William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. It can be difficult to characterize Yeats. He was a complicated man whose work reflected the internal struggle he felt between art and life. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and received honorary degrees from Queen's University (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1899 Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. There, he collaborated on several plays with Lady Augusta Gregory. One such play, «The Unicorn from the Stars», was first performed at the Abbey Theatre on November 23, 1907.
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure for Yeats recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. One of several dramas based on the legend of the Irish hero Cuchulain, «Dierdre» is one of Yeats' most popular one-act plays. It tells the story of Deirdre, the imaginative and otherworldly young heroine, and King Conchubar, the faithless and selfish monarch. Yeats explores themes of love, honor, deceit and self-sacrifice in this tragic but artful drama.
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. This compilation includes a vast number of works, pieces that have earned Yeats the arguable rank of the greatest poet of his time. The Collected Poetry of William Butler Yeats includes the following collections: «Lyrical»," The Rose", «The Wind Among The Reeds», «In The Seven Woods», «The Green Helmet and Other Poems», «Responsibilities», «The Wild Swans at Coole», «Michael Robartes and the Dancer», and several other poems.
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure for Yeats recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. He received honorary degrees from Queen's University (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. «The King's Threshold», first performed by the Irish National Theatre Society in 1903, referred to an Irish tradition that dates back to the 7th-8th centuries of commoners enforcing hunger strikes against people of higher status to whom they were indebted. It told the story of a bard who undergoes a hunger strike against the king.
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure the writer recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. Yeats produced a series of plays based on the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. «The Green Helmet» describes Cuchulain's return from battle, when he discovers that a friend has become indebted to the Red man for a very unusual item, a head. Written in the Noh tradition, this dramatic play marks a period of significant literary and political change for Yeats.
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. He was a complex man, who struggled between beliefs in the strange and supernatural, and scorn for modern science. He was intrigued by the idea of mysticism, yet had little regard for Christianity. His close friend, Ezra Pound, exposed Yeats to the symbolic theatre genre of Japanese Noh drama, prompting him to write «At the Hawk's Well» in 1916. The play, based on the Cuchulain legends of Irish mythology, uses Japanese-style masks and very simple sets to achieve an abstract, stylized form. The story is set by a dried up well on a barren mountainside, guarded constantly by a hawk-woman, and watched diligently by an old man who has waited fifty years to drink from its miraculous waters and the young Cuchulain who fails to heed the old man's warnings.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an instrumental figure in the «Irish Literary Revival» of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. It can be difficult to characterize Yeats. He was a complicated man whose work reflected the internal struggle he felt between art and life. In 1899 Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. «On Baile's Strand» was first performed here in 1904, as part of one of the inaugural productions. The short play is the earliest of five that Yeats wrote about the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain, a tale that dates from the ninth or tenth century. Cuchulain is being threatened by the Scottish warrior queen Aoife, who has sent her son to kill the hero. Cuchulain has sworn allegiance to King Conchubar, who orders the soldier to fight the Scottish foe. This short but deeply moving drama ends tragically, making it one of the saddest works in Irish literature.
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. He became an instrumental figure in the «Irish Literary Revival» of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. Early in life, Yeats developed a love for the green hills and lakes of Sligo, where he spent much of his early childhood. It became a figurative place he would revisit often in his literature. Features of Sligo appear throughout his 1894 play, «The Land of Heart's Desire», one of Yeats best and most well-known works. The play describes an encounter between a fairy child and newlyweds Shawn and Bridget Bruin, and explores themes of mysticism and the temporary nature of life. Yeats felt an internal struggle with the contradictions he felt in his nature and in life, and spent much of his life seeking out a philosophical system to resolve this conflict.
William Butler Yeats was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. He felt an internal struggle with the contradictions he felt in his nature and in life, and spent much of his life seeking out a philosophical system to resolve this conflict. In 1922 «The Jealousy of Emer» premiered in Amsterdam, and like many of Yeat's plays featured Japanese-style masks. The story is based on a legend from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology about Emer, the wife of the notorious soldier Cuchulain. The play picks up at the close of «On Baile's Strand», during Cuchulain's fight with the sea.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an instrumental figure in the «Irish Literary Revival» of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. His father's love of reading aloud exposed him early on to William Shakespeare, the Romantic poets and the pre-Raphaelites, and developed an interest in Irish myths and folklore. Yeats was a complex man, who struggled between beliefs in the strange and supernatural, and scorn for modern science. He was intrigued by the idea of mysticism, yet had little regard for Christianity. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and received honorary degrees from Queen's University (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. His Morality play, «The Hour Glass», appeared on stage as early as 1902, and underwent many revisions by its final version in 1922. This edition contains the prose version of that play. The story presents a Fool, a Wise Man and an Angel who sort through questions of faith, doubt and the Wise Man's unrelenting rationalism. In this edition we have Yeats' prose version of the play.