Crossways

Description

Published in 1889, Crossways is the first collection of poems by William Butler Yeats. What made Yeats famous and what earned him the Nobel Prize for literature was his modernist poetry, but at the beginning of his literary career Yeats was considered to be one of the last representatives of Romanticism, perfectly illustrated with this collection.

The collection comprises 16 poems, all using beautifully elaborate imagery to convey the poet’s message. The poems in the book discuss various topics in various genres and styles: The Stolen Child is about the horrible, scary world outside Faerie; the ballads fit in with the best pieces belonging to the genre and the other poems are also beautifully written. It is clear from the first poem in the collection that Celtic myth and Irish folk tales are among Yeats’ most important sources of inspiration and not only in this collection, but in most volumes to be published by the poet in the future as well.

These mythic and folk elements are combined with the best tradition of Romantic poetry and the poems also show traces of Yeats’ keen interest in occultism and spiritualism (it was not long before the publication of this collection that he got acquainted with occult ideas, but they proved to be an influence that Yeats embraced all is life) – together, these elements create a collection by a promising young talent.

Yeats is generally considered to be a Symbolist poet. However, this volume collects very early poems by Yeats that are still rooted in the Romantic tradition, even though they already feature lots of elements that are to be found in the poets more mature work. The poems in the collection are written in rhyming verse, another feature that makes Yeats’ poetry so special being that he never tried free verse, he always respected the rules and confines of traditional forms.
[amz_corss_sell asin=”177666714X”]