The Tower (poetry collection)

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The Tower is a book of poems by W. B. Yeats, published in 1928. The Tower was Yeats's first major collection as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of the poet's most influential volumes and was well received by the public. [1]

Contents

The title, which the book shares with the second poem, refers to Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower which Yeats purchased and restored in 1917. [2] Yeats Gaelicized the name to Thoor Ballyllee, [3] and it has retained the title to this day. Yeats often summered at Thoor Ballylee with his family until 1928. [4]

The book includes several of Yeats' most famous poems, including "Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children."

The book entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. [5]

Previous Publication of Select Poems

All of the poems included in The Tower had previously appeared elsewhere in print collections and periodicals. Many of the poems featured in Seven Poems and a Fragment, The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems, and October Blast released by Cuala Press. [6] Other poems had been collected in A Vision. [7]

Cover design

Yeats commissioned Thomas Sturge Moore to create the cover for the volume in 1927. The gold wood-cut style image depicts Thoor Ballylee and its reflection in waters below the tower all on a light green background. The poet praised Moore's artwork, noting that the cover was both a true representation of Thoor Ballylee and a successful symbolic design for the collection. Moore's work on The Tower and other collections solidified Yeats's modern image in both American and English print editions [8]

Literary Topics and Content

Many of the poems in The Tower demonstrate Yeats's disillusionment with the limitations of the physical world and his withdrawal from ordinary life. The poet seeks to transcend the conflicts between the dichotomies of mind/body and thought/action by allowing poetry to exist in the world of vision rather than the world of reality. [9]

Contents

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. B. Yeats</span> Irish poet and playwright (1865–1939)

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist and writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature, and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

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Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Gregory</span> Irish playwright, poet and folklorist (1852–1932)

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, she turned against it. Her conversion to cultural nationalism, as evidenced by her writings, was emblematic of many of the political struggles to occur in Ireland during her lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gort</span> Town in County Galway, Ireland

Gort is a town of around 2,800 inhabitants in County Galway in the west of Ireland. Located near the border with County Clare, the town lies between the Burren and the Slieve Aughty and is served by the R458 and R460 regional roads, which connect to the M18 motorway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Sturge Moore</span> British poet, author and artist

Thomas Sturge Moore was a British poet, author and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Library of Ireland</span> Irish heritage institution and repository

The National Library of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The mission of the National Library of Ireland is "To collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the documentary and intellectual record of the life of Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge."

The Cuala Press was an Irish private press set up in 1908 by Elizabeth Yeats with support from her brother William Butler Yeats that played an important role in the Celtic Revival of the early 20th century. Originally Dun Emer Press, from 1908 until the late 1940s it functioned as Cuala Press, publicising the works of such writers as Yeats, Lady Gregory, Colum, Synge, and Gogarty.

<i>The Winding Stair and Other Poems</i>

The Winding Stair is a volume of poems by Irish poet W. B. Yeats, published in 1933. It was the next new volume after 1928's The Tower.

Michael Robartes and the Dancer is a 1920 book of poems by W. B. Yeats.

— Opening lines from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, first published this year

—From Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", first published this year in his collection New Hampshire

"Sailing to Byzantium" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, first published in the 1927 reprint of Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose, and then in the 1928 collection The Tower. It comprises four stanzas in ottava rima, each made up of eight lines of iambic pentameter. It uses a journey to Byzantium (Constantinople) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immortality, art, and the human spirit may converge. Through the use of various poetic techniques, Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" describes the metaphorical journey of a man pursuing his own vision of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Prayer for My Daughter</span>

"A Prayer for my Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats composed the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on 26 February 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Politics (poem)</span>

"Politics" is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats written on May 24, 1938. It was composed during the time of the Spanish Civil War as well as during the pre-war period of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich in Germany. The poem hints at the political situations of "Rome" (Italy), "Russia", and Spain, but ultimately discusses topics more relevant to private human interaction rather than public, or political situations. The poem never mentions Germany or Hitler, despite the fact that the "war and war's alarms" surrounding the poem's creation arose from fears of Germany's aggression rather than Italy's, Russia's, or Spain's. Many versions of the text exist: the original typescript of May 1938, the first typescript with hand-written corrections dated August 12, 1938, as well as a final "Coole Edition" of the poem dated June 29, 1939, which was not published until it was included in Last Poems in 1939. Yeats intended for the poem to be printed last in the collection, as an envoi to "The Circus Animals' Desertion", and while a debate as to the true order of the poems has continued since 1939, "Politics" was the last lyric poem Yeats wrote and remains the final work printed in all posthumous editions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">On being asked for a War Poem</span>

"On being asked for a War Poem" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on 6 February 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Park on 20 August 1915. The poem was prefaced with a note stating: "It is the only thing I have written of the war or will write, so I hope it may not seem unfitting." The poem was first published in Edith Wharton's The Book of the Homeless in 1916 as "A Reason for Keeping Silent". When it was later reprinted in The Wild Swans at Coole, the title was changed to "On being asked for a War Poem".

This is a list of all works by Irish poet and dramatist W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and a major figure in 20th-century literature. Works sometimes appear twice if parts of new editions or significantly revised. Posthumous editions are also included if they are the first publication of a new or significantly revised work. Years are linked to corresponding "year in poetry" articles for works of poetry, and "year in literature" articles for other works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thoor Ballylee</span> Towe house with Yeats links in County Galway, Ireland

Thoor Ballylee Castle is a fortified, 15th-century Anglo-Norman tower house built by the septs de Burgo, or Burke, near the town of Gort in County Galway, Ireland. It is also known as Yeats' Tower because it was once owned and inhabited by the poet William Butler Yeats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blood and the Moon</span>

Blood and the Moon is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats written in 1928 and published in the collection The Winding Stair in 1929 before being reprinted in The Winding Stair and Other Poems in 1933. Yeats composed the poem in response to the 1927 assassination of Kevin O'Higgins, the Vice-President of the Free State, whom Yeats had known personally. The poem contains many themes common in Yeats's poems from the 1920s including the "tower", a reference to Thoor Ballylee, which had been the title of a collection of works printed the year before "Blood and the Moon" was published, as well as the "gyre" which had been a major focus of his 1920 poem "The Second Coming".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inis Cealtra</span> Island in County Clare, Ireland

Inis Cealtra, also known in English as Inishcaltra or Holy Island, is an island off the western shore of Lough Derg in Ireland. Now uninhabited, it was once a monastic settlement. It has an Irish round tower, and the ruins of several small churches, as well as four high crosses and a holy well. Despite the lack of population, the cemetery on this island is still in use. Coffins and mourners are transported the short distance from County Clare in small boats. Boat trips can be taken from the harbour at Mountshannon. It is conserved by the East Clare Heritage Centre.

The Gift of Harun Al-Raschid, written in 1923, is a poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, first published in 1924 in the American journal The Dial in a collection of The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems. The poem was then published in his prose book A Vision in 1925, and was included in Yeats's collection of The Tower, which was published in 1928.

References

  1. Finneran, Richard (6 March 2012). Introduction in The Tower: a facsimile edition. Scribner. pp. xiii. ISBN   9781451673739 . Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  2. Plethica, James (2000). Yeats's Poetry, Drama, and Prose . New York: Norton. p.  491. ISBN   9780393974973.
  3. Howes, Marjorie (25 May 2006). The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge University Press. p. 11. ISBN   978-0521658867.
  4. Howes, Marjorie (25 May 2006). The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge University Press. p. 14. ISBN   978-0521658867.
  5. ""Poetry in Progress: Building the Tower" in The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats". nli.ie/yeats. The National Library of Ireland. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  6. ""Poetry in Progress: Building the Tower" in The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats". nli.ie/yeats. The National Library of Ireland. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  7. ""Poetry in Print" in The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats". nli.ie/yeats. The National Library of Ireland. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  8. Plethica, James. Yeats's Poetry, Drama, and Prose. Norton. pp. xviii–xix.