The Cambridge Companion To W B Yeats

A comprehensive and accessible introduction to the major themes of this important poet's life and career.

This accessible and thought-provoking Companion is designed to help students experience the pleasures and challenges offered by one of the twentieth century's greatest poets. A team of international contributors examine Yeats's poetry, drama and prose in their historical and national contexts. The essays explain and synthesise major aspects and themes of his life and work: his lifelong engagement with Ireland, his complicated relationship to the English literary tradition, his literary, social, and political criticism and the evolution of his complex spiritual and religious sense. First-time readers of Yeats as well as more advanced scholars will welcome this comprehensive account of Yeats's career with its useful chronological outline and survey of the most important trends in Yeats scholarship. Taken as a whole, this Companion comprises an essential introduction for students and teachers of Yeats.

This accessible and thought-provoking Companion is designed to help students experience the pleasures and challenges offered by one of the twentieth century's greatest poets. A team of international contributors examine Yeats's poetry, drama and prose in their historical and national contexts. The essays explain and synthesise major aspects and themes of his life and work: his lifelong engagement with Ireland, his complicated relationship to the English literary tradition, his literary, social, and political criticism and the evolution of his complex spiritual and religious sense. First-time readers of Yeats as well as more advanced scholars will welcome this comprehensive account of Yeats's career with its useful chronological outline and survey of the most important trends in Yeats scholarship. Taken as a whole, this Companion comprises an essential introduction for students and teachers of Yeats.

The last century was characterised by an extraordinary flowering of the art of poetry in Britain. These specially commissioned essays by some of the most highly regarded poetry critics offer a stimulating and reliable overview of English poetry of the twentieth century. The opening section on contexts will both orientate readers relatively new to the field and provide provocative syntheses for those already familiar with it. Following the terms introduced by this section, individual chapters cover many ways of looking at the 'modern', the 'modernist' and the 'postmodern'. The core of the volume is made up of extensive discussions of individual poets, from W. B. Yeats and W. H. Auden to contemporary poets such as Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy. In its coverage of the development, themes and contexts of modern poetry, this Companion is the most useful guide available for students, lecturers and readers.

A fresh, accessible and authoritative study that conveys the richness and diversity of Irish poets, their lives and times.

Contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Yeats's Life; A Brief Outline of Irish History; A Note on the Text; A Note on the Spelling of Gaelic Names; General Commentary; Brief Notes on Style and Metre; Symbolism: The DanceróThe SwanóThe ToweróThe Gyre; Magic, Myth and Legend; Nationalism and Politics; The Poet's Vision; History and Civilization; People; Places; Summaries; Summaries and Commentaries on Single Poems and Summaries of the Poetry Collections 1889-1939 as listed in Collected Poems; Suggestions for Further Reading; Title Index of Poems Summarized; Index of First Lines of Poems Summarized; General Index.

This introduction to one of the twentieth century's most important writers examines Yeats's poems, plays and stories in relation to biographical, literary, and historical contexts. While using this introduction, students will have instant access to the essential facts about his life and literary career and suggestions for further reading.