who "rules the shadows of the wood, / And
the white breast of the dim sea / And all disheveled wandering
stars." Yeats' writing, mysterious and rich with symbolism,
demonstrates not just a mastery of the English language, but an
abiding faith in the cause and principles of Irish independence.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's Poems is a classic of
Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) is a collection
of stories edited by W.B. Yeats. Compiled at the height of the
Celtic Twilight, a movement to revive the myths and traditions of
Ancient Ireland, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
captures a wide range of stories, songs, poems, and firsthand
accounts from artists and storytellers dedicated to the
preservation of Irish culture. In "Frank Martin and the Fairies," a
sickly man discusses the presence of dozens of fairies inside his
weaving shop. When a child in his village falls ill, he claims to
have seen the fairies building a small, simple coffin, preparing to
convey the poor youth from the world of men to their own, shadowy
realm. "Bewitched Butter," a tale from Donegal, recounts a strange
event involving two farming families and a prized Kerry cow. When
the young Grace Dogherty arrives on the Hanlon's doorstep asking to
milk their cow, Mrs. Hanlon initially refuses her. But after
several entreaties, the matriarch relents, allowing the girl to
take some of the Kerry cow's milk. When Moiley stops producing
milk, the Hanlon's fear that Grace has cast an evil eye on the cow,
thereby threatening their livelihood. Fairy and Folk Tales of the
Irish Peasantry compiles numerous tales of giants, gods, devils,
kings and heroes, preserving the legends of Ireland's past, an age
threatened with erasure by science, reason, and modern
industrialization. With a beautifully designed cover and
professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W.B. Yeats's
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry is a classic of Irish
literature reimagined for modern readers.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|