William Butler Yeats Libri

Poco più di un secolo fa, Yeats, la voce poetica più significativa del Novecento in lingua inglese, raccolse per la prima volta le favole e i racconti dei grandi scrittori irlandesi, come Thomas Crofton Croker, Lady Wilde, William Carleton e Douglas Hyde. Questi autori interpretarono e rivendicarono una tradizione narrativa popolare autonoma e vivace, permettendo a Yeats di creare una panoramica affascinante del folclore irlandese, popolato da spettri, folletti, diavoli, giganti, streghe e druidi. «La luna spuntò improvvisamente da dietro una nuvola e ci consentì di vedere, con la chiarezza con cui ora vedo il foglio che ho davanti, la figura di una donna alta e magra, a capo scoperto, con lunghi capelli che le si muovevano attorno alle spalle.» William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), poeta e drammaturgo irlandese, proveniva da un ambiente protestante colto. Autore di numerose opere teatrali, contribuì significativamente alla nascita di un sentimento e di una cultura nazionale che portarono l’Irlanda verso la liberazione dall’Inghilterra. Dopo la nascita del libero Stato irlandese, fu nominato senatore e nel 1923 ricevette il premio Nobel. Tra le sue opere più celebri si ricordano The Wild Swans at Coole, The Tower e The Winding Stairs.

A collection of over one hundred poems, plays, autobiographical and critical writings, and prose fiction by Irish author William Butler Yeats, drawn from throughout his entire career, with textual notes and a chronology of Yeats's life.

The Tower was W. B. Yeats's first major collection of poetry as Nobel Laureate after the receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of his most influential collections. The title refers to Thoor Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower that Yeats purchased in 1917 and later restored. The Tower includes some of his greatest and most innovative poems including 'Sailing to Byzantium', a lyrical meditation on man's disillusionment with the physical world; 'Leda and the Swan', a violent and graphic take on the Greek myth of Leda and Zeus and 'Among School Children', a poetic contemplation of life, love and the creative process.

From the publication of his first poems at the age of twenty, to his Nobel Prize in 1923, the author grew from an aspiring poet by the mystical life, to an Irish senator crafting modernist poetry around a complex system of symbolism. This volume proffers lush images of western Ireland full of faeries and otherworldly beings.

The present selection traces the development of Yeats's verse, encompassing the poet's interest in Irish folklore and national identity, his engagement with the political situation of his day and the rich symbolism that is the hallmark of his work and a reflection of his lifelong fascination with the occult. It contains some of his best-known pieces, including the elegiac 'Easter 1916', the apocalyptic 'The Second Coming' and the reflective and spiritual 'Sailing to Byzantium'. Often radical in content but always traditional in form, these poems are by turns startling and affecting, and never less than inspired. Taken together, they form an ideal introduction to the poetic career of one of Ireland's greatest literary figures.