The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 8 (of 8) / Discoveries. Edmund Spenser. Poetry and Tradition; and / Other Essays. Bibliography William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).

Examines the life and writings of William Butler Yeats, including a biographical sketch, detailed synopses of his works, social and historical influences, and more.

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.

The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume IV: Early Essays is part of a fourteen-volume series under the general editorship of eminent Yeats scholars George Bornstein and George Mills Harper. These volumes include virtually all of the Nobel laureate's published work, in authoritative texts with extensive explanatory notes. Early Essays, edited by the internationally esteemed Yeats scholars George Bornstein and the late Richard J. Finneran, includes the contents of the two most important collections of Yeats's critical prose, Ideas of Good and Evil(1903) and The Cutting of an Agate(1912, 1919). Among the seminal essays are considerations of Blake, Shakespeare, Shelley, Spenser, and Synge, as well as an extended discussion of the Japanese Noh theatre. The first scholarly edition of these materials, Early Essays offers a corrected text and detailed annotation of all allusions. Several appendices gather materials from early printings which were later excluded, as well as illuminating black-and-white illustrations. Early Essays is an essential sourcebook for understanding Yeats's career as both writer and literary critic, and for the development of modern poetry and criticism. Here, Yeats works out many of his key ideas on poetry, politics, and the theater. He gives interpretations of writers critical to his development and presents a compelling vision of Ireland and the modern world during the last decade of the nineteenth century and first two decades of the twentieth. As T. S. Eliot remarked, Yeats "was one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them." This volume displays a crucial part of that history.

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.