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/lit/ - Literature

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1330076 No.1330076 [Reply] [Original]

Hey /lit/
I've never thought of myself being into poetry, but for the past week or so Yeats's The Second Coming has just kept coming back into my head till I just HAVE to read it again. I've enjoyed poems before, just ones that I read in English lessons, but this one has hooked me in the same way my favourite songs do.

I've been reading some other things by Yeats and reading about the man himself too. He seems like a fascinating figure, and I did like the poems I read.

So, it would be great if you could recommend some more Yeats poems. General discussion of the man would be welcome too.

>> No.1330094

i enjoyed An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

>> No.1330102

(almost) anything by yeats is great.

get the collected works and just start from the beginning and prepare to be awed

>> No.1330105

Although, as a whole, I kind of think it's an unsuccessful poem, there are few better opening lines than the ones to In Memory of Eva Gore Booth and Con Markiewicz. In fact, if I had to choose any lines from poetry to take with me it might be these.

Generally I find his work falls into two halves: the distraught, often beautiful early Maude Gonne poems: short, perfect & brilliant. Then the more modernist things like the Second Coming. I can't recommend highly enough the complete works ed. Daniel Albright (at least here in the UK): you can trace Yeats' development like a narrative. It almost reads like the most glorious novel you ever read. Though that's probably an exaggeration it is like a story, following his poems and how they developed.

I envy you getting into this: technically superb but almost always engaging & often moving, Yeats is second only to Shakespeare for me.

And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.

>> No.1330121

try 'all souls night'. also: a reading in terms of keats 'ode to autumn' is especially worthwhile.

>> No.1330123

>>1330094
Thanks, I enjoyed that!
>>1330102
It's on my Christmas list. I look forward to it :)
>>1330105
I have a softspot for Everyman's Library. If I can get someone to fork out a little extra I might ask for this edition. And thanks for recommendations, they're much appreciated.

Keep 'em coming /lit/!

>> No.1330142

I read somewhere that he was quite superstitious & eccentric. Once, when visiting a friend his friend's cat fell asleep on his coat. Rather than disturb it Yeats cut a hole in his coat.
He also had dreadful spelling (I think) and didn't pop his cherry til he was about 35. At age 56 he wrote to his friend and said he'd been thinking of starting a family, like it had only just occured to him. I think once Maud rejected him he tried to fuck her daughter though I could be wrong.

>> No.1330148

>>1330142
>didn't pop his cherry til he was about 35
what a freak.

>> No.1330166

>>1330142
Wow what a guy! That just makes me want to read about him more. I was thinking of getting Yeats: The Man and the Masks by Richard Ellman. The Yeats: A Life books are just too expensive.

>> No.1330282

OP here.
I just found this selection of Yeats poems for anyone who's interested. There's a link to all of his poems for those interested.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/yeats.html

>> No.1331324

Read Easter, 1916. Shit is so cash.

>> No.1331348

>>1330148
COMING FROM YOU, OH THAT'S A FUCKING JOKE.

>> No.1331354

Read everything you can, OP. Love Yeats. I started with a compiled volume from the Penguin Poetry Library--it's relatively small and cheap.

>> No.1331698

It's funny you would ask this, I just finished a college course in which we read the entire Collected Yeats and also a critical biography of him. I went into the course at the beginning of the semester expecting to dislike him, but last week I almost wept when I read the final poem of his final volume. His collection of work is a beautiful journey. Read as much as you can, and if possible consider reading his volumes in order. It makes all of the poems more powerful, including The Second Coming.

>> No.1332437

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He's my favorite poet, for sure. Look how he's rhyming here--cloths with cloths, light with light, feet with feet, and dreams with dreams--yet it doesn't sound forced at all.

>> No.1334644

Front Page Yo!