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A review by buddhafish
Selected Poems by W.B. Yeats
3.0
112th book of 2020 – officially beaten my last year total.
This is a tough one to review; there is no doubt that Yeats is a great writer (there are plenty of good lines in these poems), but after ‘living’ with Yeats for over a month, reading this on and off, a little at a time, I can say that mostly I was left unimpressed by his work. This is a large collection, with over two-hundred of his poems from his writing years, 1888-1939.
The feel of Yeats’ work is interesting, and, as I have said in previous reviews where writers are less ‘understood’ (T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, etc.), I believe that is sometimes most important. Though, Yeats didn’t bring about any sense of loss, or awe, only interest. His poems are mythical, dreamlike. Mostly, they are filled with Irish history and myth, names that have no meaning to me without further research, which sadly, I didn’t enjoy the poems enough to go and do. So, Yeats is not among my favourite poets, sadly. I did enjoy some poems more than others, of course, with a collection this large, and I found great pleasure in spotting titles of other novels in Yeats’ work. There are two, I believe, in ‘The Second Coming’: Things fall apart (being the title of Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel of the same name) and the final line of the poem: Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? - I can only presume that is Joan Didion’s famous book, [b:Slouching Towards Bethlehem|424|Slouching Towards Bethlehem|Joan Didion|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565376368l/424._SX50_.jpg|1844]. I guess Cormac’s McCarthy’s 2005 novel comes from the opening line of ‘Sailing to Byzantium: That is no country for old men. And finally, though not taken from here, I am sure, the final lines of ‘Vacillation’ reminded me of a song from my hero, idol, role-model, George Harrison: What’s the meaning of all song?/‘Let all things pass away.’
My favourite poems then, were:
- The Indian to His Love
- Ephemera
- The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
- He wishes his Beloved were Dead
- [I walked among the seven woods of Coole]
- [The friends that have it I do wrong]
- Reconciliation
- Running to Paradise (particularly: II The Peacock)
- The Second Coming
- The Tower
- Meditations in Time of Civil War
- Coole Park, 1929
- Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931
- The Curse of Cromwell
Finally, some good lines from throughout the collection to finish.
The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
*
Athena takes Achilles by the hair,
Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,
Because the hero’s crescent is the twelfth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
*
Yet little peace he had
For those that love are sad.
Let's take this opportunity to listen to 'All Things Must Pass' - It's not always going to be this grey...
This is a tough one to review; there is no doubt that Yeats is a great writer (there are plenty of good lines in these poems), but after ‘living’ with Yeats for over a month, reading this on and off, a little at a time, I can say that mostly I was left unimpressed by his work. This is a large collection, with over two-hundred of his poems from his writing years, 1888-1939.
The feel of Yeats’ work is interesting, and, as I have said in previous reviews where writers are less ‘understood’ (T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, etc.), I believe that is sometimes most important. Though, Yeats didn’t bring about any sense of loss, or awe, only interest. His poems are mythical, dreamlike. Mostly, they are filled with Irish history and myth, names that have no meaning to me without further research, which sadly, I didn’t enjoy the poems enough to go and do. So, Yeats is not among my favourite poets, sadly. I did enjoy some poems more than others, of course, with a collection this large, and I found great pleasure in spotting titles of other novels in Yeats’ work. There are two, I believe, in ‘The Second Coming’: Things fall apart (being the title of Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel of the same name) and the final line of the poem: Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? - I can only presume that is Joan Didion’s famous book, [b:Slouching Towards Bethlehem|424|Slouching Towards Bethlehem|Joan Didion|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565376368l/424._SX50_.jpg|1844]. I guess Cormac’s McCarthy’s 2005 novel comes from the opening line of ‘Sailing to Byzantium: That is no country for old men. And finally, though not taken from here, I am sure, the final lines of ‘Vacillation’ reminded me of a song from my hero, idol, role-model, George Harrison: What’s the meaning of all song?/‘Let all things pass away.’
My favourite poems then, were:
- The Indian to His Love
- Ephemera
- The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
- He wishes his Beloved were Dead
- [I walked among the seven woods of Coole]
- [The friends that have it I do wrong]
- Reconciliation
- Running to Paradise (particularly: II The Peacock)
- The Second Coming
- The Tower
- Meditations in Time of Civil War
- Coole Park, 1929
- Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931
- The Curse of Cromwell
Finally, some good lines from throughout the collection to finish.
The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
*
Athena takes Achilles by the hair,
Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,
Because the hero’s crescent is the twelfth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
*
Yet little peace he had
For those that love are sad.
Let's take this opportunity to listen to 'All Things Must Pass' - It's not always going to be this grey...