Irish · 1865–1939
William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." The Irish poet created the symbolism of modern Ireland through verse and drama. "The Tower" (1928) and "The Winding Stair" (1929) contain his late masterpieces. Yeats was a senator, an occultist, and a lifelong lover of Maud Gonne.