The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Yeats was to explore several more sides of himself, and of Ireland, before his Last Poems of 1938-39. Many are difficult, some snobbish, others occult and spiritualist. As Brendan Kennelly writes, Yeats "produces both poppycock and sublimity in verse, sometimes closely together." On the other hand, many prophetic masterworks are poppycock-free--for example, "The Second Coming" ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...") and such inquiries into inspiration as "Among School Children" ("O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?"). And at his best, Yeats extends the meaning of love poetry beyond the obviously romantic: love becomes a revolutionary emotion, attaching the poet to friends, history, and the passionate life of the mind. --Kerry Fried

Product Description
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.

Beyond that, why should anyone buy this edition as opposed to any of the other available? First, the collected poems gives you a sense of his development and interests, not just the highlights of his greates poems. Second, and more importantly, this edition is well-annotated. The notes are thorough without being unduly interpretive--they tell you what an allusion refers to, not how it affects the meaning of the poem. The notes aim to be useful to any reader, regardless of background. As a result, western readers will come across odd sounding notes such as "Jesus Christ is the founder of Christianity" or "Hamlet is the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name." Still, you'll be thankful for such prosaic entries as they explain Irish myth and locate historical allusions. All in all, it's an edition that belongs on any poetry lover's shelf.


A strange, deceptive beauty   August 11, 2000
xenia (NY)
50 out of 53 found this review helpful

When I first started reading Yeats, I was very interested in Old Irish myths. Perhaps more importantly, I was also younger and more romantically inclined than I am nowadays. His early poetry seemed to possess an airy beauty, sweet in the best sense of the word and reminiscent of his contemporary Tagore. I felt bewitched.

Some time later, I read his poems again and felt deceived. They were whimsical, immature, unfinished. I could not understand why he was so highly praised. Whenever somebody told me he/she liked Yeats, I felt an embarrassment. I wondered if I had failed Yeats or if he was the deceiver.

However, when I approached him for the third time, I had a strange experience I can only compare with reading Nietzsche. I read a line or two, they seem too simple and crude. I read them a second time, they become opaque. A third time, they yield and I feel as if playing with a caleidoscope. Now at least I am wiser; I know I will be profoundly touched, annoyed and bored in turns, but I also know I will always return to Yeats, because a quarrel with him is better than a constant love for another poet.


IRISH GENIUS WITH WORLDWIDE, POSTHUMOUS APPEAL   December 1, 2000
B.D. (Maryland)
21 out of 27 found this review helpful

Before a reasoned, intelligent assessment of Yeats (or any other master poet such as Hardy, Frost,de la Mare, Wilbur, et al) can be made, one must ask the right preliminary question: What is Genius-level poetry? There are at least 6 primary components: 1)It withholds something from us at first, yielding its secrets slowly, like an attractive lover or an ocean (sand, shoreline, shallows, surfzone, shelf, offshore, blue depths);2)It surprises and satisfies simultaneously - it repays multiple re-readings: 'I knew that but I didn't know until now that I knew it'; 3) It is words set to life's music - it sounds, or sings, special, through appropriate rhythm and rhyme. Follow the music and the other senses follow along; follow the voice til you have no choice; 4)It is memorable, both in detailed words, metaphors, images, literary referents, phrasings, lines, sections/stanzas, and as a sum of things which exceeds the excellencies of the parts. It is memorizable. 5)It speaks to life's questions: what could be worse than answering questions no one is asking?; above all relevance synthesizes with reverence to create resonance. Its subject matter matters. Nothing is missing more in most poetry published today than lack of compression, resolution, depth: too much verse is a pretty pond acres wide, inches deep. Especially powerful verse has simplicity in perichoresis (interpenetration) with complexity or multiplicity, ambidextrously able to use telescope or microscope to bring the subject into focus for the reader. The best of Seuss appeals also to adults; the arcanest of Einstein, E=mc2, can even be grasped by children;Lastly,6) It fulfills its expectations and arrives: it reaches the reader at some point, in different ways at different times. Though woods are lovely, dark and deep;with miles to go before I sleep, there are still promises to keep. Yeats lovers will find all six of these criteria fulfilled consistently throughout the Collected Works; skeptics and seekers can objectively test Irish Airman Predicts His Death; Sailing to Byzantium; Song of Wandering Aengus; Innisfree and other typically anthologized masterpieces to see if they meet at least 4 of the 6 standards. I hope many new readers are pleasantly surprised and many old friends of Yeats come away with a new appreciation of what Ireland gave the world from 1865-1939. His 1923 Nobel Prize was not bestowed by biased eyes, but the award was nobly earned, though by so many undiscerned.


magnificent poems on cheap paper   October 24, 2005
Barnaby Thieme (San Francisco, CA)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

I trust it goes without saying that William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest English-language poets of all time. This volume contains his entire body of verse, and is a magnificent treasure trove that will delight and stun the reader for decades.

I give two stars to the cheap materials used to create this masterpiece. I literally had this book out of the Amazon box for a matter of hours before the cover started to curl of its own accord, as though possessed by a poetry-hating demon. The paper is low-grade and coarse, with an unappealing brownish tinge.

Despite my love of Yeats, I find that I unconsciously tend to keep this book on the shelf just to keep its ugliness out of site, and I am by no means an aesthete. If you can find a slightly nicer version, it is worth paying a little extra.


Donne, Shakespeare, and ... Yeats?   September 16, 1999
Joseph Jordan (Portland, Oregon USA)
18 out of 31 found this review helpful

Yeats is, quite simply, the greatest master of the English language since Shakespeare. His command, range, and intelligence are remarkable. From his smallest poems to the lengthier ones such as "Under Ben Bulben", he weilds a pen with the mark of the truest artist whose work I have engaged deeply. As wily as Joyce, as visionary as the Romantics, and with a silvery ear for the language that can only be compared with the likes of Donne, Milton and Shakespeare, Yeats is the greatest poet of the 20th Century, to say the least. His influence is broad, and the scope of his work--from effete Romanticism to violent realism--is even broader.