William Buttler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1923.

He was born in Dublin, the son of John Butler Yeats, a portrait painter.

William Butler Yeats

1900

(the artist's son)

William studied art himself for three years until 1889 when his first collection of poems was published, The Wanderings of Oisin, and decided to make his living as a writer.

In 1893 he founded the National Literary Society in Ireland and then a few years later the Irish Literary Theater in 1899 but ended its run in 1901. By 1904 the Irish National Theater Society was formed and Yeats as its director.

By 1922 he got into politics and was elected to the Irish Senate. He served as Minister of Fine Arts in the Irish Cabinet and helped found the Irish Academy of Letters in 1932.

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose

perfection of the life, or of the work,

And if it take the second must refuse

A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

When all that story's finished, what's the news?

In luck or out the toil has left its mark:

That old perplexity an empty purse,

Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.