W.B. Yeats

'But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet...' By turns joyful and despairing, some of the twentieth century's greatest verse on fleeting youth, fervent hopes and futile sacrifice.

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.

Autobiographies consists of six autobiographical works that William Butler Yeats published together in the mid-1930s to form a single, extraordinary memoir of the first fifty-eight years of his life, from his earliest memories of childhood to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This volume provides a vivid series of personal accounts of a wide range of figures, and it describes Yeats's work as poet and playwright, as a founder of Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre, his involvement with Irish nationalism, and his fascination with occultism and visions. This book is most compelling as Yeats's own account of the growth of his poetic imagination. Yeats thought that a poet leads a life of allegory, and that his works are comments upon it. Autobiographies enacts his ruling belief in the connections and coherence between the life that he led and the works that he wrote. It is a vision of personal history as art, and so it is the one truly essential companion to his poems and plays. Edited by William H. O'Donnell and Douglas N. Archibald, this volume is available for the first time with invaluable explanatory notes and includes previously unpublished passages from candidly explicit first drafts.

1924. The Cat and the Moon; Youth and Age; Leda and the Swan; Meditations in Time of Civil War-Ancestral Houses, My House, My Table, My Descendants, The Road at My Door, Stare's Nest by My Window, I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Empires; Gift of Harun-al-Rashid; Lover Speaks; Heart Replies; Notes.

Sylvia Plath died in 1963, and even now her outsize persona threatens to bury her poetry--the numerous biographies and studies often drawing the reader toward anecdote and away from the work. It's a relief to turn to the poems themselves and once more be jolted by their strange beauty, hard-wrought originality, and acetylene anger. "It is a heart, This holocaust I walk in, O golden child the world will kill and eat." While the juvenilia and poems written before 1960 that Ted Hughes has included here prefigure Plath's later obsessions, they also enable us to witness her turn from thesaurus-heavy verse to stripped-down art as they gather power through raw simplicity. "The blood jet is poetry. There is no stopping it," she declares in "Kindness."

This anthology of Yeats's work encompasses his 14 books of lyrical poems, as well as his narrative and dramatic poetry. It covers his early symbolist period and the complex, visionary work of his later years. There is also an incorporation of the final revisions Yeats made just before his death.

A collection of 15 of Yeats' most famous poems, including ""Easter, 1916" and "The Second Coming." "Easter, 1916" chronicles Yeats' complicated feelings on the execution of Irish patriots of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin. "The Second Coming" is viewed as a prophetic poem that envisions the close of the Christian epoch and the violent birth of a new age. The poem's title makes reference to the Biblical reappearance of Christ, prophesied in Matthew 24 and the Revelations of St. John, which according to Christianity, will accompany the Apocalypse and divine Last Judgment. Other symbols in the poem are drawn from mythology, the occult, and Yeats's view of history as defined in his cryptic prose volume A Vision. The principal figure of the work is a sphinx-like creature with a lion's body and man's head, a "rough beast" awakened in the desert that makes its way to Christ's birthplace, Bethlehem.

The classic introduction to Ireland's folklore--the only edition approved by the Yeats estate--this treasury of the greatest and most representative Irish folk and fairy tales grandly brings to life the sounds, the feel, and the magic of Ireland and its people. 416 pp.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

-- Nobel Prize winning writer and poet W.B. Yeats included almost every sort of Irish folk in this marvelous compendium of fairy tales and songs that he collected and edited for publication in 1892.-- Yeats was fascinated by Irish myths and folklore, and joined forces with the writers of the Irish Literary Revival. He studied Irish folk tales and chose to reintroduce the glory and significance of Ireland's past through this unique literature.

Poco più di un secolo fa Yeats, la maggiore voce poetica di lingua inglese del Novecento, riuniva per la prima volta nelle raccolte Fiabe e racconti delle campagne irlandesi (1888) e Fiabe irlandesi (1892) le favole e i racconti dei più grandi scrittori del suo Paese, tra cui Thomas Crofton Crocker, Lady Wilde (madre di Oscar), William Carleton, Douglas Hyde. Grazie agli scritti di questi autori, che seppero ben interpretare e rivendicare la validità di una tradizione narrativa popolare autonoma e vivace, Yeats realizzò una splendida panoramica del folclore irlandese, popolato da spettri, folletti, diavoli, giganti, streghe, druidi...

A collection of works by some of Ireland's greatest writers includes Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, J. M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World, and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

From the Great Poets series--exquisite small-format collections of classic poetry enhanced by full-color reproductions of period art, and readable, scholarly introductions. 12 full-color illustrations.

Cuchulain of MuirthemneThe story of the men of the Red Branch of Ulster;Arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory.[Lady Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory, 1859-1932]With a preface by W.B. Yeats.Illustrated with 10 unique illustrations.

"Come ogni artista, ho desiderato creare un piccolo mondo dalle cose amabili, belle, essenziali di questo mondo imperfetto e informe, e offrire così una visione del volto dell'Irlanda a quelli della mia gente che accettino di volgere lo sguardo dove io indico. Per questo ho trascritto con cura e candore gran parte di quel che ho udito e visto non aggiungendo altro che fosse frutto della mia immaginazione, se non sotto la veste del commento. Non mi sono comunque preso cura alcuna di distinguere tra le mie credenze e quelle popolari, ma ho piuttosto lasciato che i miei uomini e le mie donne, i folletti e gli esseri fatati, continuassero ad andare per la loro strada senza essere toccati né da critica né da difesa. Le cose che un uomo ha udito e visto sono i fili che intessono la vita, e se questi li districa delicatamente dall'aggrovigliata conocchia della memoria, chiunque lo desideri può intesserli e rivestirne le idee che più gli aggradano. Anch'io mi sono tessuto il mio abito, così come altri, e cercherò di tenermici caldo, ben felice se non mi farà sfigurare" (William Butler Yeats).

-- Nobel Prize winning writer and poet W.B. Yeats included almost every sort of Irish folk in this marvelous compendium of fairy tales and songs that he collected and edited for publication in 1892.-- Yeats was fascinated by Irish myths and folklore, and joined forces with the writers of the Irish Literary Revival. He studied Irish folk tales and chose to reintroduce the glory and significance of Ireland's past through this unique literature.

Irish Fairy Tales. William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

A classic collection of Irish fairy tales and lore by Nobel Peace Prize-winning author and poet W. B. Yeats Originally published as two separate volumes in 1800s, this premier collection of Irish stories edited and compiled W. B. Yeats is the perfect gift for any lover of Irish literature and folklore. The lyrical prose and rich cultural heritage of each tale will captivate and enchant readers of all ages and keep them entertained for hours on end. This volume contains more than seventy classic Irish stories, including timeless characters and mythology passed down for generations such as: The Trooping Fairies Changelings Tir-na-n-óg The Lepracaun The Kildare Pooka How Thomas Connolly met the Banshee And many more!  

Bir taraftan Katolik ve Protestan fanatizmi diğer taraftan da Birleşik Krallık'ın yoksullaştırdığı İrlanda'nın isyanı. Bu kurmacanın izleğinde insanların periler, cinler, su atları ve her türden düşsel varlıkla bir arada yaşadığı o kozmik bütünün azameti var. Halk sanatını düşünce aristokrasilerinin en eskisi olarak gördüğünü vurgulayan Yeats, geçmişin köklerinden devşirdiği bir esenlik ve yaşam tasarımıyla görünür gerçeğin sıradanlığına direniyor.

« Nous serions vite loin de la rose et du lys et de la turbulence des flammes, Si nous n’étions que de blancs oiseaux, mon amour, portés sur l’écume de la mer ! » William Butler Yeats est considéré comme le plus grand poète irlandais du XXe siècle. Les poèmes qui constituent cette anthologie illustrent la prodigieuse capacité de renouvellement de son œuvre : depuis les premiers vers de jeunesse, proches du romantisme et imprégnés du folklore irlandais, jusqu’à ceux de l’âge mûr résolument tournés vers la modernité. Né en 1865, William Butler Yeats publie son premier recueil de poèmes en 1889. Fondateur de l'lrish National Theatre Society en 1901, il participe à la création du célèbre Abbey Theatre de Dublin. Il est nommé sénateur de l'État libre d’Irlande en 1922 et reçoit le Prix Nobel de littérature en 1923. Il meurt en 1939. Il est l’auteur d’une œuvre riche et variée, traduite dans de nombreux pays.

Published during the blossoming of Yeats's maturity, between The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) and The Tower (1928), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1920) includes poems that confronted central political, personal, and philosophical issues. This volume presents all the extant manuscripts for the poems in the collection, which Yeats wrote between 1914 and 1919, a critical period that included his marriage.

Hadas, demonios, hechizos y fantasmas pueblan los mitos celtas, las leyendas e historias que Yeats, en su empeño por recuperar la impronta cultural irlandesa, recogió en diferentes libros y recopiló bajo el título "Mitologías". A estas historias se suma una serie de ensayos del autor sobre su experiencia con lo sobrenatural. Todo ello conforma un bello intento de captar la esencia de la tradición espiritual de Irlanda."Unos textos repletos de imaginación, fantasía y espiritualidad, donde el panteísmo y lo sobrenatural son consustanciales al individuo”.César Antonio Molina, ABC"En «El crepúsculo celta» Yeats camina alrededor del monte Ben Bulben de Sligo para que los campesinos le cuenten historias. Son anécdotas del folclore gaélico que para Yeats tienen la nobleza de la aristocracia del pensamiento, que tendrán su continuación en «La rosa secreta», «Historias de Hanrahan el Rojo» y «La rosa alquímica, las tablas de la ley y la adoración de los magos», todos de 1897. Mención aparte merecería «Per arnica silentia lunae» (1917), una joya ensayística donde aparece, en su plenitud, la visión poética del autor dublinés”.Toni Montesinos, La Razón

This brand new collection, impeccably edited by James Pethica, presents a comprehensive selection of Yeats's major contributions in poetry, drama, prose fiction, autobiography, and criticism."Criticism" includes twenty-four interpretive essays by T. S. Eliot, Daniel Albright, Douglas Archibald, Harold Bloom, George Bornstein, Elizabeth Cullingford, Paul de Man, Richard Ellman, R. F. Foster, Stephen Gwynn, Seamus Heaney, Marjorie Howes, John Kelly, Declan Kiberd, Lucy McDiarmid, Michael North, Thomas Parkinson, Marjorie Perloff, James Pethica, Jahan Ramazani, Ronald Schuchard, Michael J. Sidnell, Anita Sokolsky, and Helen Vendler. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

In Yeats si riconosce ormai la maggior voce poetica di lingua inglese degli ultimi cento anni- e v'è chi è pronto ad estendere il confine temporale addirittura a trecento anni, rispettando solo la grandezza di un Shakespeare, di un Milton, di un John Donne. La sua poesia, anche al di là delle sue singolarissime qualità formali, ci rende la figura intera dell'Uomo, il suo costante tormento dovuto alla coscienza della sua inadeguatezza, e insieme la sua gioia di vivere appunto in questa condizione imperfetta. È in ciò la sua grandezza.

For those who are familiar with Yeats' poetry, particulary his beloved early poems like "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," reading "Rosa Alchemica" is an experience of joy. Called by critics his best work of fiction, "Rosa Alchemica" incorporates not only the lush language and imagery of early Yeats, but also his personal interests: Irish culture, myth and legend, and his lifelong membership in the society of the Golden Dawn, a secret society that believed it could practice magic. Yeats believed that "poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves."

Volumul de față cuprinde: ciclurile de povestiri Istorisirile lui Hanrahan cel roșu și Roza tainică, precum și textele oculte Rosa Alchemica, Tablele legilor, Adorația magilor. În alcătuirea prezentei ediții s-a consultat: W.B. Yeats, Mythologies, 1959 Eroii din povestirile lui W. B. Yeats sunt trubaduri, zâne, apariţii fantastice care traversează întreaga mitologie celtică: Hanrahan cel Roşu, menestrel care ştie cântece străvechi, iubita mitică, Oona, pe care o pierde mândrul Costello, bătrânul cavaler al Sfântului Ioan, înţeleptul rege căruia îi cresc în păr penele Vulturului Cenuşiu sau cei trei magi. Sunt şi personaje obişnuite, parte din universul domestic al lumii irlandeze, precum proscrisul care ajunge să fie răstignit pentru că le reproşează călugărilor proasta găzduire. În Rosa Alchemica, un tânăr încearcă să se salveze de fascinaţia pe care o are faţă de ritualurile secrete şi tainele alchimiştilor, dar participarea la o astfel de ceremonie îi deschide de fapt calea de acces către un adevăr esenţial, marcându-i definitiv existenţa. Fie că e vorba despre textele aşa-numit oculte sau despre reinterpretări ale legendelor irlandeze, acelaşi aer de mister şi aceleaşi ritmuri străvechi răzbat din povestirile lui W.B. Yeats.

Ireland's greatest and most influential poet. Yeats's early poems reveal his interest in myth and fairy tale, his hopeless passion for beautiful revolutionary Maud Gonne, and his concern with the violent, tragic politics of Ireland. Later he turned to a vision of perfect, idealized beauty and wrote with wit and lyricism of the tension between the ageing body and the force of the mind. Yeats described himself as one of the last romantics. His poems are filled with exhilirating energy and teasing, wondrous images.

W.B. Yeats's Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Timothy Webb in Penguin Modern Classics. Few have lived their ideas so passionately and nobly as W.B. Yeats in his love affairs, politics and poetry. From his youth in the 1880s, a fertile dreamer rediscovering and remaking the Irish tradition, he grew into a great and innovative poet of the twentieth century. This selection of Yeats's work includes the final book from the unjustly neglected narrative poem The Wanderings of Oisin and a number of lyrics from Yeats's work as poetic dramatist. This edition breaks new ground by allowing the reader to engage with a dozen poems in alternative versions; in many other cases it provides significant variants, so that Yeats's struggle to revise his poetry can be experienced with unusual immediacy. It also includes explanatory and textual notes for each poem. W B Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the great and innovative poets of the twentieth century. Much of his most vigorous verse on love, sex, Irish and international politics, the complexities of the occult and the 'sedentary toil' of poetry was produced in the years between his fiftieth birthday in 1915 and his death in 1939. If you enjoyed Selected Poems, you might like The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, also available in Penguin Classics. 'A compelling poetic presence ... together with Joyce, Yeats made modern Irish poetry possible' Timothy Webb

Since its first appearance in 1962, M. L. Rosenthal's classic selection of Yeats's poems and plays has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers. This newly revised edition includes 211 poems and 4 plays. It adds The Words Upon the Window-Pane, one of Yeats's most startling dramatic works in its realistic use of a seance as the setting for an eerily powerful reenactment of Jonathan Swift's rigorous idealism, baffling love relationships, and tragic madness. The collection profits from recent scholarship that has helped to establish Yeats's most reliable texts, in the order set by the poet himself. And his powerful lyrical sequences are amply represented, culminating in the selection from Last Poems and Two Plays, which reaches its climax in the brilliant poetic plays The Death of Cuchulain and Purgatory. Scholars, students, and all who delight in Yeats's varied music and sheer quality will rejoice in this expanded edition. As the introduction observes, "Early and late he has the simple, indispensable gift of enchanting the ear....He was also the poet who, while very much of his own day in Ireland, spoke best to the people of all countries. And though he plunged deep into arcane studies, his themes are most clearly the general ones of life and death, love and hate, man's condition, and history's meanings. He began as a sometimes effete post-Romantic, heir to the pre-Raphaelites, and then, quite naturally, became a leading British Symbolist; but he grew at last into the boldest, most vigorous voice of this century." Selected Poems and Four Plays represents the essential achievement of the greatest twentieth-century poet to write in English.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Best known for his poetry, William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was also a dedicated exponent of Irish folklore. Yeats took a particular interest in the tales' mythic and magical roots. The Celtic Twilight ventures into the eerie and puckish world of fairies, ghosts, and spirits. "This handful of dreams," as the author referred to it, first appeared in 1893, and its title refers to the pre-dawn hours, when the Druids performed their rituals. It consists of stories recounted to the poet by his friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. Yeats' faithful transcription of their narratives includes his own visionary experiences, appended to the storytellers' words as a form of commentary.

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the entire arc of his career, from luminous reworking of ancient Irish myths and legends, to passionate meditations on the demands and rewards of youth and old age, from exquisite, occasionally whimsical songs of love, nature, and art to somber and angry poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising. In observing the development of rich and recurring images and themes over the course of his body of work, we can trace the quest of this century's greatest poet to unite intellect and artistry in a single magnificent vision. Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeat's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.

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. As a writer in nearly every genre but the novel, he was an instrumental figure in the "Irish Literary Revival" of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. 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. "The Dreaming of the Bones" was first published in 1919 and performed in 1931, it was one of the plays that comprised Yeats' "Four Plays for Dancers". Written in the Japanese Noh tradition, performed with masks, the play reflects on a belief that the dead may dream back.

Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats met in early 1889, and he first proposed to her - unsuccessfully - two years later. Some of Yeats's greatest poems chronicle his long obsession with her, among them A Woman Homer Sang, Reconciliation, and No Second Troy: What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn? We tend to see Maud Gonne through his prism--a firebrand, a great beauty, above all a political fanatic who made him suffer like mad. These letters tell a more complex tale, since the majority are hers, most of Yeats's having been destroyed. What he portrayed as extremism instead becomes deep political involvement: her letters record an endless round of meetings, protests, and good works. In addition, the concern she again and again manifests for Yeats mitigates his cries of indifference; rather, Maud Gonne emerges as steady and heroic. Even as she was preparing to marry John MacBride, she took time out to console her longtime suitor in a characteristic run-on: "Friend of mine au revoir. I shall go over to Ireland in a couple of months, if you care to see me I shall be so glad & you will find I think that I am just the same woman you have always known, marriage won't change me I think at all...." The editors declare the original letter "very crumpled and creased as if carried in Yeats's pocket and taken out and read many times."

The famous poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B. Yeats.

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was a leading figure of early 20th-century literature. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and he drew his inspiration from the Irish nationalist movement.

A collection of 15 of Yeats' most famous poems, including "The Second Coming" and "Easter, 1916." "The Second Coming" is viewed as a prophetic poem that envisions the close of the Christian epoch and the violent birth of a new age. The poem's title makes reference to the Biblical reappearance of Christ, prophesied in Matthew 24 and the Revelations of St. John, which according to Christianity, will accompany the Apocalypse and divine Last Judgment. Other symbols in the poem are drawn from mythology, the occult, and Yeats's view of history as defined in his cryptic prose volume A Vision. The principal figure of the work is a sphinx-like creature with a lion's body and man's head, a "rough beast" awakened in the desert that makes its way to Christ's birthplace, Bethlehem. Other poems in this collect include 'Easter, 1916,' which chronicles Yeats' complicated feelings on the execution of Irish patriots of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin.

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 reviews of The Cornell Yeats "For students of Yeats the whole series is bound to become an essential reference source and a stimulus to important critical re-readings of Yeats's major works. In a wider context, the series will also provide an extraordinary and perhaps unique insight into the creative process of a great artists."―Irish Literary Supplement "I consider the Cornell Yeats one of the most important scholarly projects of our time."―A. Walton Litz, Princeton University, coeditor of The Collected Poems of William Carols Williams and The Shorter Poems of Ezra Pound "The most ambitious of the many important projects in current studies of Yeats and perhaps of modern poetry generally.... The list of both general and series editors, as well as prospective preparers of individual volumes, reads like a Who's Who of Yeats textual studies in North America. Further, the project carries the blessing of Yeats's heirs and bespeaks an ongoing commitment from a major university press.... The series will inevitably engender critical studies based on a more solid footing than those of any other modern poet.... Its volumes will be consulted long after gyres of currently fashionable theory have run on."―Yeats Annual (1983) Words upon the Window Pane, first staged in 1930, is W. B. Yeats's most powerful and brilliant dramatic exploration of the occult, in which he had a lifelong interest, and an affirmation of Anglo-Irish Protestant cultural ascendancy. Written at Lady Gregory's Coole Park estate, it features a séance in which Jonathan Swift's voice is projected through a medium. Like Yeats, Swift was both politician and poet, and taking Swift as his subject allowed Yeats to cloak a political message under personal character. Quite probably based on an obscure one-act play called Swift and Stella by Charles Edward Lawrence, Lady Gregory's editor, the play is centered on a romantic triangle involving Jonathan Swift and two women, Vanessa and Stella. Yeats's use of a séance as a frame permits him to compare the present with the past by putting twentieth-century Dubliners side by side with Swift's contemporaries. This volume of the Cornell Yeats contains transcriptions and photographic reproductions of the drafts of Words upon the Window Pane, with variant readings from proofs, typescripts, and notebook entries, as well as other materials pertaining to its writing, publication, and performance.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was not only Ireland's greatest poet but one of the most influential voices in world literature in the twentieth century. His extraordinary work, in the words of this volume's editor Seamus Heaney, encourages us to be more resolutely and abundantly alive, whatever the conditions.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica Hische It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility . With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice , a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre , and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia . It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves. Y is for Yeats.  A specially compiled edition for the Penguin Drop Caps series,  When You Are Old  will include the most accessible, best-known poems by W.B. Yeats from his early years that made the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet popular in his day.  The volume will include all the major love poems written most notably for the brilliant yet elusive Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. Recalling Yeats’s 1890s fascination in  aestheticism and the arts and crafts movement, selections will draw from the first published versions of poems from works such as  Crossways ,  The Rose ,  The Wind Among the Reeds ,  In the Seven Woods ,  The Green Helmet and Other Poems ,  Responsibilities ,  The Wild Swans at Coo l e , and  Michael Robartes and the Dancer . A selection Irish myths and fairytales including “The Wanderings of Oisin,” a Celtic fable and his first major poem, represent his fascination with mysticism, spiritualism and the rich and imaginative heritage of his native land.  

The poem "Who Goes with Fergus" by William Butler Yeats.

Through his researches into Irish folklore, legend and myth, Yeats was attempting to discover a specifically Irish imagination and to create a movement in literature enriched by, and rooted in, a vital native tradition. This collection brings together all of Yeats's published prose writings on the subject, arranged in chronological order to enable the reader to perceive how Yeats's analysis develops, embracing ideas and visions of increasing psychological and philosophical complexity.