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Written in 1919 soon after the end of World War I, it describes a deeply mysterious and powerful alternative to the Christian idea of the Second Coming—Jesus's prophesied return to the Earth as a savior announcing the Kingdom of Heaven.
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree
1 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,. 2 And a...
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree
“The Second Coming” is a poem written by Irish poet William Butler Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920 and included in his 1921 collection of verses “Michael Robartes and the Dancer”. [1] The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to describe allegorically the atmosphere of post-war ...
- Summary
- Structure and Form
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Historical Background
‘The Second Coming’ was William Butler Yeats’ ode to the era. Rife with Christian imagery, and pulling much inspiration from apocalyptic writing, Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming’tries to put into words what countless people of the time felt: that it was the end of the world as they knew it and that nothing else would ever be the same again. The First Wor...
‘The Second Coming‘ is composed of two stanzas, with the first stanza containing eight lines and the second, fourteen. While this might suggest a resemblance to a sonnet, the poem resists traditional forms. The irregular stanza structure mirrors the thematic breakdown of order in the world that Yeats describes. The poem transitions from an objectiv...
Stanza One
Much has been written on the apocalypse, and many of those writings focus on the harbingers of the event: it is always bloody and massive, a vicious explosion that shakes the world to its foundation. In Yeats’ poem, the apocalypse is a much quieter, more understated, affair. It opens up with the disturbance of nature. Falcons were used as hunting animals since the medieval era. They are incredibly smart, and dedicated to their trainers, responding immediately to any noise that their handler m...
Stanza Two
In the second stanza, the Biblical imagery takes over the visions of corrupted nature. From the start, Yeats ties his poem to religion by stating ‘the Second Coming is at hand’, and conjuring up a picture of a creature with a lion’s body and a man’s head, much like the sphynx, and a gaze as ‘blank and pitiless as the sun’. By comparing it to the very nature that Yeats spoke about in the first part of the poem, he brings out the almost infallible quality of this beast: like nature, it feels no...
W.B. Yeats was an Irish poet born on the 13th of June, 1865. He is considered a largely Irish poet, although he ran in British literary circles as well, and he was a big part of the resurgence of Irish literature. In 1923, he was to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry, as the first Irishman. This was shortly after Ireland had finally g...
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Quotes from W. B. Yeats's The Second Coming. Learn the important quotes in The Second Coming and the chapters they're from, including why they're important and what they mean in the context of the book.
The Second Coming. By William Butler Yeats. Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 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;
Jan 11, 2016 · ‘The Second Coming’ is one of W. B. Yeats’s best-known poems, and its meaning has eluded many readers because of its oblique references and ambiguous images. What follows is a short summary and analysis of the poem. What does ‘the second coming’ refer to, and how does it fit with Yeats’s own beliefs?
The Second Coming. William Butler Yeats. Track 12 on Michael Robartes and the Dancer. This poem was written in 1919, during the aftermath of the First World War, but it is a response to the ...
