The poems of W.B. Yeats

Author(s)

• Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
• McDonald, Peter

Bibliographic Information

The poems of W.B. Yeats

[W.B. Yeats] ; edited by Peter McDonald

（Longman annotated English poets）

Routledge, 2023

• v. 3 : hbk

Note

Vol. 3. 1899-1910

Chronology of W.B. Yeats's life and publications: p. [xii]-xiv

Includes indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this multi-volume edition, the poetry of W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) is presented in full, with newly established texts and detailed, wide-ranging commentary. Yeats began to write verse in the nineteenth century, and over time his own arrangements of poems repeatedly revised and rearranged both texts and canon. This edition of Yeats's poetry presents all his verse, both published and unpublished, including a generous selection of textual variants from the many manuscript and printed sources. The edition also supplies the most extensive commentary on Yeats's poetry to date, explaining specific references, and setting poems in their contexts; it also gives an account of the vast range of both literary and historical influences at work on the verse. The poems are presented in order of composition, and major revisions or rewritings of poems result in separate inclusions (in chronological sequence) for these writings as they were subsequently reconceived by the poet. In this third volume, Yeats's poetry of the first decade of the twentieth century is brought into sharp focus, revealing the extent of his efforts to re-fashion a style that had already made him a well-known poet. All of the major modes in Yeats's earlier work are subject to radical re-imagining in these years, from poetic narrative founded in Irish myth, in poems such as 'Baile and Aillinn' and 'The Old Age of Queen Maeve', to the symbolist drama-poetry of The Shadowy Waters, here edited in its two (completely different) versions of 1900 and 1906. In a decade when the theatre was one of Yeats's principal concerns, his lyric poems, which were becoming increasingly explicit in personal terms, began to discover new intensities of conversational pitch and mythic resonance. Poems such as 'The Folly of Being Comforted', 'Adam's Curse', 'No Second Troy', and 'The Fascination of What's Difficult' are given close attention in this new edition, alongside topical and epigrammatic pieces that are often passed over in accounts of Yeats's development. The evolving complexities of Yeats's personal and political lives are crucial to his artistic growth in these years, and the commentary gives these generous attention, showing how the poetry both feeds upon and often transcends the circumstances of its composition. The volume offers strong evidence for this decade as a crucial one in Yeats's poetic life, in which the poet created wholly new registers for his verse as well as new dimensions for his imaginative vision.

Table of Contents

A Note From the General Editors Acknowledgements Chronology of WB Yeats's Life and Publications, 1899-1910 List of Abbreviations Introduction THE POEMS 185 The Song of Heffernan the Blind: A Translation 186 The Shadowy Waters (1900) 187 The Withering of the Boughs 188 Under the Moon 189 ['I walked among the Seven Woods of Coole'] 190 Baile and Aillinn 191 Yellow Haired Donough 192 ['Do not make a great keening'] 193 The Blood Bond 194 Spinning Song 195 The Folly of Being Comforted 196 The Players ask for a Blessing on the Psalteries and on Themselves 197 The Arrow 198 Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland 199 The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water 200 In the Seven Woods 201 The Old Age of Queen Maeve 202 Adam's Curse 203 The Happy Townland 204 O Do Not Love Too Long 205 ['I heard under a ragged hollow wood'] 206 Old Memory 207 Never give all the heart 208 Song from Deirdre I 209 The Ragged Wood 210 The Harp of Aengus 211 The Shadowy Waters 212 ['Come ride and ride to the garden'] 213 Against Witchcraft 214 Song from Deirdre III 215 Song from Deirdre II 216 ['The friends that have it I do wrong'] 217 Maid Quiet 218 ['O Death's old bony finger'] 219 An Appointment 220 ['Accursed who brings to light of day'] 221 His Dream 222 All things can tempt me 223 At Galway races 224 Reconciliation 225 No Second Troy 226 Words 227 ['My dear is angry that of late'] 228 On a certain middle-aged office holder 229 A Friend's illness 230 On George Moore 231 The Coming of Wisdom with Time 232 To a Poet, who would have me Praise certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine 233 Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation 234 The Fascination of What's Difficult 235 ['Irishmen, if they prefer'] 236 King and No King 237 A drinking song 238 On those that hated 'The Playboy of the Western World', 1907 239 A Woman Homer Sung 240 Peace 241 Against Unworthy Praise 242 These are the Clouds 243 The Mask 244 ['But every powerful life goes on its way...'] 245 Brown Penny Appendix 1: Contents of W.B. Yeats's Volumes of Poetry, 1899-1910 Appendix 2: Prefatory Material by W.B. Yeats in Collections of Poetry, 1899-1910 Index of Poems Index of First Lines

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BC1674502X
• ISBN:
  • 9781032419251
• LCCN: 2022042384
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: London
• Pages/Volumes: xxviii, 446 p.
• Size: 25 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : PR5900
  • DC23 : 821.8
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939 -- Criticism and interpretation
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA00775322