Product Description

No other series of classic texts achieves the editorial standard of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with contextual and critical materials that bring the work to life for students. Careful editing, first-rate translation, thorough explanatory annotations, chronologies, and selected bibliographies make each text accessible to students while encouraging in-depth study. Each volume in the series is printed on acid-free paper, and every text remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice of excellence for scholarship for students at more than 2,500 colleges and universities worldwide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #262259 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

About the Author
James Pethica has taught at Williams College and at the University of Richmond. Currently a Fellow at the Oakley Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Williams College, he is at work on the authorized biography of Lady Gregory.

Customer Reviews

Another fine edition of the works of a great poet
There are by this time many collections of the works of Yeats, and this is one of the good ones. Aside from containing the major plays and poems it has critical essays by contemporaries of Yeats and important critical voices of our own time, such as Helen Vendler, Harold Bloom, and the poet Seamus Heaney.
As for the work itself, however historically important the plays, and however of curiosity value 'The Autobiography' and other prose writings the Yeats that lives is in the poetry.
It is that lyrical greatness the power of song manifested early on which later was deepened into even greater poetry. From 'Innisfee' and "Song of the Wandering Aengus ' to the poetry of 'Byzantium' and 'Among the Schoolchildren'.
The great lines, a small sample of which follows"

And we will wander hand in hand / through hollow lands and hily lands/
And pluck till time and times are done/ The silver apples of the moon/ The golden apples of the sun/


"We must lie down where all the ladders start/ in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

" The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity"

"But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you/ and loved the sorrows of your changing face."

Very nice compilation, especially regarding prose!
This is an excellent book, produced with excellent quality. While it isn't the most complete anthology in the world as far as his poems are concerned (for this reason The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I by Finneran is a much better choice), the prose found within the book are excellent. Another thing worth noting is the lengthily essays by other well known authors which tend to either be criticisms or praise for Mr. Yeats, truly magnificent in that department! Again, the focus of this anthology is much different from other supremely divine works (such as the one previously mentioned).