There are many things we must thank Richard Ellmann for. First of all, his poetry anthologies. Second, his biographies on Wilde, Yeats and Joyce. And finally, this short, delightful, easy-reading book. Four conferences about the best Irish writers ever: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. And the four are masterpieces. They do not talk about the "common places" you are suppossed to here while being in a conference, they try to express a fact, a situation, a place that defines the person they are talking about: Wilde in Oxford, Yeats in his "old age", Joyce and his anxiety looking for facts to write about, Beckett and Naught. I think that everyone interested on these authors should read the book.

Ecobeetle has concerns for all species and habitats and the great blue heron is a favorite animal. Beautiful and majestic in flight the Heron is the sentinel of the shoreline and wetlands. Throughout British Columbia this species is under threat through loss of habitat and nesting sites due to encroaching development. The appearance of a thriving heron population is a measurement of a healthy ecosystem. Unfortunately as Robert Butler describes and summarizies in his book 'The Great Blue Heron' that the status of the heron and it's recent struggles with the rapid development of BC's Fraser Valley is a foreshadowing and environmental warning concerning the health of all west coast animal and marine life. Conservation and protection of this magnificent bird is of paramount importance for the Great Blue Heron is a west coast icon, a symbol of our health as an enviroment. Ecobeetle highly recommends this book to anyone with a concern for species at risk or an interest in natural history.

Recently stopping at Shannon Duty-free, I found this beautiful
book. The words of Yeats and the photos of Le Garsmeur combine
to transport you to another time, another place...and where else
would you rather be than exploring that Emerald Isle with its
famous bard? Turn off the TV; put some Irish music on the stereo;
pour a glass of red wine and sail away. I guarantee you'll be
planning another trip to Ireland after this experience.

First published in 1906, this book is a history of Northern Italy from the rise of the Communes in the major cities (XI Century) to the establishment of "tyrannies" by powerful families at the beginning of the XIV Century (first the cruel Ezzelino da Romano, then the Visconti in Milan, the Carrara in Padua, the Scaliger in Verona etc...). The author analyzes the balance of power and the struggles between Guelfes and Ghibellines in cities like Milan, Pavia, Cremona, Brescia, Verona, Padua, Mantua... There are very few studies in English about the wars between Guelfes and Ghibellines, which tore Italy between 1200 and 1350, so if you're interested in the subject it's necessary reading.

On the other hand, the illustrations are poor : the maps look like photocopies of hand drawings and the photographs are very dark. That's 1906 technology I guess.

In this volume you get The Celtic Twilight (1893), 34 Irish stories about the supernatural, where little people, faeries, ghosts (some of them headless) abound; most of them have been collected from the people who remember this old lore, but a few of them, like A Voice, and The Old Town, are from Yeats' own experience.
The second part is The Secret Rose (1897), 9 legends that are perhaps my favorite section of this book, with stories like The Wisdom of the King, of a lonely hero who as a baby was given a "grey as the mist" drop of hawk crone blood, and whose hair was mixed with feathers.
Stories of Red Hanrahan (1897 and rewritten in 1907), is the life and death of a wandering poet, "the learned man and the great songmaker", which includes a number of poems.

Rosa Alchemica, Tables of the Law, and The Adoration of the Magi (1897) are on esoteric mysticism; glimpses into heaven and hell.
The final part is Per Amica Silentia Lunae (1917), essays on spiritualism, Christianity, poetry and its writers, and more.
Written with much beauty by the man many consider to be Ireland's greatest poet (and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923), this unique collection of tales will enchant anyone interested in Irish history and its legends; legends which will, like the little creatures, last "until God shall burn up the world with a kiss".

The photogarphy in this book is so vivid, it demands your full attention to the plight of those pilots and crewmen involved in the incidents depicted and described. One can almost hear the voices and feel the heat of the fires often encountered in mishaps of this nature. I found it a one-sitting, hold-your-breath sort of presentation. I've returned often to absorb those photos and to try to imagine what led up to each of the awesome and sometimes gruesome events. Having been a Navy pilot for over two decades with carrier experience; some in the beloved F6F-5 Hellcat, I find myself feeling a very close kinship with those in this perfectly outstanding book. Many kudos to Mssrs, Keeney and Butler for putting together a very much needed reminder that in carrier aviation there are, indeed, No Easy Days.

Ten years ago I stopped reading books on Yeats because they just weren't adding anything new. But a friend recommended this book (the title intrigued me as well). And I ended up reading this one through to the end. What a fresh voice, what a fresh reading of Yeats! The theory is here, but it is made real and useful. The scholarship is here (no one I have ever read knows Yeats' complex mystical world better), but it is shaped into a captivating and human reading of his poetry. The interest in gender is here, but it is not turned into the battlecry or the chauvenism of the feminists. Above all, the close reading of Yeats texts (plays and poems) is here, but it is always new, clear, well grounded, and sensible. The book applies a wealth of new material from George and Georgie's spiritual seances, and it is unexpected and astonishing how it changes--for the better!--our reading of classic Yeats works. This is what literary criticism should be.

This is a brilliant book. It's the first time I've read about the politics of Irish literature written in this way, and I've read a lot of books about Yeats and Joyce, as well as some theory. However, here, the fusion of both creates a work which is part of a new way of looking at Irishness along the lines of Gibbons, Kearney and Lloyd, though O'Brien would not be in complete agreement with some of their ideas. His discourse, however, is parallel to that of these writers. It's a different, more challenging, kind of Irish studies.
It's a difficult argument with a lot of complex theory coming at you from every angle. He makes use of Derrida, Levinas and Adorno to create the structure through which he views the writings of Yeats and Joyce, and their constructions of Irishness. In some ways, this is really two books, with an analysis of the theoretical difficulties of the creation of structures of identity as well as an application of this model to the work of Yeats and Joyce.

But, O'Brien writes clearly and some of the more arcane practitioners of critical and literary theory could take lessons from his style and argument. He discusses Joyce and Yeats in the context of their time, and then shows how they transcend that context through a placement of identity within an imaginary European context. He makes connections between Yeats and joyce (who are often seen as being at two different ends of the spectrum) and sees both as offering different but related perspectives on identity.
His close readings are acute and there is plenty of quotation.
It's a scholarly book, very good for postgraduates and people working in the field. perhaps only the brighter undergrads should attempt it.
Irish studies has needed this theoretical input for some time and it's good to see what we might call "high theory" being applied to such canonical figures.
It's a first book (I gather from the acknowledgments, and as such, is a stunning debut. I look forward to reading more, and from the Amazon search, it seems there are more on the way!

Kermode maintains that Yeats's images and symbols define the Romantic tradition-the preference for images over formal reasoning as a way to reconcile opposites. Yeats's poetry, for all its mythical, classical, and historical allusions,its occultism and arcana, values imagination over intellection, and the resonant image over the plain statement. Organic images, as distinct from descriptive or ornamental images, generate symbolic ripples. Kermode holds that Yeats's recurrent, almost obsessive images, such as tree, bird, tower, and dancer, reach a high point of Romantic imagery and organic form. The pre-eminent example of symbolic images (archetypes), is the dancer and the dance at the end of "Among School Children," an image that reconciles body and soul, identity and action, artist and art. Kermode's study is a standard in Yeats criticism.

Of the many thousands of books that essentially are one of a kind and out of print, few are more worthy of being reissued than this very beautiful rendition of the heart of the Upanishads. World class poet W. B. Yeats, working with Vedic scholar Sri Swami Purohit, retired to Majorca away from the war clouds gathering over Europe in the thirties with the intent of making "a translation that would read as though the original had been written in common English" (p. 8). Here's an exchange between the boy Nachiketas and Death from the Katha Upanishad that gives a sense of just how well Yeats and Purohit succeeded:

Nachiketas said: "Some say that when man dies he continues to exist, others that he does not. Explain, and that shall be my third gift."

Death said: "This question has been discussed by the gods, it is deep and difficult. Choose another gift, Nachiketas! Do not be hard. Do not compel me to explain."

It is from the Upanishads that the Bhagavad Gita finds its inspiration. One can see immediately in this short exchange the seed from which the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna grew. Indeed it is from the Upanishads that the central doctrines of Hinduism are derived, and the philosophy of yoga, and even that of Buddhism. As such the Upanishads, despite their repetition and extraneous material, constitute one of the great spiritual works of humankind. What Yeats and Purohit have done here, in contradistinction to other translations that I have read, is to make the work intelligible, accessible and a pleasure to read. To do this, it is true they have trimmed; and they have drifted in parts from a strictly literal translation, preferring instead to emphasize the spirit and the essence of the Upanishads. Consequently, for the scholar this is not the best translation. But for those who want the feel and the heart of the Upanishads without the ritualistic circumlocutions or much of the repetition, this is an idea translation. Through the poetic use of words, incorporating the magic of sound and rhythm in judicious repetition, Yeats and Purohit are able to preserve the oral formulaic expression of the Upanishads, and bring the sense of their power to the modern English speaker. This is an outstanding achievement. Here is the refrain that ends this beautiful translation:

"This is perfect. That is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect; the remainder is perfect. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere."