W B Yeats (1865 - 1939) is one of the great and innovative poets of the twentieth century. Much of his most vigorous verse on love, sex, Irish and international politics, the complexities of the occult and the 'sedentary toil' of poetry was producedin the years between his fiftieth birthday in 1915 and his death in 1939.

Timothy Webb is Professor of English at the University of Bristol.