William Butler Yeats: The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Lecturer: X.J. Kennedy

Click on the links below to view the lectures.

Part 1: Reading	Part 2: Interpreting	Part 3: Writing
Choose "Reading" to hear an interpretative reading of Yeats' poetry.	Choose "Interpreting" to hear insights into the themes and images found in Yeats' works.	Choose "Writing" to hear suggestions for writing about Yeats' poems.
Questions for Thinking and Writing	Questions for Thinking and Writing	Questions for Thinking and Writing

About the Lecturer:
A graduate of Seton Hall and Columbia University, X.J. Kennedy’s poems, some published in The New Yorker, were first collected in Nude Descending a Staircase (1961). Since then he has written six more collections, several widely adopted literature and writing textbooks, and eighteen books for children. He has taught at Wellesley College and Tufts University. His textbooks, edited with Dana Gioia, include Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, Fiction: An Introduction, Poetry: An Introduction, and A Handbook of Literary Terms (with Mark Bauerlein). Kennedy’s numerous awards include the Aiken Taylor Award for Lifetime Achievement in Modern American Poetry, Guggenheim and National Arts Council fellowships, and the Shelley Memorial Award. He and his wife Dorothy live in Lexington, MA.