W. B. Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, one of the central figures of twentieth-century literature. Born in Dublin and raised partly in London and Sligo, he drew on Irish myth and folklore in his early poetry and helped lead the Irish literary revival, founding the Abbey Theatre with Lady Gregory and others. His later poetry, in collections such as The Tower and The Winding Stair, combines personal passion, politics and a private mythology with great formal mastery. He served as a senator of the Irish Free State and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.