How Does Keats Use Dramatic Irony In The Second Coming

Slouching Toward Bethlehem took ideas from WB Yeats Poem “The Second Coming” where both pieces of writing for inspired by the following of wars. In “the second Coming”

The Biblical references allude to a time where the world and the people had hope for their future. But, having lived during World War I, Yeats questions the current state of mankind. Furthermore, he implies the future is bleak and certain something will bring about the destruction of the world as they know it. Yeats mentions “Spiritus Mundi”, or the spirit of the world, in the poem (12). Normally, one views this spirit of the world in a positive and perhaps even in a naturalistic light: a beacon of hope. Not Yeats. He says “a vast image of Spiritus Mundi/Troubles my sight”, (12-13). Yeats also sees others around him lose their sense of innocence. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity” (6-8). These lines describes what Yeats sees in the

The literary transcendence of John Keats’ works far surpasses the malevolent criticism of the Tory Journals. The beauty of Keats’ poems and letters, have held him in regard as the quintessential Romantic poet, whose short life was ultimately consumed by his struggle for acceptance in the dominant literary community. In the opening lines of Endymion, Keats writes ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’; an assertion that anything beautiful will give unending pleasure - a belief that is carried throughout not only in Endymion but also Ode on a Grecian Urn. It is commonplace for Keats’ poems to explore the different forms of beauty most typically through nature, romance and the ideal. Keats’ work exemplifies the paradoxical tensions between the passage of time, the permanence of beauty and the disappointment of reality. Though beauty is arguably subjective thus rooted in opinion and perception, beauty for Keats is a transcendent aesthetic found in every aspect of the human existence and beyond.

The Apocalypse on earth has started, the Anti-Christ a beast of half-human, half animal is rising, to the earth and the world is being pulled into the darkness of hell through the gyre. This poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats is about revelations. Yeats Uses language and syntax, and a new form of writing, and literary devices, to the point of view of the narrator, and form, and context. That results in showing that Yeats, was struggling to understand Christianity in his life, to his upbringing, that led him longing to understand religion. In turn, Yeats's father taught him to look at the world through art and poetry that led Yeats to explore the world of the supernatural to many other forms of religions, that left Yeats to become deeply involved in politics that left him struggling to understand Christianity, as he does throughout "The Second Coming.”

Chaos and change are inescapable and it cannot be controlled, directed or even contained. “The Second Coming” was written as a reaction to the chaos and changes due to WW1 and Ireland’s movement into the post-colonial stage. The poem states Yeats’ political views and worries that the people who hold power are driving the country towards mere chaos, thus revealing his desire for stability. Yeats uses a metaphor, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”, implying that the world is heading towards chaos. It is also referencing political implications and the changes that have released ‘mere anarchy’ upon the world. Even though Yeats desires stability, his own cynical mindset stops him from believing that stability is achievable as the Second Coming is occurring. The bleak and gloomy tone of the “The Second Coming” demonstrates the negativity caused by the changes and chaos possibly foreshadowing death created by the second coming. “The Second Coming” is a text that has definitely become more valued over time as it challenges common ideas such as war and what is the point of war, which many people think all the time. It is very relevant throughout humanity as it endures commonly thought of ideas.

“The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats, was written in 1919 following World War I and was to present the idea that he thought that the apocalypse as presented in the Book of Revelation from the Bible was about to begin. The poem does not mention the second coming of Christ but rather focuses on the coming of the antichrist, meaning Yeats could only see despair, hopelessness, and chaos in the world. These sentiments of Yeats and others are due to war damages, collapsing economies, and the coming of the Great Depression and the Irish civil war. The word choice, meter, persona, subject, and lack of mention of Christ all collectively contribute to reflecting Yeats’ sentiments in the poem.

The Romantic era produced many literary figures. Within this era, people were going against the conversion of agriculture to industrial. The change in lifestyle was so drastic that people began to rebel through literature. John Keats is one of the poets in that era. He writes poetry that is focused around nature. He was one of the many that missed the simplicity of agriculture and found beauty in nature rather than industrial cities. Even though this single topic appears in all of his poems, it is written in a different tone that allows each poem to be seen as on its own. Keats’ passion flows through each line in a different way. Within the contrast and comparison of the following four poems, one can see how Keats’ emotions illustrate the topic of nature differently.

The modernist view of poetry is most often compounded through depictions of unparalleled chaos, fragmentation, and disjuncture from the poetic self and society as a whole. In William Butler Yeats’ poetry, he embodies these defining perspectives by his representation of society within concepts of decay. More specifically, Yeats’ poems “Leda and the Swan” and “The Second Coming” epitomize the poetic techniques that define modernist views of poetry. In essence, these two poems compile deviations from previously established poetic ideals and, in their place, create a disseverance between the poet, speaker, society, and audience.

Throughout the whole poem, the symbolism makes the story dark and warning-like. The first stanza describes the state of society post-war and pre-Second Coming, when Yeats states “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, / and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned” (4-6). The symbolism in these lines shows that the state of the world is in

Why do we hesitate to think of Keats as a poet of place? First of all, because Keats, as Robert Kaufman points out, is a poet of things: of art objects that ‘exists to be energized, put into motion – even to be disassembled or dissolved – by subjects who exist in relation to them.’ Secondly, because the poetry of place is in turn associated with the mimetic representation of nature, an area where Keats sits uncomfortably. Even if innumerable natural objects and sceneries fill up Keats’s poems, such props have – for the most part – a very loose or ambiguous relation to any material reality outside of the text. Additionally, Keats often conveys abstract thinking in the language of physical sensation, making the interwoven moments of concrete

Keats covered many topics in the poems he wrote during his short life but the theme of fantasy being a better alternative to reality was prominent throughout many of his works. To Keats the idea that, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter” (Urn 11-12) play a major role in his poetry, demonstrating that for him the idea of what is yet to come is far better than the actual reality of the situation. Through the narratives and stories he tells in his poems, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “The Eve of St. Agnes,” it is made evident that Keats would rather live in the fantasy realm of his own mind than in reality.

    In his eloquent poem "The Second Coming" William Butler Yeats uses word choice and phrase combinations to convey to the reader an understanding of his sentiment of impossibility concerning the fate of spirituality for the human race. His inner conscious is spread out in the poem for the reader to either accompany him in his darkness or to turn their back and continue to believe in their own form of hopefulness in spirituality.

John Keats, a second generation Romantic poet, is considered the perfect Romantic poet. His works have been read, appreciated and studied across the world, though this was not done during his lifetime. Only in the twentieth century did Keats’ get due credit and respect for the complexity of his odes, his pursuit of truth and beauty and dealing with human difficulty and suffering.

The works of W. B. Yeats and John Keats are interestingly comparable in style and idea. Both depend intensely on symbolism. Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium” is full of sensory imagery describing the journey to an ideal place, just as Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” is beautifully portraying the significance of an ancient art on an urn. Both use metaphor to deal

In the poem, Keats writing instigates he is intrigued by the presents and depiction of the Grecian Urn. The first stanza of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” consists of the Romantic poet questioning the historic origin of the vase’s pictured stories. He asks, “What men or gods are these”, “What mad pursuit,” and “What wild ecstasy”. In the fourth stanza, the audience is presented a scenario in which Pious practices are in place. The reader can sense Keats 's curiosity growing when he states, “Who are these coming to the sacrifice?” and “Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn”. He questions the depiction upon the work of art; however, unlike most, John Keats 's curiosity is not further pushed into formulating an answer. In asking such rhetoric questions, his main goal is provoke thought. This concept is known to originate with the Romantic Poet. The theory of negative capability is the view that one can be contempt with just