"A strange mixture of ludicrous statement and perceptive insight".

Such was the judgement by Prof Brendan Kennelly of the first version of this liitle book. Though the text of this present edition has been largely rewritten and many pages added nothing essential, or "ludicrous", has been changed. "Yeats's poetry is so important", says B. Farrington, "that it deserves to be looked at critically.

Though many of his ideas and opinions and ideas just seem to us either plain wrong of just daft, this does little to detract from the power and use an unfashionable word, beauty of his poetry. This is what I have tried to show".