"The Stolen Child" is an 1889 poem by William Butler Yeats, published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.
Inception
1886
Overview
"The Stolen Child" is an 1889 poem by William Butler Yeats, published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.
Overview
The poem was written in 1886 and is considered to be one of Yeats's more notable early poems. The poem is based on Irish legend and concerns faeries beguiling a child to come away with them. Yeats had a great interest in Irish mythology about faeries resulting in his publication of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry in 1888 and Fairy Folk Tales of Ireland in 1892.
The poem reflects the early influence of Romantic literature and Pre-Raphaelite verse.
