Yeats, William Butler -Poetry of Yeats: Read By Siobhan McKenna & Cyril Cusack, – [Caedmon]

Thee Opinataur   9/22/2021   12-inch, A Library

Recorded in 1958

Side A – read by Cyril Cusack – a famous Irish actor of his day, albeit South African born which can be detected in his voice.
These poems drip with a self-examination of human life and death, as Yeats spent much of his life examining. Threaded with somber tones and melancholy, he wastes no words in bearing his true inner self to the listener.

Side B – Read by Siobhan McKenna – Irish stage actor – born in Belfast
This side is filled with many of Yeats romantic and intimate poems of love and sensuality and is beautifully interpreted.

Yeats’s poetry reflects his sheer beauty of words and phrases. Many of his poems were meant to be chanted or sung.

Yeats, in addition to writing some of the best Irish poetry of his day, was also a well-established playwright being co-founder of the Irish National Theater society. While a self-professed Irish protestant, he shared a fascination with occultism and spiritualism which influenced much of his poetry. – Thee Opinataur