William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats (English: William Butler Yeats, June 13, 1865 - January 28, 1939), also known as Yeats, was an Irish poet, playwright, and essayist. He co-founded the Abbey Theater and served two terms as a senator of the Irish Free State in his later years. Together with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn, he promoted the revival of Irish literature. He was born in Sandymount, Ireland, and educated there and in London. He was a Protestant and a member of the Anglo-Irish community. He spent his childhood holidays in County Sligo and began studying poetry from an early age, when he became fascinated with Irish legends and the occult. These themes emerged in the first phase of his work, which lasted until about the turn of the 20th century. His earliest collection of poems, published in 1889, showed a debt of gratitude to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the Pre-Raphaelite poets in its slow-paced lyricism. From 1900 onwards his poetry became more authentic and realistic. Although he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks and life cycle theory, he largely abandoned the transcendental beliefs of his youth. In 1923, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.