W.B.Yeats: Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 v. 1 by R F Foster

W.B.Yeats: Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 v. 1 by R F Foster

In the first authorized biography of W. B. Yeats for over fifty years, Roy Foster sheds new light on 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. From a childhood inheritance of declasse Irish Protestantism with strong nationalist sympathies, and an exceptional and talented family background, the narrative charts Yeats's development into an original and outstanding poet. It ends in his fiftieth year with the controversies and disillusionment affecting his personal and public life at the time of the First World War. A bohemian life of uncertain finances, love-affairs, avant-garde friends and experiments with drugs and occultism prefaces his attempt to unite politics with high culture and his creation of an Irish national theatre.Constantly shifting between Dublin, Coole Park and London, with forays to America and Paris, ruthlessly constructing a public life as well as a creative reputation, Yeats's genius attracted admirers and enemies with equal passion. His story intersects with those of an engrossing cast of characters including Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, George Moore, 'AE', Ezra Pound and above all Maud Gonne - an influence eternally re-created 'like the phoenix', affecting almost everything he did. The search for supernatural wisdom forms a constant thread, traced through Yeats's 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.

Roy Foster was born in Waterford, Ireland, in 1949 and educated in Ireland and in the United States. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a Foundation Scholar in History, he subsequently became Professor of Modern British History at Birkbeck College, University of London, as well as
holding visiting fellowships at St Anthony's College, Oxford, the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, and Princeton University. In 1991 he became the first Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy since 1989. His previous
books include Charles Stewart Parnell: The Man and His Family (1976), Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life (1981), Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988), The Sub-Prefect Should Have Held His Tongue: Selected Essays of Hubert Butler (1990), Paddy and Mr Punch: Connections in Irish and English History
(1993), and W. B. Yeats: The Apprentice Mage Vol. I (1997).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192117359
ISBN 10	0192117351
Title	W.B.Yeats: Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 v. 1
Author	R F Foster
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1997-06-01
Number of pages	704
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable