W. B. Yeats: Selected Poems

William Butler Yeats

Apr 2011 · Blackstone Audio Inc. · Narrated by William Sutherland

About this audiobook

William Butler Yeats, the first Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, is not only one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century but one of the most widely read. The landscape, myths, legends, and folklore of his homeland lie at the heart of his poetic imagination, and the unique musicality of Ireland adds to the richness of his verse. But the themes of his poetry are universal and timeless: the conflict between life and death, love and hate, and the meaning of man's existence in an imperfect world. This collection includes such favorites as "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and "When You Are Old," as well as two of his longer narrative works, "The Old Age of Queen Maeve" and "Baile and Aillinn." It traces the poet's artistry from his early days as a dreamy, late-romantic poet into one of the most individual and visionary voices of twentieth-century verse.

About the author

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist. Born and educated in Dublin, he studied poetry in his youth and, from an early age, was fascinated by Irish legend and the occult. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. He is generally considered one of the twentieth century's key English language poets. He was a Symbolist poet, in that he used allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his career. 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 was the first Irishman so honored. He 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).