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Episode details

Radio 3,11 Jun 2015,15 mins

SeriesWB Yeats at 150

The View from the Tower

The Essay

Available for over a year

Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1923, William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since. Marking the 150th anniversary of his birth on 13th June 1865, five of Ireland's leading cultural figures reflect on their relationship with his work. The authors include actor Fiona Shaw, writer Fintan O'Toole and poets Paul Muldoon and Paula Meehan. In this edition, Booker Prize-winning author John Banville explains his long-held love for Yeats's 1928 collection, 'The Tower'. Producer: Stan Ferguson.

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