William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was a poet, writer, and one of the mainstays of the British and Irish literary scenes. In 1923 he became the first Irishman awarded the Nobel Prize. He spent two terms serving as a senator in Ireland and, as an Irish nationalist, he spent a brieftime in the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He distanced himself from the movement before the Easter Rising of 1916, choosing instead to focus on his literary pursuits.