Yeats, W. B.: - "William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served as an Irish Senator for two terms, and was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others, founded the Abbey Theater, where he served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman so honored for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". Yeats is considered to be one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize."