Paper no. 106 : The Twentieth Century Literature : From 1900 to World War ll. M.A Sem-2

1. Presented by : Chandani Pandya
Department of English MKBU
Presentation Topic : Critical Study of W.B.Yeats’s The Second Coming
Paper no. 106 : The Twentieth Century Literature : From 1900 to World War ll.
M.A Sem-2
Roll no. 06
Batch 2020-21
Email ID : pandyachandani11@gmail.com

2. Critical Study of W.B.Yeats’s
The Second Coming

3. William Butler Yeats
• Born in Dublin, Ireland, 1865
• Poet, playwright, philosopher
• Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923
• Well known for symbolism employed in his poetry

4. Introduction
• "The Second Coming." soon after the end of World War l, known at
the time as “The Great War” and “The War to End All Wars”. It was
also not long since the Easter Rising in Ireland, a rebellion that was
brutally suppressed and the topic of Yeats' earlier poem “Easter, 1960”
and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

5. Central symbol = GYRE
• Conical shape consisting of series of ever-widening, connected circles
• Repeating trends of history: psychological development, subjectivity vs objectivity,
life vs death
• An age in history spreads its “ever-widening“ influence until it spends its force and
ends
• Each spiral = 200 years
• Beginning of each new gyre brings about chaos and the destruction of the old
• Poem describes current historical period (1921) - world on the brink of some
apocalyptic revelation

6. Introductory Notes
• Poem suggests that the Second Coming of
Christ instead of bring about good will bring
about a state of anarchy on earth.
• Title is derived from Bible – Matthew 24 and
St John's description of the Beast of the
Apocalypse in Revelation.
• STANZA 1: conditions present in the world,
anarchy, things falling a part
• STANZA 2: surmise that these conditions
foretell of a monstrous Second Coming

7. Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Things fall apart; the Centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

8. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

9. The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the Centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
The falcon in the second line, turning and turning in the widening gyre,
represents the 'gyres‘ or cones that Yeats refers to in his book. These
govern the progression of time and the human race, and can be
represented by the 28 phases of the moon. 2000 years ago was the
beginning of a new cycle, Christ was born at exactly the right time to
have a perfect soul, and now we reach the end of the cycle, nearing the
end of the 28th phase, about to start again.

10. Conclusion
The first stanza of “The Second Coming” is a powerful description of
apocalypse, opening with the indelible image of the falcon circling ever
higher, in ever-widening spirals, so far that “The falcon cannot hear the
falconer.” The centrifugal impetus described by those circles in the air tends
to chaos and disintegration “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;” and
more than chaos and disintegration, to war “The blood-dimmed tide” to
fundamental doubt “The best lack all conviction” and to the rule of misguided
evil “the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

11. Work Cited
1. Albright, Daniel. (1997) Quantum Poetics "Yeats's figures as
reflections in Water". Cambridge University Press p.35
2. Bloom, Harold. (1972) Yeats. Oxford University Press US p.318.
3. Haugheny, Jim (2002). The First World War in Irish Poetry Bucknell
University Press. p.161.