William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is one of the greatest of all Irish poets. His first collection, Crossways, appeared in 1889 when he was still in his mid-twenties, and his early poetry bore the clear influence of Romanticism. As his career developed and literary innovations came with modernism in the early […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Divided into six parts, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ is, along with ‘Easter 1916’, probably W. B. Yeats’s best-known political poem. It is also among his longer and more ambitious works. In this post, we’ll offer a summary and analysis of the poem, taking it […]
What connects Marianne Faithfull, the actress Emma Thompson, the German electronic group Tangerine Dream, and the British comedian and quiz host, Alexander Armstrong? The answer is that they have all recorded musical settings of ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, one of W. B. Yeats’s great early poems. ‘Down by the […]
As the title of this short Yeats poem makes clear, the great Irish poet W. B. Yeats offers the would-be lover some advice: don’t dive headlong into love or infatuation, for your beloved won’t thank you for it: never give all the heart. It’s best to keep a little passion […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ by W. H. Auden (1907-73) was written in 1939, following the death of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats in January of that year.