I HAVE not found it possible to revise this book as completely as I should have wished. I have corrected a bad mistake of a copyist, and added a few pages of new verses towards the end, and softened some phrases in the introduction which seemed a little petulant in form, and written in a few more to describe writers who have appeared during the last four years, and that is about all. I compiled it towards the end of a long indignant argument, carried on in the committee rooms of our literary societies, and in certain newspapers between a few writers of our new movement, who judged Irish literature by literary standards, and a number of people, a few of whom were writers, who judged it by its patriotism and by its political effect; and I hope my opinions may have value as part of an argument which may awaken again. The Young Ireland writers wrote to give the peasantry a literature in English in place of the literature they were losing with Gaelic, and these methods, which have shaped the literary thought of Ireland to our time, could not be the same as the methods of a movement which, so far as it is more than an instinctive expression of certain moods of the soul, endeavours to create a reading class among the more leisured classes, which will preoccupy itself with Ireland and the needs of Ireland. The peasants in eastern counties have their Young Ireland poetry, which is always good teaching and sometimes good poetry, and the peasants of the western counties have beautiful poems and stories in Gaelic, while our more leisured classes read little about any country, and nothing about Ireland. We cannot move these classes from an apathy, come from their separation from the land they live in, by writing about politics or about Gaelic, but we may move them by becoming men of letters and expressing primary emotions and truths in ways appropriate to this country. One carries on the traditions of Thomas Davis, towards whom our eyes must always turn, not less than the traditions of good literature, which are the morality of the man of letters, when one is content, like A.E. with fewer readers that one may follow a more hidden beauty; or when one endeavours, as I have endeavoured in this book, to separate what has literary value from what has only a patriotic and political value, no matter how sacred it has become to us.

Prefaces and Introductions, Volume VI of The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, brings together for the first time thirty-two introductions by Yeats to the works of such literary greats as William Blake, J.M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Lionel Johnson, and Rabindranath Tagore. The introductions, which span the Nobel laureate’s entire career, reflect the broad reach of Yeats’s literary and cultural interests. Always insightful and often charming, Prefaces and Introductions reveals the breadth of Yeats’s talent as essayist, critic, folklorist, and raconteur.

This volume in The Collected Edition of the Works of W.B.Yeats brings together for the first time thirty-two introductions written for anthologies that he edited or for books by other writers. The introductions span the full length of his career. Their topics range from Irish legends and folklore to the design of graceful new Irish coins. The authors he discusses include William Blake, J.M.Synge, Lady Gregory, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St John Gogarty, Lionel Johnson and Rabindranath Tagore. Full explanatory notes and an index give the reader easy access to the volume's diverse array of topics. The text is reliable and accurate.

e-artnow presents this meticulously edited and formatted W.B. Yeats collection: Volume 1: The Wind Among the Reeds The Old Age of Queen Maeve Baile and Aillinn In the Seven Woods Ballads and Lyrics The Rose The Wanderings of Oisin Volume 2: The King's Threshold On Baile's Strand Deirdre The Shadowy Waters Volume 3: The Countess Cathleen The Land of Heart's Desire The Unicorn from the Stars Volume 4: The Hour-Glass Cathleen ni Houlihan The Golden Helmet The Irish Dramatic Movement Volume 5: The Celtic Twilight Stories of Red Hanrahan Volume 6: What's 'Popular Poetry'? Speaking to the Psaltery Magic The Happiest of the Poets The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry At Stratford-on-Avon William Blake and the Imagination William Blake and His Illustrations to the 'Divine Comedy' Symbolism in Painting The Symbolism of Poetry The Theatre The Celtic Element in Literature The Autumn of the Body The Moods The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux The Return of Ulysses Ireland and the Arts The Galway Plains Emotion of Multitude Volume 7: The Secret Rose Rosa Alchemica The Tables of the Law The Adoration of the Magi John Sherman Dhoya Volume 8: Discoveries Edmund Spencer Poetry and Tradition Modern Irish Poetry Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men Mr. Synge and His Plays Lionel Johnson The Pathway