Ideas of Good and Evil

by W. B. Yeats

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Pages: 113

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About this book

Poetry, for W. B. Yeats, carries memories and beliefs that a plain statement cannot contain. In these essays, he considers how Irish legends, inherited images and literary traditions shape a writer's voice. The opening piece recalls his early wish to encourage a school of Irish ballad poetry, then questions what people mean when they call poetry popular. His personal recollections sit beside close comparisons of poets and their audiences.

In the discussion of William Blake, imagination becomes a spiritual power that can draw people together beyond their competing interests. The collection's contents also range across Shelley, symbolism in painting, theatre and Ireland's arts. Readers interested in how poetry acquires meaning can follow Yeats as he weighs local speech and scenery against older traditions. The book offers a poet's arguments about artistic purpose, with his changing convictions openly part of the discussion.

About the author

W. B. Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865 to 1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, a driving force of the Irish Literary Revival and a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 and is counted among the foremost figures of twentieth-century poetry.