A fine advanced study---not an introduction to Yeats

Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I want to take a class taught by Helen Vendler. It would not be an easy A. Instead, it would challenge and open new doors and windows into some of my favorite poets. Vendler is the poet's great reader, one who spends time and effort rereading and rereading again, studying the structure, asking why the poet went this way instead of that. She is a student of form and its revelatory impact on content.

In this book, Vendler makes an intense study of Yeats, form by form, seeking to understand his choices whether conscious or not, explicating the impact of choice on each poem and of the poem on the form. Not an introduction to Yeats but rather a fine advanced study for those who have already spent some time with his poetry. If that's you, then read this book.

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