SOURCE: "A Half Century of the High Poetic Art of William Butler Yeats," in The New York Herald Tribune Book Review, Vol. 27, No. 38, May 6, 1951, p. 3.

In the following review, Stauffer praises The Collected Poems and briefly summarizes Yeats's poetic career, observing that in his poems, Yeats champions the integrity of the individual against society's pressure to reform.

For the first time in an American edition, all of the lyrics William Butler Yeats cared to own, and some of his narrative-dramatic poems, are available in one volume. In prose or poetry, probably no single volume can compete with this one if a reader seeks to understand Western literature of the last century. Or for that matter, literature today or tomorrow.

Chronologically arranged, the Collected Poems can be read indirectly as a history. The dates which Yeats has assigned somewhat cavalierly to pieces he tinkered with during a long lifetime...