One of the most influential figures of world literature, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was a descendent of the Anglo-Irish Protestant minority. His mother narrated fairy tales and Irish folk tales to them, which largely inspired his early poetry. The first volume of his verse called The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems was published in 1889. A remarkable landmark in his literary career, it established his reputation as a poet. In the later part of 1892, his second collection of poems, The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, was published. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Yeats had become a well-known literary figure in Dublin and London.
In November 1923, Yeats became the first Irishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In the years that followed he produced some of his best-known collections namely The Tower (1928), The Winding Stairs and Other Poems (1933), Collected Poems (1933), Collected Plays (1934), A Full Moon in March (1935), New Poems (1938) and Last Poems and Two Plays (1939). These works earned him the reputation of one of the most distinguished and influential poets of the twentieth century. Remembered and celebrated through his words and verses, the Nobel Laureate’s talent remains unsurpassed and his timeless works continue to be admired and praised.
