Spirituality and The Second Coming Essay examples

    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

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.

This leads on to the theme of “The Second Coming” —change brings upon uncertainties. Yeats wrote the poem after World War I when Europe was mourning a catastrophic loss of life and. This can be exhibited in lines 3 and 4 of the poem which states, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed up

In the first stanza Yeats expresses his conflicting loathing and admiration for modernity through the juxtaposition of “vivid faces” and “grey houses”. This represents the possibilities that modernity can bring; the revitalising of the community or the destruction of tradition and age old energy already lost by the modifications in the city. The repetition of the phrase “A terrible beauty is born” in the first and fourth stanzas articulate this inner turmoil revolving around modernity. This oxymoronic declaration is emphasised throughout the text by Yeats’ confusion towards the rebellion and its necessity. The fourth stanza embodies this conflict, removing the previously represented idea that life in pre-rebellion Ireland was a “casual comedy”, alluding to an Elizabethan play where the characters were content. By asking the rhetoric questions “was it needless death” and “O when may [British rule] suffice?” Yeats parallels the unresolved contradiction of “terrible beauty”. However, this sensitive treatment of conflict allows the retainment of ambiguity and can be related to any change within life, hence allowing audiences to superimpose their own beliefs and ideas into the poem. Yeats continues to explore his aversion towards modernism in The Second Coming with the appointment of a new “gyre” standing as the symbol for a new age. The fear of

Through the creation of a chaotic atmosphere, Yeats’ prophetic poem The Second Coming challenges the uncertainty existing in a post WWI civilisation with a bleak

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.

To begin with, we have to create a theme of diction. In the poem, The Second Coming Yeats uses the word anarchy is said a state of disorder due to absences or non recognition of authority. The reason why society is crumbling is because of this awful anarchy. “Turning and turning in the widening

The tool of Yeats' prophecy, crystallized in the "widening gyre" traced by the falcon, is a concept Yeats detailed

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 contemporary Roman Catholic middle classes had defeated the cause for which Yeats fought for at that time; hence Yeats felt oppressed by his own people. (Abram 2303)

Yeats continues in his search for religion in “The Second Coming” from the genre, to the patterns, that even follow the symbolism of the poem. Yeats uses the genre that is Poetry and uses several patterns where he writes about the world being in trouble and the 20th Century is asleep and where the earth is being transformed into a desert, where darkness of black shadows are taking over the earth and a beast is rising, he explains this in many ways throughout “The Second Coming”. Yeats also talks and relates back throughout the whole poem in talking about the falcon circling as the same as the “gyre” circling. As symbolism throughout “The Second Coming Yeats

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.

When Yeats wrote, "The Second Coming" the world was in violence and turmoil. Due to WWI just ending, the Russian Revolutions had started, and The Angelo Irish War was approaching. Through all these events, Yeats was trying to come to terms with the end of an age and the changing future of the 20th Century. For Yeats, the future of the world was in chaos and because of this it gives the poem its meaning, this leaves Yeats struggling to understand his own beliefs in religion. Throughout "The Second Coming" Yeats uses a narrator to tell the story and uses a new form of writing called automatic writing. This new

He wrote” there would be forgotten us, sadness is no longer coming; Soon will be far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the, as long as we are double white bird, dear, and in the surf”. However, this pursuit is always so bear, so full of romantic, not bear rich life and universal truth. His poems from the early natural express, to the old age of meditation concise, completed a real thought and art practice. As when he won the Nobel Prize for literature, said: "now I'm old and sick, the form is not worth a curse, but therefore I Muse and young." In his view, "except for the sun had nothing, but he didn't escape from reality, also in reality. He knew that, only put the needle in the meat, because, mist and tears, to walk to god." In the bound for Byzantine, Yeats in the anatomy of himself: "a decay, the old man is a waste, it is a broken coat, on a stick, clap your hands unless the soul as a song, to its skins sings louder every crack bursts. In pursuit of truth, of his ruthlessness, have the courage to expose the weakness of human