W. B. Yeats
Author
Language
English
Description
Sometimes when I remember a relative that I have been fond of, or a strange incident of the past, I wander here and there till I have somebody to talk to. Presently I notice that my listener is bored; but now that I have written it out, I may even begin to forget it all. In any case, because one can always close a book, my friend need not be bored.
Author
Language
English
Description
Yeats combined his idiosyncratic symbolism with echoes of Japan's noh drama, attempting to create a new kind of theater. This 1921 collection comprises 1919's celebrated Two Plays for Dancers (The Only Jealousy of Emer and The Dreaming of the Bones) as well as At the Hawk's Well and Calvary.
Author
Language
English
Description
If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
Whether to look upon your monument
(I wonder if the builder has been paid)
Or happier thoughted when the day is spent
To drink of that salt breath out of the sea
When grey gulls flit about instead of men,
And the gaunt houses put on majesty:
Let these content you and be gone again;
For they are at their old tricks yet.
Author
Language
English
Description
When I wrote the essay on Edmund Spenser the company of Irish players who have now their stage at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin had been founded, but gave as yet few performances in a twelvemonth. I could let my thought stray where it would, and even give a couple of summers to The Faerie Queene; while for some ten years now I have written little verse and no prose that did not arise out of some need of those players or some thought suggested by their...
Author
Language
English
Description
The stage is any bare place in a room close to the wall. A screen with a pattern of mountain and sky can stand against the wall, or a curtain with a like pattern hang upon it, but the pattern must only symbolize or suggest. One musician enters and then two others, the first stands singing while the others take their places. Then all three sit down against the wall by their instruments, which are already there-a drum, a zither, and a flute. Or they...
46) The Tower
Author
Language
English
Description
The Irish Nobel Prize–winning poet meditates on life, age, and reality in this most-famous collection of his work.
Originally published in 1928, The Tower is W. B. Yeats's first collection of poetry as a Nobel Laureate. It features some of his most famous work and cemented his reputation as one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century.
The poems cover themes of life and the physical world, reality and myth, and love. They include...
Author
Language
English
Description
"The Dreaming of the Bones" was first published in 1919 and performed in 1931, it was one of the plays that comprised Yeats' "Four Plays for Dancers." Written in the Japanese Noh tradition, performed with masks, the play reflects on a belief that the dead may dream back.
49) The Green Helmet
Author
Language
English
Description
Yeats produced a series of plays based on the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. "The Green Helmet" describes Cuchulain's return from battle, when he discovers that a friend has become indebted to the Red man for a very unusual item, a head. Written in the Noh tradition, this dramatic play marks a period of significant literary and political change for Yeats.
Author
Language
English
Description
I have found in an old diary a quotation from Stephane Mallarmé, saying that the trembling of the veil of the Temple troubled his epoch. As those words were still true, during the years of my life described in this book, I have chosen The Trembling of the Veil for its title. Except in one or two trivial details, where I have the warrant of old friendship, I have not, without permission, quoted conversation or described occurrence from the private...
Author
Language
English
Description
"The Hour Glass," appeared on stage as early as 1902, and underwent many revisions by its final version in 1922. This edition contains the prose version of that play. The story presents a Fool, a Wise Man and an Angel who sort through questions of faith, doubt and the Wise Man's unrelenting rationalism. In this edition we have Yeats' prose version of the play.
Author
Language
English
Description
The first volume of "Plays for an Irish Theatre" contains W.B. Yeats' play in five acts "Where There is Nothing." This marvelous play will appeal to all lovers of the English language, and especially those with an interest in the work of Yeats' and Irish literature in general.
53) The Pot of Broth
Author
Language
English
Description
In 1899, Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. He and Lady Augusta Gregory, another of the theatre's founders, collaborated on a few short plays during those first experimental years at the theatre. One such play, "The Pot of Broth", is a "peasant" farce that tells the story of a gullible peasant woman, convinced by a tramp that dropping a magic stone into hot water will make...
Author
Language
English
Description
Yeats's Morality play, "The Hour Glass," appeared on stage as early as 1902, and underwent many revisions by its final version in 1922. The story presents a Fool, a Wise Man and an Angel who sort through questions of faith, doubt and the Wise Man's unrelenting rationalism. In this edition we have Yeats' verse version of the play.
Author
Language
English
Description
"On Baile's Strand" was first performed here in 1904, as part of one of the inaugural productions. The short play is the earliest of five that Yeats wrote about the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. Cuchulain is being threatened by the Scottish warrior queen Aoife, who has sent her son to kill the hero. Cuchulain has sworn allegiance to King Conchubar, who orders the soldier to fight the Scottish foe....
Author
Language
English
Description
You will remember that afternoon in Calvados last summer when your black Persian 'Minoulooshe,' who had walked behind us for a good mile, heard a wing flutter in a bramble-bush? For a long time we called her endearing names in vain. She seemed resolute to spend her night among the brambles. She had interrupted a conversation, often interrupted before, upon certain thoughts so long habitual that I may be permitted to call them my convictions. When...
58) The Player Queen
Author
Language
English
Description
In this volume we find one of Yeats' lesser-known works, "The Player Queen".
Author
Publisher
Andrii Ponomarenko
Pub. Date
2023
Language
English
Description
The Classic Collection of W. B. Yeats presents a comprehensive anthology of the renowned Irish poet's literary works, spanning folk tales, poems, and essays. With themes deeply rooted in Irish culture and folklore, Yeats explores mysticism, love, and societal reflection through his evocative and profound writing. This compilation showcases the depth and diversity of Yeats' creative vision, making it an essential addition to the literary heritage of...
Author
Language
English
Description
William Butler Yeats was prompted to write "At the Hawk's Well" in 1916, after his close friend, Ezra Pound, exposed him to the symbolic theatre genre of Japanese Noh drama. The play, based on the Cuchulain legends of Irish mythology, uses Japanese-style masks and very simple sets to achieve an abstract, stylized form. The story is set by a dried up well on a barren mountainside, guarded constantly by a hawk-woman, and watched diligently by an old...