Analysis Of The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army occupied Dublin’s General Post Office, and from its steps, Patrick Pearse read a proclamation of the Irish Republic. The British military responded with force, and the Easter Rising, as it became known, came to an end with the rebels’ surrender on April 29. In England at the time, W. B. Yeats learned about the Rising mostly through newspapers and through letters from his friend and patroness, Lady Gregory. As the British forces imposed martial law and, in early May, executed fifteen of the Rising’s leaders, some of whom Yeats knew personally, the events in Ireland moved Yeats to begin writing the poem which became “Easter, 1916.”

When Yeats moved back to London to pursue his interest in Arts, he met famous writers like Maud Gonne. The Poem “To Ireland in the Coming Times” is one of the poems Yeats wrote in 1892 and was published in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends. “Know, that I would accounted

We can be more specific and see what the poet and writer exactly talk about. It is better to focus on the poem first as it was written before the novel. In his poem William butler Yeats is shocked by the events which were happening during the First World War. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned…”, he tries to picture the dark ages of the war and the nasty events which were happening by using some metaphors and similes such as “a shape with lion body and the head of man” or “shadows of the indignant desert birds” Therefore, he manage to transmit the terrifying atmosphere of his time to the reader. He can not stand this state of fairs so he thinks that it is the end and he hopes that it is time for the second coming of Christ.

William Butler Yeats is one of the most esteemed poets in 20th century literature and is well known for his Irish poetry. While Yeats was born in Ireland, he spent most of his adolescent years in London with his family. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he later moved back to Ireland. He attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and joined the Theosophical Society soon after moving back. He was surrounded by Irish influences most of his life, but it was his commitment to those influences and his heritage that truly affected his poetry. William Butler Yeats’s poetry exemplifies how an author’s Irish identity can help create and influence his work.

Conflict is the basis of all human interaction and hence is an integral part of human life. Through ambiguous yet comprehensive treatment of conflict W. B. Yeats has ensured that his works stand the test of time and hence have remained ‘classics’ today. Through my critical study I have recognised that Yeats’ poems Easter 1916 and The Second Coming are no exception. Yeats’ poetic form, language and use of poetic techniques; such as juxtaposition, allusion, and extended metaphors, alert audiences to both the inner and physical conflict that are the foundations of both poems. It is through this treatment of conflict that supplies audiences with the ability to individualise the reading and hence engage a broad range of

In the poem “The Second Coming”, by William Butler Yeats. He writes this poem after World War I, around 1919. Yeats is a Irish poet, who came from Protestant parentage. The over all theme of the poem is that God will come back again. There are many versions to how God will appear, but in this poem bad things happen first in order for God to come. In “The Second Coming,” Yeats uses symbolism to unfold the meaning of the poem.

This poem is also about Art, and the Irish people's response to it. It is structured around the contrast between the Yeats' dream to write for the Irish people, and the reality.

The effects of war as a theme in W.B.Yeats’s Easter 1916 and An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

     When You are Old, by William Butler Yeats, represents and elderly woman reminiscing of her younger days. A past lover whispers to her as she looks through a photo album. Basically, Yeats is showing that as the woman gets older, she is alone, but she does not have to be lonely. She will always have her memories for companionship.

Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," written in 1919 and published in 1921 in his collection of poems Michael Robartes and the Dancer, taps into the concept of the gyre and depicts the approach of a new world order. The gyre is one of Yeats' favorite motifs, the idea that history occurs in cycles, specifically cycles "twenty centuries" in length (Yeats, "The Second Coming" ln. 19). In this poem, Yeats predicts that the Christian era will soon give way apocalyptically to an era ruled by a godlike desert beast with the body of a lion and the head of a man (ln. 14). Critics have argued about the exact meaning of this image, but a close reading of the poem, combined with some simple genetic work, shows

Mr. Yeats relates his vision, either real or imagined, concerning prophesies of the days of the Second coming. The writer uses the Holy Bible scripture text for his guide for because no one could explain this period of time without referring to the Holy Bible. He has chosen to present it in the form of a poem, somewhat like the quatrains of Nostradamus. The poem does not cover all the details of this event, but does give the beginning of the powerful messages, and a dark look at those ominous days surrounding the Second Coming of The Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is trying in his own words to warn everyone about the end time days.

The twenty-four old romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” written in the spring of 1819 was one of his last of six odes. That he ever wrote for he died of tuberculosis a year later. Although, his time as a poet was short he was an essential part of The Romantic period (1789-1832). His groundbreaking poetry created a paradigm shift in the way poetry was composed and comprehended. Indeed, the Romantic period provided a shift from reason to belief in the senses and intuition. “Keats’s poem is able to address some of the most common assumptions and valorizations in the study of Romantic poetry, such as the opposition between “organic culture” and the alienation of modernity”. (O’Rourke, 53) The irony of Keats’s Urn is he likens

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, a dramatist, and a prose writer - one of the greatest English-language poets of the twentieth century. (Yeats 1) His early poetry and drama acquired ideas from Irish fable and arcane study. (Eiermann 1) Yeats used the themes of nationalism, freedom from oppression, social division, and unity when writing about his country. Yeats, an Irish nationalist, used the three poems, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” “September 1913” and “Easter 1916” which revealed an expression of his feelings about the War of Irish Independence through theme, mood and figurative language.

William Butler Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” after World War 1 ended, in a time when the image of society was catastrophic. Yeats was deeply affected by these horrors caused by the war. Yeats predicts this image of a catastrophic society due to war will reappear in the near future. In “The Second Coming”, William B. Yeats uses a variety of literary devices to portray his idea of what the downfall of society will look like.

W.B. Yeat’s poem, Easter 1916, details the speaker’s feelings of Nationalism and heartache as he remembers those that he lost in the Easter Rising. As the speaker reflects on the time before the rising, he remembers not only how his life has changed but also how his friends and companions had transformed both in their character and in their state of being. The speaker uses metaphors to visualize the unchanging goal of Irish freedom and the coming of nights that bring about death and heartache. In this analysis, I will be focusing on the first and last stanzas of the poem. By comparing these two stanzas I will reflect on the literary devices used, as well as the differences of the speaker’s visuals from the beginning and end. Overall, the speaker