The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats [Hardcover]

W.B. Yeats (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Macmillan; Later prt. edition (1967)
• ASIN: B000I1JN0O
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,232,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good edition of a great poet, October 4, 2002

By 

Russ Mayes (Glen Allen, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (Paperback)

There isn't much question whether Yeats was a great poet, just where on the all time great list he falls. Whether you call him the greatest poet of the 20th century, or the greatest since Wordsworth, Milton or Shakespeare, his accomplishments are clear.

Beyond that, why should anyone buy this edition as opposed to any of the other available? First, the collected poems gives you a sense of his development and interests, not just the highlights of his greates poems. Second, and more importantly, this edition is well-annotated. The notes are thorough without being unduly interpretive--they tell you what an allusion refers to, not how it affects the meaning of the poem. The notes aim to be useful to any reader, regardless of background. As a result, western readers will come across odd sounding notes such as "Jesus Christ is the founder of Christianity" or "Hamlet is the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name." Still, you'll be thankful for such prosaic entries as they explain Irish myth and locate historical allusions. All in all, it's an edition that belongs on any poetry lover's shelf.

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars magnificent poems on cheap paper, October 23, 2005

By 

Barnaby Thieme (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (Paperback)

I trust it goes without saying that William Butler Yeats is one of the greatest English-language poets of all time. This volume contains his entire body of verse, and is a magnificent treasure trove that will delight and stun the reader for decades.

I give two stars to the cheap materials used to create this masterpiece. I literally had this book out of the Amazon box for a matter of hours before the cover started to curl of its own accord, as though possessed by a poetry-hating demon. The paper is low-grade and coarse, with an unappealing brownish tinge.

Despite my love of Yeats, I find that I unconsciously tend to keep this book on the shelf just to keep its ugliness out of site, and I am by no means an aesthete. If you can find a slightly nicer version, it is worth paying a little extra.

67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A strange, deceptive beauty, August 11, 2000

By 

An Mhuruch (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats (Paperback)

When I first started reading Yeats, I was very interested in Old Irish myths. Perhaps more importantly, I was also younger and more romantically inclined than I am nowadays. His early poetry seemed to possess an airy beauty, sweet in the best sense of the word and reminiscent of his contemporary Tagore. I felt bewitched.

Some time later, I read his poems again and felt deceived. They were whimsical, immature, unfinished. I could not understand why he was so highly praised. Whenever somebody told me he/she liked Yeats, I felt an embarrassment. I wondered if I had failed Yeats or if he was the deceiver.

However, when I approached him for the third time, I had a strange experience I can only compare with reading Nietzsche. I read a line or two, they seem too simple and crude. I read them a second time, they become opaque. A third time, they yield and I feel as if playing with a caleidoscope. Now at least I am wiser; I know I will be profoundly touched, annoyed and bored in turns, but I also know I will always return to Yeats, because a quarrel with him is better than a constant love for another poet.