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CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
@CoffeewClassics
Jun 13, 2024 • 11 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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Happy Birthday, William Butler Yeats, born June 13, 1865.

His poems possess a lyricism and emotional intensity that is nonpareil and an insight into the modern world that often feels prophetic.

A thread of excerpts from my favorite W.B. Yeats poems: 🧵👇 1933 photographic portrait of William Butler Yeats, copyright not renewed, public domain. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
10. When You Are Old, by W.B. Yeats (1893) Image
9. No Second Troy, by W.B. Yeats (1916) Image
8. from The Stolen Child, by W.B. Yeats (1899) Image
7. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, by W.B. Yeats (1890) Image
6. Never Give All the Heart, by W.B. Yeats Image
5. from Easter, 1916, by W.B. Yeats (1916) Image
4. from Sailing to Byzantium, by W.B. Yeats (1927) Image
3. Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, by W.B. Yeats (1899) Image
2. An Irish Airman foresees his Death, by W.B. Yeats (1919) Image
1. The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats (1920) Image

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More from @CoffeewClassics

CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Apr 23
Happy Birthday to the Immortal Bard!

To celebrate, a thread of every Shakespeare play, with the most memorable lines from each: Image
1. Romeo and Juliet

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet..." (II.ii) Romeo and Juliet by Ford Maddox Ford, c. 1850
2. Macbeth

"...Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." (V.v) Macbeth and Banquo meeting the witches on the heath, Théodore Chassériau, 1855
Read 27 tweets
CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Apr 18
It's Good Friday.

Instead of doom-scrolling, log off and read one of these Good Friday-inspired works of literature.

Thread: 🪡 👇 The Crucifixion by Michelangelo, 1540
10. The Dream of the Rood

This 7th-century Old English poem tells the story of the Crucifixion from the perspective of the Cross itself ("Rood" is Old English for "pole" or crucifix), blending Christian themes with Anglo-Saxon warrior culture.

A fascinating work. Crucifixion, seen from the Cross, by James Tissot, c. 1890
9. East Coker, from The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

One of the most arrestingly beautiful meditations on the meaning of the Passion.

It's Eliot at his best, grappling with the modern world while reaching for the transcendent. detail from the Crucifixion Diptych by Rogier van der Weyden, 1460
Read 12 tweets
CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Apr 1
Happy April Fools' Day.

On this day, in 1708, Jonathan Swift, years before publishing Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, inflicted one of the first public April Fools hoaxes on his readers.

It was as brutal as you'd expect from him.

A thread: 🧵👇 Portrait of Jonathan Swift by Charles Jervas, 1710
In Swift's day, Almanacs were all the rage.

Today, we think of them like Ben Franklin's Poor Richard -- collections of pithy witticisms paired with weather forecasts for farmers.

But back then, they were horoscopes with an agenda.

The most popular was John Partridge's. 2/ Image
Partridge was a cobbler by trade who, in the heady days of Restoration-era England, remade himself as a man of (pseudo-)science.

Declaring himself an expert astrologer (and all *other* astrologers frauds) and a "Physician to the King," he started publishing horoscopes. 3/ John Partridge, Line engraving by R. White, 1682, courtesy of Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom, CC04.
Read 12 tweets
CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Mar 9
JD Vance as classic literary figures.

I’m so sorry.

1. JD Austen Image
2. JD Shakespeare Image
3. JD, the lost Brontë Sister Image
Read 12 tweets
CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Feb 17
For President's Day, a reminder:

Of the 45 people who have served as President of the United States, at least 33 studied Latin in school.

Why? Latin Education is Leadership Education.

A brief thread: 1/ portrait of John Adams, c. 1800/1815, by Gilbert Stuart
portrait of James Madison, 1816, by John Vanderlyn
portrait of James Garfield, 1881, by Calvin Curtis
portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, 1903, by John Singer Sargent
For the Founding Generation? Latin proficiency was a prerequisite for higher education.

Adams and Jefferson were reading Cicero, Caesar, and Virgil at a young age.

Ancient Greek was expected, too.

Some, like James Madison, even studied and mastered Hebrew at university. 2/ detail from the School of Athens, 1510-11, by Raphael
Why this focus?

Because true education is about being in dialogue with the past.

And the past is a foreign country.

If you want to understand a foreign country? Learn its language.

Latin, Greek & Hebrew unlock an understanding of Western civilization's foundations. 3/ Cicero Denounces Catiline, fresco by Cesare Maccari, 1882–1888
Read 10 tweets
CoffeeWithTheClassics Profile picture
Feb 17
Happy President's Day!

In 1771, Thomas Jefferson's brother-in-law asked him what books every gentleman should own.

Jefferson responded with a list of hundreds.

I'll include the full list at the end of the thread, but here are a few gems I think you'll want to check out: 🧵👇 portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale (1791)
10. Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso (1581)

This Italian epic melds history with myth to tell the story of the First Crusade and its "deliverance" of Jerusalem from Muslim rule.

An inspiring chivalric tale, it is fundamentally about the clash between love and duty. Image
9. The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett (1748)

A picaresque novel about a young man who is disinherited and a series of misadventures that drag him across the globe, from one of the 18th-century's most popular (but now overlooked) authors. portrait of Tobias Smollett c. 1770 by an unknown painter
Read 14 tweets

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