The Cutting Of An Agate

William Butler Yeats

May 2015 · Read Books Ltd

About this ebook

This vintage book contains Y. B. Yeats's 1912 collection of essays, "The Cutting of an Agate". The essays of this collection include: "Thoughts on Lady Gregory's Translations", "Cuchulain and his Cycle", "Fion and his Cycle", "Preface to the First Edition of the Well of the Saints", "Discoveries", "Prophet, Priest, and King", "Personality and the Intellectual Essences", "The Musician and the Orator", "A Guitar Player", and more. William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the most important and influential literary figures during the twentieth century. A key figure in the Irish and British literary worlds, Yeats also served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was an important force in the Irish Literary Revival, and co-founded the famous Abbey Theatre. Many antiquarian texts such as this are increasingly hard to come by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

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.