A Commentary on the Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

'An indispensable guide to Yeat's poetry, this work brings together from widely scattered sources information of all sorts bearing on the meaning of the poems and the circumstances in which they were written. The commentary is keyed to the standard edition of the Collected Poems. For each poem, the author gives the date and place of composition (if they are known) and the place of initial publication. Whenever possible, he identifies people, places, and events referred to in the poems, elaborates literally allusions and parallels, and explains Yeats's often obscure use of my thology and symbolism. Where Yeats's prose throws light on the meaning of particular poems, as in his notes to early editions and in some pascal works, it is quoted in the commentary on those poems. The author was given access to Yeat's library and manuscripts, and a great deal of unpublished material, mainly from Yeat's diaries and drafts of poems, appears in print here for the first time. An appendix gives Yeats's view on the pronounciation and spelling of Gaelic names, and there is a detailed analytic index." - Publisher.