106 Twentieth century Literature-1900 To World War 2

1. PAPER NO.106 TWENTIETH
CENTURY LITERATURE: 1900
TO WORLD WAR 2
NAME:PANDYA MAYURI
ROLL NO.14
EMAIL ID –pandyamayuri0610@gmail.com
Submitted to – S.B.GARDI DEPARTMENT OF
ENGLISH MKBU
TOPIC : A INDIAN MYTHICAL
INTERPRETATION W.B.YEATS POEM THE
SECOUND COMING

2. Table of content
Introduction of
Author
01 02
conclusion
04
Interpretation
on mythology
03
About poem

3. Introduction of Author
William Butler Yeats
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1923
Born: 13 June 1865, Dublin, Ireland
Died: 28 January 1939, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin,
France
Residence at the time of the award: Ireland
Prize motivation: "for his always inspired poetry,
which in a highly artistic form gives expression to
the spirit of a whole nation.“
• W.B. Yeats made his debut as a poet in 1887,
but in his earlier period his dramatic production
outweighed his poetry. Along with playwright Lady
Gregory, he founded the Irish Theatre, which later
became the Abbey Theatre. His plays are often
based on Irish legends and are full of mysticism
and spiritualism

4. About poem
The ‘Second Coming’ refers to the idea that Jesus will return to
Earth towards the end of time to bring justice and order. However,
Yeats does not express a Christian interpretation of these final
days. He believed in a complex set of ideas to do with ‘gyres’,
intersecting cone-shaped spirals representing various elemental
historical and individual forces offering transitions into new worlds.
The opening eight lines of the poem offer a complex vision of an
apocalypse.
In the second section Yeats presents a disturbing image of a
sphinx ‘out of Spiritus Mundi’, which, literally, means ‘spirit of the
world’ but here refers to Yeats’s belief that every mind is linked to
a single vast intelligence. This glimpse of the new order after two
thousand years of Christianity is not a comforting one; Yeats
concludes by wondering about the nature of this ‘rough beast’ that
‘Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born’.

5. A mythical interpretation
A myth may encapsulate man to the cardinal values or virtue that characterized
A certain culture.
Despite its complexity, a myth is a simple and down-to-earth tool. It is a tool
since it aims
at understanding the mysteries that govern the world; since it attempts to
appease the potential fear that may torment humans as tormented creatures
doomed to suffer; since, most importantly, it conveys the general truths that
characterize a particular culture.
Such tormenting worries, infinite questions, and incessant attempts have
resulted in
countless myths that have gradually enriched universal culture.
W. B. Yeats’ poetry is rich in mythical symbols and imagery. He gleans the
religion and philosophy of different cultures and traditions to give his poetic
oeuvre an aura of profundity. His seminal poetic work, The Second Coming,
can be read in the light of the ancient Indian myth of Narasimha avatar, the
hum-animal hybrid incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The idea of the second coming
of Christ sounds very much like the concept of reincarnation, which lies at the
heart of Hinduism.

6. Yeats’ The Second Coming exhibits the coming on of an anti- Christ that will
shake humanity out of its stony sleep from twenty centuries. The figure is
that of a sphinx: “with lion body and the head of a man.” This ferocious
creature will incarnate to set the things right in a chaotic world where “things
are falling apart” as “the centre cannot hold” them together.
The story of Narasimha avatar finds echo in “The Second Coming”. Yeats’
poem paints a grim picture of the modern society where “the ceremony of
innocence is drowned”; similarly an innocent devotee of God like Prahalada
is also tortured by his father.
The chaos and mayhem of the modern world or the anarchy of
Hiranyakashipu’s reign could have been overcome only by an omnipotent
power acquiring the spirit of not just the human world but also of the non-
human.

7. CONCLUSION
The symbols, according to Yeats, originate in a
poets mind through divine inspiration. But
Yeats asserts, “When a man writes any work of
genius, or invents some creative action, is it not
because some knowledge or power has come
into his mind from beyond his mind? It is called
up by an image, as I think; . . . but our images
must be given to us; we cannot choose them
deliberately” (Stauffer, 1948). The image of the
anti-Christ has also come out of the Spiritus
Mundi that embodies the collective intelligence
of the whole universe shared by the individual
mind—a fact that also reinforces the
amalgamation of the Western and Eastern
myth and tradition.

8. REFERENCESS
About poet
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1923/yea
ts/biographical/
About poem
https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-
second-coming/
Touzani, F. Z. (Ed.). (2012). The Cuchulain myth is
the poetry of W. B. Yeats. Arab World English
Journal, 3, 1–14. Retrieved from
https://osf.io/mj7fw/download.
Saxena, S. (1948). Image and idea in Yeats' the
Second coming. PMLA, 63(1), 281.
https://doi.org/10.2307/459419
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-
Collected-Works-of-W-B-Yeats-Volume-IX-Early-
Articles-and-Reviews/William-Butler-
Yeats/9781501129247
https://in.pinterest.com/pin/550072541960392940/

9. THANK YOU