Irish writer 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."
William Butler Yeats, one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature, died on this day in 1939.
Editor's note: Yeats was a pillar of the Irish and British literary establishment and in his later years, he served as an Irish Senator for two terms.