The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Yeats, William Butler
Yeats, William
Butler
(
1865
–
1939
), eldest son of
J.
B.
Yeats
and brother of
Jack
Yeats
, both celebrated painters. He was born in Dublin and educated at the Godolphin School, Hammersmith, and the High School, Dublin. For three years he studied at the School of Art in Dublin, where with a fellow student,
G.
Russell
(Æ), he developed an interest in mystic religion and the supernatural. At 21 he abandoned art as a profession in favour of literature, writing John Sherman and Dhoya (
1891
) and editing The Poems of William Blake (
1893
), The Works of William Blake (with
F.
J.
Ellis
, 3 vols,
1893
), and Poems of Spenser (
1906
). A nationalist, he helped to found an Irish Literary Society in London in
1891
and another in Dublin in
1892
; and he subsequently applied himself to the creation of an Irish national theatre, an achievement which, with the help of
Lady
Gregory
and...
[The entire page is 915 words long]
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