In this masterful biography of W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), acclaimed biographer Stephen Coote shows how, through a lifetime of tumultuous creativity, Yeats strove to give new meaning to poetry, vision and politics.
The profoundly original poet rose through the despair of his unrequited love for Maud Gonne to become one of the leading figures of the decadent 1890s; the friend of Wilde, Morris and the doomed poets of the Rhymers' Club. Stephen Coote skilfully weaves Yeats's own life into the developing consciousness of his nation and reveals him as the ardent Irish nationalist creating in his work an Irish soul that would soar above materialism to the timeless world of myth and magic.
