The irish civil war that followed the great war of 19141919 and various other events in europe added to that gloom. William butler yeats wrote his visionary poem, the second coming, in january 1919 when he was 44 years old. Yeats is viewed as the big granddaddy of modernism. The christian era was about the ability to predict the future. Above ground, a spiritual desolation prevailed and it was expressed most powerfully in two works of poetry at the time t. The poem begins with the phrase turning and turning in the widening gyre, a sentence that evokes an occult symbol that perpetually fascinated william butler yeats. In poetry, tone is the feeling a writer projects through word choice, imagery and subject. A gyre is a spiral or vortex, and yeats believed that the universe was comprised of interlocked circles, which.
This poem the second coming by william butler yeats is about revelations. These things were for yeats both emotionally satisfying and poetically useful because many of his best poems are related to the spiritual system built by the poet. The second coming by william butler yeats poetry foundation. This made him believe that there is no concept of morality in the. The second coming poem by william butler yeats poem hunter. Yeats philosophy focuses on gyres, circular or spiral turns, which represent progression into a new era. William butler yeats the second coming poem analysis the second coming is a poem written by william butler yeats in 1919. The second coming poem summary and analysis litcharts. The poet is seeking the second birth of savior and prophet christ. Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 100year archive of poetry magazine.
The second coming by william butler yeats by sathvik. The second coming is a powerful brief against punditry. Yeatss bestknown poems, and its meaning has eluded many readers because of its oblique references and ambiguous images. A shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, is moving its slow thighs, while all about it. Pdf analysis of the second coming by adex kustiana. Due to his particular position of an irish poet, it is no exception that william butler yeats poetry carries political significance. In this poem, yeats talks about the coming of a new spirit. William butler yeats the second coming a stylistic analysis. There are ten syllables with five stresses in each line, yet there are variations. As you read through, note the change in rhythm and texture as the narrative alters. Spiritual themes intertwine within the poem and reflect yeats personal ideologies about the human psyche, cultural history, and the progression of time. It is one of the most successful nonrhyming poems of yeats.
In the second coming, his ideas unfold in three significant metaphors. Yeats claimed that she was often inhabited by spirits who came in order to describe a universal system of cyclical birth, based around a turning gyre. Yeatss the second coming, one of the most famous poems in the irish nobel laureates body of work. The poet had seen atrocities, mass killings, diseases and deaths around him. But this fundamental meter is not immediately evident in yeats poem because the first line of each section its difficult to call them stanzas because there. The main themes of the poem are the second coming of the christ, the revival of faith and revival of civilization the disorders after crucifixion of christ. The foreboding tone of irishman william butler yeats poem the second coming a vision of social upheaval can make a reader feel moody and worried. This line turning and turning in the winding gyre means the cycle of life like cycle of christ birth prophet crucified rebirth. The second coming analysis line by line by wb yeats. The poem is divided into two stanzas and with the odd rhyme, but far more resembling freeverse modern voice than the other poems. Coming in a second yeatss famous poem the second coming is concerned with an ending and a beginning, both of them so interfused that it is scarcely possible to say where the distinction between them can be found. Download this entire guide to the second coming as a printable pdf. The second coming study guide contains a biography of william butler yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
From the start, yeats ties his poem to religion by stating the second coming is at hand, and conjuring up a picture of a creature with a lions body and a mans head, much like the. The second coming by william butler yeats historical considerations written post wwi2 years after many have interpreted many parts of this poem to foreshadow the events of wwii and the cold war things fall apart these words from line 3 in the poem influenced chinua achebes. There is a multitude of effective resources to help explicate the poem. The second coming evokes the christian concept of the apocalypse.
The third section in this paper deals with the interpretation of yeats poem. Summary and analysis of the poem the second coming by. The second coming study guide contains a biography of william butler yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blooddimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. Read the poem aloud to students 23 times while they read along. Hardly are those words out when a vast image out of spiritus mundi troubles my sight.
In the second stanza, the biblical imagery takes over the visions of corrupted nature. Written in 1919 soon after the end of world war i, it describes a deeply mysterious and. The second coming by william butler yeats by riley poynter. William butler yeats the second coming poem analysis. The poem uses christian imagery regarding the apocalypse and second coming to allegorically describe the atmosphere of postwar europe. The poem speaks of the disintegration of modern society with the spread of anarchy and the consequent violence and bloodshed. The falcon cannot hear the falconer things fall apart.
The poem the second coming was written by william butler yeats in 1919. The poem s title makes reference to the biblical reappearance of christ. Among other things, the second coming takes its imagery from yeatss book, a vision, a zodiac of sorts that he developed with his wife through visitations and automatic writing. The second coming is narrated by a speaker who is observing the world around him with horror. Yeats was an accomplished irish poet and was known for the socioreligious ideas he emphasized in his poetry. Yeats uses language and syntax, and a new form of writing, and literary devices, to the point of. Since the antichrist slouches towards bethlehem to be born, he will be in desert. Analysis of the second coming by william butler yeats.
In the second coming poets mind was filled with gloom in consequence of the sidespread murder and bloodshed in ireland in the course of the easter rebellion of 1916. Eliots the waste land and william butler yeats the second coming. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of. Critical analysis of the second coming nazar bazmis notes. Oneill explains that this jagged blank verse is central to the poem s effectiveness, as it moves from analysis in the first verseparagraph to imaging in the second 2004.
What follows is a short summary and analysis of the poem. The underlying metric pattern of the second coming is iambic pentameter, that mainstay of english poetry from shakespeare onward, in which each line is made up of five iambic feet da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum. After world war ii, there was a complete disconnect between humankind and divinity. In the postchristian era of which yeats was writing there was no bible to map out what the next coming would be. From the start, yeats ties his poem to religion by stating the second coming is at hand, and conjuring up a picture of a creature with a lions body and a mans head, much like the sphynx, and a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun. That the rough beast that yeats imagines is moving toward bethlehem, the birthplace of christ to be born affiliates it with the second coming of christ. Hardly are those words out when a vast image out of ispiritus mundi troubles my sight. Written in 1919 soon after the end of world war i, it describes a deeply mysterious and powerful alternative to the christian idea of the second coming jesuss prophesied return to the.
Other symbols in the poem are drawn from mythology, the occult, and yeatss view of history as defined. The second coming poem summary by yeats english summary. The poem is the outcome of a state of mind troubled with ominous forebodings. Interestingly, to describe this scene of chaos he uses. Yeats in 1919, first printed in the dial in november 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses michael robartes and the dancer. An analysis of yeatss the second coming aegis noise.
Published in 1992 in the collection titled the green helment and other poems, the twelveline poem, no second troy, is the most celebrated, and combines personal passion with political passion. The poem the second coming is a twentytwo lines poem, written in free verse with loose iambic pentameter. Here is a summary and critical analysis of the second coming by william. Discussion guide for william butler yeatss the second coming. It takes a great deal of patience and deliberation to explicate. Hes sort of like the progenitor of it all, in a way. Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer. No second troy by william butler yeats poem analysis.
After the first time through, pause after each line and allow the students to observe you relishing the beauty and deliberateness of the language. The poem the second coming consists of two stanzas, with eight verses in the first stanza, and 14 verses in the second one. The second coming explains yeats theory of the movement of history. Reflects the instability and chaos that yeats sees in the world around him. The image of sand, the desert birds, and the a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun show the rigors and unbearable circumstances of the desert. There is some background information, with the poem deconstruction starting at 7. The poem the second coming by wb yeats is about the turmoil created by world war ii. An analysis of metaphors in the second coming by william. Yeats prior to august of 1914, many people in western civilization saw that there society was approaching the. The second coming is a poem written by irish poet w. The second coming, an intense, lyrical poem of twentytwo lines, addresses a. The second coming by william yeats essay 1286 words. The second coming analysis by william butler yeats.