William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) remains one of the world’s most influential poets and playwrights. Born in County Dublin, Ireland, he founded the first Irish national theater in 1899 and ignited the Irish Literary Revival with Lady Augusta Gregory.  Yeats was elected to the first Irish Senate in 1922 and was awarded the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry in 1937. His works, including the much-quoted “The Second Coming” and “Easter, 1916,” reflect modern preoccupations with the cycles of life. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.