W.B. Yeats & The Irish Countryside

More than any other poet, William Butler Yeats was the product of his landscape.  From the Sligo countryside of his youth, to the magnificent poetic symbol of Thoor Ballylee in his old age, Yeats responded to the world around him poetically, symbolically, and mythically.

The five web readings below offer interpretive responses to some of Yeats’s greatest poems and the ways in which these poems interact with the Irish landscape.  Click on the poem below to view its contents.

These web readings were produced by the students in my English 105:  Coming of Age course, in the fall of 2001.

“In Memory of Major Robert Gregory”	“Easter, 1916”
“Among School Children”	“Under Ben Bulben”
“The Circus Animals’ Desertion”	“A Prayer for my Daughter”