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joanna_m's review against another edition
3.0
Not very keen on the selection of poems (No 'Lake Isle of Innisfree') and rather unhelpful and erratic notes.
bookdragon_jess's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.0
beautyistruth's review against another edition
3.0
I feel so guilty because I want to like Yeats but while there are one or two amazing poems, like 'Leda and the Swan' and 'An Irish Airman Forsees His Death', or one or two that are very interesting and strikingly expressed, like 'The Second Coming' or 'The Circus Animal's Desertion', overall, I find Yeats boring a lot of the time and a bit repugnant for his conservative nature, such as his nationalism.
I found it hard to concentrate and understand a lot of his poems and I didn't really come away feeling like he'd deeply touched me and got to my heart (like Paul Verlaine) or said something amazing (like Baudelaire). Maybe I just expected more of this poet that is so routinely hailed as one of the greatest, in this English-language country, and I need to go back and spend more time with his poetry. Well, I see it; I just don't feel or think it.
I found it hard to concentrate and understand a lot of his poems and I didn't really come away feeling like he'd deeply touched me and got to my heart (like Paul Verlaine) or said something amazing (like Baudelaire). Maybe I just expected more of this poet that is so routinely hailed as one of the greatest, in this English-language country, and I need to go back and spend more time with his poetry. Well, I see it; I just don't feel or think it.
christineunabridged's review against another edition
3.0
Some of his poems he truly caught the emotions of the the situations, while others just seemed like flowery words written by someone who had never experienced the very thing he was writing about. I guess that probably goes for most poets.
littlepanda's review against another edition
4.0
Very beautiful poems. I don't think I got all the reference to the folklore but it was still comprehensible. I enjoyed reading free verses as Yeats wrote them, it varies from poem to poem and its stunning to see the results.