The Poems of W.B. Yeats: Volume Three: 1899-1910

This edition of W.B. Yeats' poetry presents his complete verse, including unpublished works, with extensive commentary and textual variants. It highlights the poet's efforts to re-fashion his style in the early twentieth century, exploring radical re-imagining of poetic narrative, symbolist drama-poetry, and lyric poems. The volume also examines the evolving complexities of Yeats' personal and political lives, demonstrating how the poetry feeds upon and transcends its circumstances. It is considered a crucial decade in his poetic life, marking the creation of new registers and dimensions for his imaginative vision.

Format: Hardback
Length: 446 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

In this comprehensive multi-volume edition, the poetry of W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) is presented in its entirety, featuring newly established texts and extensive, in-depth commentary. Yeats embarked on his poetic journey in the nineteenth century, and over time, he meticulously revised and rearranged both his texts and canon. This edition presents all of Yeats' verse, both published and unpublished, including a generous selection of textual variants from various manuscript and printed sources. Moreover, it offers the most comprehensive commentary on Yeats' poetry to date, elucidating specific references and contextualizing poems within their historical and literary contexts. The poems are arranged in chronological order of composition, and significant revisions or rewritings of poems result in separate inclusions (in chronological sequence) for these subsequent reconceptions by the poet.

In this third volume, Yeats' poetry from the first decade of the twentieth century takes center stage, showcasing his relentless pursuit to re-fashion a style that had already established him as a renowned poet. During these years, Yeats subjected all the major modes in his earlier work to radical re-imagining, from poetic narratives rooted in Irish myth, as seen in poems like "Baile and Aillinn" and "The Old Age of Queen Maeve," to the symbolist drama-poetry of "The Shadowy Waters," which is presented here in its two distinct versions of 1900 and 1906. As the theatre remained one of Yeats' primary concerns during this decade, his lyric poems, which were gradually becoming more personal in nature, began to explore new depths of conversational pitch and mythic resonance. Examples of such poems include "The Folly of Being Comforted," which delves into the complexities of human emotions, and "Adams C.," a poignant reflection on mortality and the passage of time.

Through this comprehensive edition, readers gain a deeper understanding of W.B. Yeats' poetic evolution and the profound impact he had on the literary world. The meticulous attention to detail and the extensive commentary provide a rich tapestry of insights into the themes, motifs, and artistic choices that shaped his poetic oeuvre. Whether one is an avid poetry enthusiast or a scholar seeking to explore the rich legacy of Yeats, this edition serves as a valuable resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike.

Weight: 808g
Dimension: 162 x 241 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032419251