W. B. Yeats W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served as a Senator of the Irish Free State for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others. Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland and educated there and in London. He spent childhood holidays in County Sligo and studied poetry from an early age when
Padraic Colum did pay his father's fine afterwards. He collected Irish folk songs, and sometimes rewrote them almost in their entirety, including the famous "She Moved Through the Fair". Colum based his poem on one surviving line, while his collaborator, the musicologist Herbert Hughes noted the tune. He was awarded a five-year scholarship by a wealthy American benefactor, Thomas Hughes Kelly. He used it to read, study and write. He did not attend University College Dublin, or any other University as a student. He was awarded a prize by Cumann na nGaedheal for his anti-enlistment play, "The Saxon Shillin"'. Through his plays