The Poetry of Yeats

Name: William Butler Yeats

Year Won: 1923

Read: various poems

Original Language: English

Reason: "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation"

About: Yeats writes poetry so, as such, it is poetry. Some are long, some are short, all are poems.

A number of the poems focus specifically on Irish things, from Irish myths to various settings of fishermen by the sea or shepherds or other such things.

What I Liked: His poetry is really quite lovely. He has some interesting rhythm schemes that sometimes almost feel like they're similar to the wind echoing across the plains. He has a great way of making it feel like you are there.

What I Disliked: While he was a perfectly adequate poet, I'm not sure I liked him as well as a number of others I've read. (I prefer Keats, Tennyson, Swinburne, etc.) Still, he is among the greats for good reason, and I do love that he was able to summon a sense of Irish-ness to his poems. (And it's not as though another great was up for the Nobel prize in 1923 anyway...)

Should it have won a Nobel: Yes. He remains one of the great poets of the English language.

Next up: Władysław Reymont's novel, "The Peasants"