W. B. Yeats (Poet to Poet) Paperback – 4 Mar. 2004

I studied some of Yeats poems while at school and decided to revisit his works 35 years later. This book is a collection of most of his best ones and gives a good flavour of the poet’s oeuvre. Yeats was very much a romantic poet and many of the poems are lyrical odes to beautiful women whom he appeared to put on a pedestal. Not likely to do that where he alive today. Yeats was also an Irish nationalist and there are quite a few political poems in which he sides with the Irish rebels of the early 20th Century. There are a lot of poems which are based on or allude to Irish (and Greek) mythology. I liked quite a few of the poems but didn’t like his longer rambling ones,while others were overly verbose and flowery. I preferred the poems in the first half of this book to the second. My favourite poem was The Second Coming.Other ones worth a mention are When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree,Easter 1916 and An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.

A great selection of Yeats' poems, grouped in sections according to when written. A long and learned introduction by Seamus Heaney. I bought one copy as a present but having skimmed through it, decided to buy one for myself as well.

Bought for a friend who was inquisitive of my love of W.B.Y..Now he knows and has the same problem!

I would recommend. I lived it and it was a present for my brother in mnerica and it came promptle and well paked and I will use again