Nobel Prize in Literature Recipient. He is generally considered to be one of the 20th century's key English-language poets, who lived a very public and colorful life. A Symbolist poet, he used allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his writings. His early poetry relied heavily on Irish myth and folklore, and his later work embraced more contemporary issues. His family's heritage was Protestant Anglo-Irish. His father was a lawyer and an aspiring artist, and his mother came from a wealthy merchant family in Sligo, Ireland. When he was two years old, his family moved to London, England, to further enhance his father's artistic career. Three years later, his family returned to Dublin, Ireland, where he attended high school. It was during this time that he began writing poetry, and, in 1885, his first poems, as well as an essay entitled "The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson," were published in the "Dublin University Review." In 1887, the family returned to London, and, in 1890, he co-founded the Rhymers' Club, which was later known as the "Tragic Generation", with Ernest Rhys. He collaborated with Edwin Ellis on the first complete edition of William Blake's works. He had a deep lifelong interest in astrology, mysticism, spiritualism, and the occult. His first significant poem was "The Isle of Statues," which appeared in the "Dublin University Review". His first solo publication was the pamphlet "Mosada: A Dramatic Poem" in 1886, followed by the collection "The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems" in 1889, "Poems" in 1895, "The Secret Rose" in 1897, and "The Wind Among the Reeds" in 1899. In 1889, he met and fell in love with Maud Gonne, a beautiful, red-haired Irish Nationalist. He proposed marriage to her in 1891 and was rejected. He subsequently proposed marriage to her on three other occasions over the next ten years and was refused each time. In 1896, he met Lady Gregory, Isabella Augusta Persse, wife of Sir William Henry Gregory, an Irish dramatist and folklorist who encouraged his Irish Nationalism and convinced him to pursue writing drama. In 1899, he, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and George Moore established the Irish Literary Theater. In 1902 he cast Maud in the lead role of his play "Cathleen ni Houlihan." He wrote a total of ten plays during his career. The theater was not successful and disbanded in two years. Not to be dismayed, he and others established the Irish National Theater Society and opened the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Ireland, in December of 1904. In 1909, he met the American poet, Ezra Pound; the two wintered together for the next seven years in the Stone Cottage at Ashdown Forest with Pound nominally acting as his secretary, and during this time, he wrote his most important collections of poetry, starting with "The Green Helmet" in 1910 and "Responsibilities" in 1914. While an Irish Nationalist at heart and a member of the primitive Irish Republican Army, he did not actively participate in the 1916 Irish Easter Rebellion. He kept much of his revolutionary views to himself and would distance himself from the intense politics of the time. On October 20, 1917, he married Bertha "Georgie" Hyde-Lees, who was 27 years younger and was also involved in spiritualism and mysticism, which they practiced in their first years of marriage, enhancing his writing abilities. The couple had a son and a daughter. In 1922, he was appointed to the first Irish Senate and was reappointed for a second term in 1925. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in December of 1923, which led to a significant increase in the sale of his books. He was bestowed the coveted award according to the Nobel Prize committee, "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". In January of 1926, his publication "A Vision" was released. He resigned from the Irish Senate in 1928 due a decline in health and, in 1934, he underwent the "Steinach Operation," or a partial vasectomy, designed to reduce fatigue and the consequences of aging and to increase overall vigor and sexual potency. He remained a prolific writer in his later years and, in imagery, his poetry became sparer and more powerful as evidenced by "The Tower" in 1928, "The Winding Stair" in 1929, and "New Poems" in 1938, which contained some of the most potent images in 20th-century poetry. During this same time, he also engaged in a number of romantic affairs with younger women. In 1936, he became the editor of the "Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935." He died at the Hotel Ideal Sejour in France at the age of 73 and was initially buried at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in a common grave at the dawn of World War II. In September of 1948, his remains were exhumed and reburied in Drumcliff Churchyard, County Sligo, Ireland, in accordance with his wishes. Since his remains were buried with other remains in a common grave, there has been much controversy considering the actual location of his remains to the point that his family declared the subject is closed. His simple grave site is visited yearly by thousands of admirers of his works. A bronze sculpture of Yeats with randomly engraved snippets of his poetry was created by Rowan Gillespie and is located on Stephen Street overlooking Sligo town. Pulitzer Prize poet and admirer W. H. Auden wrote the poem "In Memory of WB Yeats."