Audiobook · read by volunteers
Magi
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
Read by Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Andrew Lebrun, Beth Peat, Claire Goget, Dixie, Douglas D. Anderson, JimmyLogan, JemmaBlythe, Julian Jamison, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021) · 14 chapters · 12 min
About the book
The wise men of the Nativity, as you have never quite seen them. In his short poem “The Magi”, William Butler Yeats imagines them not as serene figures from a Christmas card, but as pale, restless spirits, haunted by what they have seen and still hoping for some final answer.
It is a strange, haunting poem, brief and full of images, and it invites more than one reading. This collection brings together fourteen different recordings of it by different volunteers, made to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany.
About twelve minutes in all. A short and unusual listen, perfect for those who enjoy modern poetry and who like to hear how much one text can change from voice to voice.
Introduction
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, a leading figure of the Irish literary revival and the first Irish writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1923. His career spanned more than four decades, beginning with dreamy, Celtic-flavoured verse and moving, in his later years, toward a harder and more direct style. Poems such as “The Second Coming”, “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Easter, 1916” are among the best known of the twentieth century.
“The Magi” appeared in 1914 and was gathered in the collection Responsibilities. In just a few lines, it presents the wise men of the Nativity story as ghostly, restless figures who still appear and vanish in the sky, hoping to find a final answer in the stable in Bethlehem. Yeats had a lifelong interest in mysticism, history and the cycles of civilisation, and this poem reflects those interests. It treats the Christian story not in a devotional manner, but as a moment in a larger pattern of events.
This recording is a multi-version project in which fourteen LibriVox volunteers read the poem, as part of the weekly poetry project for the week of the Epiphany, in January 2007. The whole collection lasts barely a quarter of an hour. The poem rewards repeated hearing, since its images are dense, and the different readings bring out different shades of meaning.
It is an ideal selection for readers curious about Yeats and for anyone who enjoys comparing interpretations.
Public domain
William Butler Yeats died in 1939: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text