Hey everyone! In continuation on the class discussion about The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, I had several ideas about this fascinating poem. William Butler Yeats skillfully wrote this poem with many interesting concepts. The poem additionally has intriguing poetic structure and witty literary techniques such as allusions and imagery. By referencing Bethlehem and The Second Coming of Christ, the poem has a greater meaning.
1919, the year in which William Butler Yeats wrote The Second Coming, was the end of the horrific World War I. The world was looking for hope and a new beginning however, this poem reflects the depressing atmosphere and downright awful outlook on the world’s future after World War I. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Within these lines of Yeats’ dismal painting, are details about how the world was after WWI. These lines reveal the chaos and terror which manifested within Europe. In William Butler Yeats’ poem The Second Coming, the Yeats expressed his thoughts on the gloomy future for the world, and also his fears about the terrible future. “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand” These lines depict that the Second Coming of the savior is near. “Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert a shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun” Unexpectedly, the Second Coming is far from a savior, in its’ place is a evil and devestating Sphinx.William Yeats reveals that he believes the world is coming to an apocalyptic revelation.
Within William Butler Yeats stunning poem, The Second Coming, Yeats paints a dark, depressing future of the world by using dark imagery, biblical allusions, and powerful words. Could William Butler Yeats have been predicting future wars to come such as WWI, The Cold War or Vietnam?
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For what you have said about the poem about what William Butler Yeats might have beleived at the time of writing is easily agreed with. I myself believe that after world war one people thought it was getting better thus they started to sepnd more, do more. Which was at first the Second Coming them being able to do that again and thinking it was good. But in fact it turned out to be the evil because all of our government spending caused us to go into debt and now our government is falling to shambles and in the end result America is just a mokeryt of what we once were and i think that William butler Yeats was basically was predicting the future.
ReplyDeleteAre you guys sure that he was predicting the future instead of perhaps writing exactly as it seems without all the background info we have now today? Could it be he was simply writing of the actual second coming of Christ and his veiws on how it could effect the world? This is what I dislike about such old liturature... we can no longer ask him what his purpose for writing such a poem is. It could be that he wrote it about the second coming and we using the info we have now turned it into something else entirely because it could make sense. Well we'll never know unless there is a journal out there by William Butler Yeats depicting exactly what he was alluding to.
ReplyDeleteMaybe to us it seems as if Yeats was predicting the future, but really in fact, it's like that old saying "history repeates itself". It seems like things happen over and over, and the way the Yeats' poem still can be related to many things is proof of that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure if he was really predicting anything, I think that Yeats was just telling it like it was. It's possible that maybe he was just trying to capture the fear and hopelessness being displayed around him. It is interesting though, that events played out like they did (Vietnam or Cold War). Maybe he had an idea of what was going to happen?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe he was predicting the future, so much stating what had happen and what continues to happen. We tend to think of after WWI as very rich, but only in America. Over seas in Eurpoe [especially Germany] there was a lot of termoial. Hitler statred to come to large just after WWI which could have easilly been the 'Second Coming' for that country.
ReplyDelete- Erin Barlow