“剑桥文学名家研习系列”之《叶芝》是对20世纪*重要的文学家威廉·巴特勒·叶芝(William Butler Yeats，1865-1939)的综述与评介。叶芝，爱尔兰人，20世纪西方*有成就的诗人之一。同时，他还是戏剧家和文学理论家，也曾经是非常忙碌的社会活动家。他的诗作对当代英国和爱尔兰诗歌乃至整个英语诗歌都产生了巨大的影响。

William Butler Yeats ranks among the most widely admired and intensively studied writers of the twentieth century. He attracts such avid interest because, as T. S. Eliot famously suggested, his history is also the history, of his time. Beginning as a late-Victorian aesthete and ending as an influential contemporary of Eliot and other modernists, Yeats set the pace for two generations of important writers. Ahmg the way he responded with passion and eloquence to the political and cultural upheavals associated with Ireland's struggle for independence and with the decline (in Ireland and elsewhere) of traditional belielk about art, religion, empire, social class, gender, and sex. But the same things that make Yeats captivating also make him difficult to study and to teach: few first -time readers know enough about his life and times to do justice to his poems, plays, and other writings. The Cambridge Introduction to W. B. Yeats aims to assist such readers by providing intruductory tours of the poet's mnst important works in all genres and by exploring their biographical, historical, and literary contexts. As the first new introduction to appear in more than a decade, it offers an up-to-date account that draws extensively on recent biographies, fresh editions of the letters and manuscripts,and path-breaking studies by critics influenced by feminism and postcolonial theory.
为了帮助广大读者特别是英语专业学生学习英国文学，上海外语教育出版社从国外引进了这套“剑桥文学名家研习系列”丛书。正如封底文字所说，本系列丛书旨在向学生介绍英美经典作家，而普通读者如果想进一步了解自己所喜爱的作家作品，也会发现这套丛书富有吸引力。
英国文学是英国人民在漫长的历史发展进程中创造的英国文化与文明的精华，是世界文学宋库中一颗璀璨的明珠。文学是语言的艺术，英国文学是英语语言艺术的结晶。英语表意功能强，文体风格变化多，或高雅，或通俗，或含蓄，或明快，或婉约，或粗犷，其丰富的表现力和独特的魅力在英国作家作品里得到了*为****的发挥。要真正掌握英语，必须阅读和了解**的英国文学作品，英国文学因此成为高校英语专业课程设置不可或缺的组成部分。
英国文学源远流长，经历了长期、复杂的发展演变过程。在这个过程中，文学本体以外各种现实的、历史的、政治的、文化的力量对文学发生着影响，文学也遵循自身规律，历经了盎格鲁一撒克逊、文艺复兴、新古典主义、浪漫主义、现实主义，现代主义、后现代等不同历史阶段。“剑桥文学名家研习系列”丛书（英国卷）是开放式的，首批推出莎士比亚、奥斯丁、康拉德、叶芝、T.S.t艾略特、乔伊斯，伍尔夫、贝克特等8位名家，他们均为英国文学史上的里程碑式人物，对推动英国文学的发展作出了重要贡献。8位名家的创作领域涵盖了小说、诗歌和戏剧，而叶芝、T.S艾略特和贝克特分别为1923、1948、1969年度诺贝尔文学奖得主，这也从一个侧面说明了本系列丛书人选名家的经典性。

Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chapter l Early Yeats
Childhood
Early religious and political views
"Crossways"
Maud Gonne, gender, and The Countess Cathleen
"The Rose"
The Secret Rose and The Wind Among the Reeds
The fading of the Rose
Chapter 2 Middle Yeats
The Irish National Theatre
Early plays: Cathleen ni Houlihan, On Baile'sStrand, and The King's Threshold
Drama's influence on Yeats's verse style: In the Seven Woods
Revisions, masks, and The Green Hehnet and Other Poems
Responsibilities
Ireland's “Troubles”
Chapter 3 Late Yeats
Lunar visions: The Wild Swans at Coole
Four Plays for Dancers and Michael Robartes and the Dancer
The Tower
The Winding Stair and Other Poems
Blueshirts, eugenics, "lust and rage": Yeats's final work Death
Chapter 4 Yeats's critics
Bibliographies, scholarly editions, and biographies
Critical studies
Notes
Guide to further reading
Index

……

本系列旨在为学生引荐英美文学名家，内容亲和，语言生动，对有意提高西方文学素养的读者很有吸引力。
·学生、教师、专题主讲者均适用
·简明扼要、信息丰富
·配有进一步研究的书目