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

E-247: MacMillan. Very Good. 1984. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Macmillan, London, UK. 1984. 582 pgs. Revised Edition. Bound in cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. THE NEW COMMENTARY ON THE POEMS OF W. B. YEATS is keyed to the COLLECTED POEMS and the POEMS OF W. B. YEATS: A NEW EDITION (1983) and is an invaluable reference guide to both. Founded upon the author’s earlier Commentary, it adds to the material in that work and includes new commentaries on the one hundred and twenty-six poems which are collected for the first time in the POEMS OF W. BE. YEATS: A NEW EDITION. The author draws upon Yeats’s manuscripts and diaries, his unpublished papers and letters as well as on his published work, particularly his autobiographical and critical writing, and the recollections of his widow, his sister Lily Yeats, and his friends and acquaintances. Books in the poet’s library and in the library of the Dublin Theosophical Society have also provided evidence of the wide reading which so often informs Yeats’s writing. The NEW COMMENTARY dates the composition of poems where this can be established and gives the place of their first publication. It draws attention to sources for the subjects of poems, offers explanations or interpretations of symbolism and imagery, gives details of the relevant social, historical and intellectual background and quotes apposite comment by other critics and scholars. The NEW COMMENTARY will find a ready market amongst all readers of Yeats’s poetry. The author, Alexander Norman Jeffares (1920 – 2005) was an Irish literary scholar. He was Professor of English Studies at the University of Stirling and Vice-Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Oriel College, Oxford, he taught at the Universities of Dublin, Groningen, Edinburgh, Adelaide and Leeds. He was Life-President of the International Association for the Study of Anglo-Irish Literature. EB; 9.5 X 5.8 X 1.8 inches; 543 pages .