BASC70284 - Selected Poems and Four Plays of William Butler Yeats

Course Description

...Now that my ladder’s gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

(W.B.Yeats - "The Circus Animals’ Desertion")

The poetry of William Butler Yeats is among the most forceful and evocative in English literature. Yeats drew inspiration from the folklore and spiritualism of his Irish homeland, interweaving the dark threads of local legend with universal themes: love, art, power, politics, sexuality, loss, death - from the explosive poems of passionate women - Helen of Troy, Leda, Sheba, Yeats’ ill-starred beloved Maud Gonne and Crazy Jane, to the wrenching political, artistic and social revelations of "Easter 1916," "The Wild Old Wicked Man" and "The Circus Animals Desertion” Yeats’ masterful use of language and wrought emotions continually stun. Course code: BASC70284 Literature