A Poet to His Beloved: The Early Love Poems of W.B. Yeats
As a young man, William Butler Yeats was deeply affected by the idea of romantic love, or, as he called it, "the old high way of love." Characteristically, much of his early poetry that which was written prior to 1910, is poetry that belongs to courtship. When Yeats was twenty-three years old, he met and fell in love with the beautiful Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne. Although she repeatedly refused to marry Yeats, Maud would become the object of his passion and his poetry. The emotional power in many of Yeats' early poems is shaped by the one-sidedness of his affair with Maud, but the poems themselves remain hopeful and bitter-sweet, pure in their language and attitudes about love. The forty-one poems collected in A Poet to his Beloved represent some of Yeats's most evocative and passionate early love poems. These versed are simple, lyrical, and often dreamy, and they speak knowingly of innocence and beauty, passion and desire, devotion and the fear of rejection.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0312619863
ISBN13:9780312619862
Release Date:January 2007
Publisher:St. Martin's Press
Length:65 Pages
Weight:0.46 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.4" x 7.3"
Related Subjects
Education & Reference Irish Literature & Fiction Love Poems Poetry World LiteratureCustomer Reviews
2 ratings
Love in the air
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
Beautiful book of love. Would make a great Valentine gift or to wow the one you love
A dark and brooding kind of love
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
I purchased this slim little hardcover volume as a romantic gift on St. Valentine's day. Its attractive Victorian styled jacket, and artificially yellowed pages, along with the eye-catching, if poorly reproduced, artwork scattered throughout, seemed just the thing to set my love's literary heart on fire. I should, perhaps, have read the very brief introduction prior to purchase. Yeats seems to have had a rather severe case of youthful angst, being rejected by Maud Gonne, a local beauty, it would seem. The poetry, pretty much all 41 poems, while beautiful, lyrical and emotionally-charged, is that of a young man of unrequited passions. If you are looking for the bittersweet emotions of love, the sorrows of love never gained, the pleading heart that doesn't know if love is heaven or hell and the poet who wishes his lover dead or in his arms, you have the right book at hand. While this is a fine example of romantic poetry, if you're looking to cheer up your own lover, you may want to steer clear of this book and get flowers or chocolate instead. That said, it's a very pretty little book and if you're feeling unlucky at love, this may resonate with the inner turmoil roiling in your soul.
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