William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and public
figure. Yeats was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary
Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. His early work
tended towards a romantic lushness and dreamlike quality best
described by the title of his 1893 collection The Celtic Twilight,
but in his 40s, inspired by his relationships with modernist poets
such as Ezra Pound and his active involvement in Irish nationalist
politics, he moved towards a harder, more modern style. As well as
his role as member of the board of the Abbey, Yeats served as an
Irish Senator. He took his role as a public figure seriously and was
a reasonably hard-working member of the Seanad. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 for what the Nobel Committee
described as "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic
form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats
Today's selected anniversaries:
1793 French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe
de Gouges was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympe_de_Gouges)
1838 The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English
language daily broadsheet newspaper was founded.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India)
1848 A new constitution of the Netherlands drafted by Johan
Rudolf Thorbecke, severely limiting the powers of the
monarchy, was proclaimed.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Rudolf_Thorbecke)
1957 The Sputnik 2 spacecraft was launched, carrying Laika the
Russian space dog, the first living being to orbit the
Earth.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_2)
1971 The UNIX Programmer's Manual was first published.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX)
Wikiquote of the day:
"We'd all like t'vote fer th'best man, but he's never a
candidate."
~ Kin Hubbard
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kin_Hubbard)