W.B. YEATS: A LIFE; II: THE ARCH-POET, 1915-1939

the long version

In the first authorized biography of W.B. Yeats for over fifty years, Roy Foster brings new light to one of the most complex and fascinating lives of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Working from a great archive of personal and contemporary material, he dramatically alters traditional perceptions to illuminate the poet's family history, relationships, politics and art. The search for supernatural wisdom forms a constant thread, traced through Yeats' occult notebooks and closely related to the insecurities of his personal life. The Apprentice Mage charts the growth of a poet's mind and of an astonishing personality, both of which were instrumental in the formation of a new and radicalized Irish nationalist identity.