W. B. Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Acknowledged as one of the greatest creative writers of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats published his first full-length work,

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

(1888), when he was just twenty-three years old. This anthology of mainly traditional material includes stories previously published by early collectors of, and commentators on, Irish folklore, including Thomas Crofton Croker, William Carleton, Patrick Kennedy, Samuel Lover, Lady Jane Wilde and Douglas Hyde. With the exception of Douglas Hyde, these collectors manipulated traditional Irish-language oral material to enhance its appeal to English-speaking readers. Yeats’s anthology, therefore, cannot be regarded as giving an objectively authentic account of Irish folk traditions. It does, however, give a genuine…

1017 words

Citation: Markey, Anne. "Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 November 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5219, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5219 Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.