The Great Poets � W.B. Yeats

W.B. Yeats

Nov 2007 · Naxos AudioBooks · Narrated by Jim Norton, Denys Hawthorn, Marcella Riordan, and Nicholas Boulton

About this audiobook

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets – represented by a collection of their most popular poems on one CD – with W.B. Yeats, one of the most loved poets of the twentieth century. He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: Down by the Salley Gardens, The Lake Isle of Inisfree, The Secret Rose and He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. They are read by a strong cast led by Olivier award winner Jim Norton.

About the author

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief playwright until the movement was joined by John Synge. Yeats' plays included The Countess Cathleen, The Land of Heart's Desire, Cathleen ni Houlihan, The King's Threshold, and Deirdre. Although a convinced patriot, Yeats deplored the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist movement, and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1922. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He is one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize. His poetry collections include The Wild Swans at Coole, Michael Robartes and the Dancer, The Tower, The Winding Stair and Other Poems, and Last Poems and Plays. He died on January 28, 1939 at the age of 73.