The Irish Writers: W.B. Yeats: A Biography

William Butler Yeats\r\n(1865-1939) is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth\r\ncentury. A writer of verse since his teenage years, it was the publishing of The Wanderings of Oisin (1889) that\r\nbrought him his first favourable reviews and established a reputation that was\r\nto grow and grow. His early poems are distinguished by images from the legends\r\nof Celtic mythology and by a lyrical directness and a wish to communicate with\r\nthe Irish people. His involvement in Irish nationalist politics, and his\r\nunrequited love for the revolutionary Maud Gonne, inspired the poetry of his\r\nmiddle years. His later work is bleaker, more elaborate in style and theory\r\nthan his early work, and is heavily influenced by the symbolism of the occult.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLargely responsible for founding Dublins Abbey Theatre,\r\nhome of the Irish National Theatre Society established in 1901, Yeats wrote\r\nseveral fine plays that were performed there. He was made a senator of the\r\nIrish Free State in 1922 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.\r\n\r\n\r\nAuthor David Ross\r\nhas written an engaging and accessible biography of W.B. Yeats. Given the huge\r\nrange of Yeats interests - poetry, philosophy, history, mysticism and\r\npolitics - and his eventful personal and public lives, Ross has deftly\r\ncaptured the spirit of the man and his work, relationships and beliefs.