The Great Poets: W.B. Yeats

Written by William Butler Yeats

Narrated by Jim Norton, Denys Hawthorne, Marcella Riordan and Nicholas Boulton

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets – represented by a collection of their most popular poems – with W. B. Yeats, one of the most loved poets of the twentieth century.

He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: Down by the Salley Gardens, The Lake Isle of Inisfree, The Secret Rose and He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.

They are read by a strong cast led by Olivier award winner Jim Norton.

©2007 Naxos Rights International; (P)2007 Naxos Rights International

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Dec 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9789629546786

William Butler Yeats

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet. Born in Sandymount, Yeats was raised between Sligo, England, and Dublin by John Butler Yeats, a prominent painter, and Susan Mary Pollexfen, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. He began writing poetry around the age of seventeen, influenced by the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but soon turned to Irish folklore and the mystical writings of William Blake for inspiration. As a young man he joined and founded several occult societies, including the Dublin Hermetic Order and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, participating in séances and rituals as well as acting as a recruiter. While these interests continued throughout Yeats’ life, the poet dedicated much of his middle years to the struggle for Irish independence. In 1904, alongside John Millington Synge, Florence Farr, the Fay brothers, and Annie Horniman, Yeats founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which opened with his play Cathleen ni Houlihan and Lady Gregory’s Spreading the News and remains Ireland’s premier venue for the dramatic arts to this day. Although he was an Irish Nationalist, and despite his work toward establishing a distinctly Irish movement in the arts, Yeats—as is evident in his poem “Easter, 1916”—struggled to identify his idealism with the sectarian violence that emerged with the Easter Rising in 1916. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, however, Yeats was appointed to the role of Senator and served two terms in the position. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and continued to write and publish poetry, philosophical and occult writings, and plays until his death in 1939.

Reviews for The Great Poets

[Kel Wheeldon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very well-narrated collection of thirty-two of Yeat's best works.

The collection spans his fifty year long career as a poet with several of the poems proceeded by a short, informative commentary that helps to place the poem into context.

My only criticism of this particular collection is that it doesn't include my favourite Yeat's poem - The Stolen Child.

You can view the track listings via the Naxos AudioBooks website.