Performance of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1932) by W.B. Yeats

Title:

Subject:

Poetry Recitation

Description:

This is a three and a half minute BBC radio broadcast of William Butler Yeats's own voice in 1932 reciting two of his poems, one of which is the most famous of his early poetry, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1888). Yeats prefaces this poetry recitation with an explanation of how he was inspired to write "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and why he will try to recite it in a musical or performative way. "I’m going to read my poems with great emphasis upon their rhythm," he says, "...and that is why I will not read them as if they were prose."

Yeats wrote "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" in 1888 when he was twenty-three years old. He made ten radio broadcasts recordings of his poetry, most including "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," with the BBC between 1931 (at the age of sixty-six) and 1937 (at the age of seventy-two). He died in 1939 (at the age of seventy-three).

Although this project and its paratexts focus on describing and analyzing Yeats's recitation technique in "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", this 1932 BBC broadcast also includes his recitation of "The Fiddler of Dooney" (1889). The YouTube video in addition includes his 1934 recording of "The Song of the Old Mother" (1899), 1937 recording of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1888) and 1931 recording of two stanzas from a poem he wrote the same year, "Coole Park and Ballylee" (1931).

In order to access this recording on YouTube, copy and paste this URL into your web browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I

Alternatively, download the MP3 file of the 1932 recording (attached), Yeats's introduction to the poem and his recitation of it, respectively.

Creator:

William Butler Yeats and BBC

Source:

MP3 File or YouTube video

Publisher:

BBC

Date:

October 4, 1932

Relation:

Transcript: https://allenginsberg.org/2013/09/the-voice-of-w-b-yeats/

Format:

YouTube video

Language:

English

Type:

Video

Identifier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I

Performance of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (1932) by W.B. Yeats (Website)

Files

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