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Portrait of W. B. Yeats

Literature · Poets

W. B. Yeats

1865–1939 · Irish

Irish Literary Revival; modernism

William Butler Yeats was the leading figure of the Irish Literary Revival and one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He co-founded the Abbey Theatre, served as a senator of the Irish Free State, and in 1923 became the first Irish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. His poetry moved from Celtic mysticism to the hard-edged modernism of "Easter, 1916", "The Second Coming" and "Sailing to Byzantium".

How to spot them

  • ▸"A terrible beauty is born" (Easter, 1916); "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" (The Second Coming)
  • ▸Unrequited love for Maud Gonne; co-founded the Abbey Theatre with Lady Gregory
  • ▸Innisfree, Coole Park, Thoor Ballylee, Byzantium; buried at Drumcliff, County Sligo
  • ▸Nobel Prize in Literature 1923; senator of the Irish Free State

Key works

The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1890)

Longing for a simple life in a cabin on an island in Lough Gill, County Sligo

The Celtic Twilight (1893)

Prose collection of Irish folklore and fairy stories that gave the Revival a nickname

The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)

Counting fifty-nine swans at Lady Gregory's estate at Coole Park; title poem of a 1919 collection

Easter, 1916 (1916 (published 1920))

Ambivalent tribute to the executed leaders of the Easter Rising, with the refrain 'A terrible beauty is born'

The Second Coming (1919 (published 1920))

Apocalyptic vision of a 'rough beast' slouching towards Bethlehem

Sailing to Byzantium (1928)

Opening poem of The Tower; an old man seeks the eternity of art; begins 'That is no country for old men'

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death (1918 (published 1919))

Monologue of an airman modelled on Lady Gregory's son Robert, killed in 1918

Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902)

Nationalist play, written with Lady Gregory, with Maud Gonne in the title role

Key ideas

  • Revival of Irish myth, folklore and national identity in literature
  • Occult and mystical system of history as turning 'gyres', set out in A Vision (1925)
  • Late style of stark, public, rhetorical modernist verse on politics, ageing and art

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born in Sandymount, Dublin; son of the painter John Butler Yeats and brother of the painter Jack B. Yeats
  • •Proposed several times to the revolutionary Maud Gonne, who refused him
  • •Married Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917; her 'automatic writing' fed into A Vision
  • •Co-founded the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (opened 1904), with Lady Gregory
  • •Served as a senator of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1928
  • •Nobel Prize in Literature 1923 'for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation'
  • •Bought and restored the tower Thoor Ballylee in County Galway, symbol of the collection The Tower (1928)
  • •Died in France in 1939; reburied in 1948 at Drumcliff, County Sligo, under the epitaph from 'Under Ben Bulben' beginning 'Cast a cold eye'
  • •Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men take their titles from Yeats

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Sources