How Does Yeats Use Biblical Allusions In The Second Coming

This last stanza uses more elevated language to express more complicated emotions such as awe, humility and repentance. The early verses express simple anger in simple terms. This last stanza differs noticeably from the first two in the language it uses and the sentiments it expresses. To start off he admits he has made a mistake “I see that I’ve been carried away” l.43. This is the first time he uses a 1st person narrative. It helps the reader believe he is sincere. The poet adopts a humbled tone when he expresses embarrassment at his earlier attack on the “coward trees” and feels ashamed: “foolish in my judgments” l.46. Instead of denying his previous statements he takes responsibility for them.

    The last three lines of the poem, "And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more, /Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied, / The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor," are the strongest. Yeats is saying that, although they are unhappy with their lives, they have not given up hope. They still feel that they can find perfect happiness. They realize that this happiness cannot be found in the lives they are currently living. Yeats often used the image of the cross or of Christ’s crucifixion to symbolize things such as "discord, incompleteness, opposition, mortality, temporality" (Ellmann and O'Clair, 135). With this line, he is saying that these people have given up hope that they will ever be happy in their hectic, strife-filled, material worlds. They are now turning to God in order to find some sense of peace and fulfillment in their lives. The

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.

"We talk of the Second Coming: half the world has never heard of the first." – Oswald J. Smith

The emotional impact of certain writings is changed by major events such as revolutions and wars. As seen in “Slouching towards Bethlehem” where you see the effects of the Vietnam war in the 60’s movement, hippy movement, and how war changed the beliefs of the American people Because of change it leads to a conflict between generations. In nonfiction, the tone and hidden meaning shown in the story are heavily influenced by major events at that time. In Joan Didion’s essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” she uses descriptive imagery, structure and references to WB Yeat’s poem “The Second Coming” to convey the turmoil and generational divide during the 1960’s in America.

The third looming prophecy has yet to completely be fulfilled, however a significant amount of ongoing issues indicate the contents within the prophecy may possibly be on the verge of resurfacing in the near future. Contrary to the previous restorative prophecies, the message of the prophecy located in Ezekiel chapter thirty-eight predicts destruction. The language within the prophecy states, “When my people of Israel are established securely, will you make your move? Will you attack that land of Israel? Fueled by blazing jealousy, I tell you that then there will be an earthquake that rocks the land of Israel. I’ll order all-out war against Gog. I’ll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your mobs of troops and people.” By approaching current ongoing events mindful of the emphasis Ezekiel placed on recognizing the inevitable destructive forces around him before they happened, society today is reminded that there are situations that are uncontrollable, and

The poem begins in a manner suggestive of a lover scorned. Yeats talks about how passionate women, which at this point in time is not necessarily a compliment, don’t consider love that is a sure thing worth their time and energy. Essentially it is a poetized version of the “Nice guys finish last” argument, along with the idea that people only desire what

The most chaotic element of the poem not actually found in the quite disordered first stanza, but right at the beginning of the second stanza lies the revelation of the reason for the overwhelming chaos. The speaker had a dream, a desire, to leave this chaotic world. The speaker experiences being told that “it didn’t matter.” The speaker must have perceived all the past images to be chaotic because of his depressing experience. However, even if this is the climax of chaos, it is in a way a turning point toward are more ordered and peaceful world.

The first stanza is addressed to ‘old men’ and how they should not simply slip away and die quietly, they should fight death until the end. Poetic techniques

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.

Yeats was a confessional poet - that is to say, that he wrote his poetry directly from his own experiences. He was an idealist, with a purpose. This was to create Art for his own people - the Irish. But in so doing, he experienced considerable frustration and disillusionment. The tension between this ideal, and the reality is the basis of much of his writing. One central theme of his earlier poetry is the contrast

put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. I

The Apocalypse on earth has started and The Anti-Christ a beast of half-human, a half animal is rising, and the world is being pulled into the darkness of hell through the gyre. This is what the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Keats is about. Even though “The Second Coming” is about Revolutions, to the reader Keats is left looking at the events of the world around him and trying to take in all the violent acts of war and the devastation, that leaves him struggling to understand religion.

Yeats is essentially a poet of ‘modern complexities’. His transition from ‘romantic’ to ‘modern’ is perhaps the failure of hope or vision he had for Ireland and thus, he resorted to the modern tone of distress and hopelessness similar to the case of Eliot in Hollow Men. Inactivity of the generation made him suffocated and thus, he wrote Sailing to Byzantium, a utopian civilization for the old yet energetic, the city of Byzantium.

Beside the falcon, the gyre acts as an example of a positive feedback loop which ultimately ends in collapse. The world experienced this loop by having several chain reaction events that eventually pushed countries over the edge, resulting in the outbreak of violence and bloodshed. This sophisticated diction is also intricately combined with allusion in words such as “tide” and “drowned”(line 5-6) in reference to Noah’s Ark. In Noah’s story, God cleanses the world from sinners by flooding them. The poet might be saying that the world needs to be cleansed because “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”(line 7-8).