The poem describes a prophetic vision of impending chaos and disorder in the world. As the widening gyre of history causes things to fall apart, mere anarchy is loosed and innocence is drowned. While the intellectuals lack conviction, the passionate mob wields influence. The poet has a vision of a mysterious beast-like creature approaching, symbolizing a coming revelation or second coming that may bring further turmoil. The poem leaves the reader with an unanswered question about the nature of this rough beast approaching Bethlehem.

1. The
Second
Coming
William Butler Yeats

2. 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;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

3. Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

4. 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

5. Symbolism in “The Second Coming”
• Symbolic & prophetic vision
• Written in 1920 in wake of WWI
• In 1939 (World War II) he wrote to a friend
“If you have my poems by you, look up a
poem called “The Second Coming”. It…
foretold what is happening. I have written
of the same thing again and again since.”

6. 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

7. Symbolic Interpretations of Poem
1 432

8. 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
apart
• STANZA 2: surmise that these
conditions foretell of a monstrous
Second Coming

9. Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
We are plunged directly
into the poet’s vision –
“in medias res”
NEW OLD
Loss of control
and order
Links to his theory of
cyclical patterns in history
IMAGE FROM FALCONRY
MAN GOD

10. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
oxymoron
As the spiral widens, as we
move away from the centre,
things get more and more out of
control
The first three lines culminate in a
statement that disorder, chaos and
anarchy has been unleashed on the world
– nothing lies at the centre to hold this
together
It is unclear who the
agent of this action is –
some evil power/force

11. 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.
people
people
= intellectuals = head = think but don’t do
= mob = body
= act without
thinking
Lack of experience
Goodness
Vulnerability
Worst people carry out their deeds with
great vigour and enthusiasm Interesting that poem was written
shortly before WWII and that Yeats
considered it prophetic
Reference to the blood-filled
seas of Revelation

12. …the worst are full of
passionate intensity…

13. The best lack all conviction, while
the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

14. The best lack all conviction, while
the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

15. Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
revolution
Call for salvation and
redemption – tone of
desperation
Mankind has reached a point where only
divine intervention can save him

16. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
Collective spirit of
mankind – each
human spirit is
linked to a single,
vast intelligence
Uncertainty = threatening

17. A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
A Sphinx
This is Yeats’ new messiah – “a rough beast” – in his play “The
Resurrection” he says: “I began to imagine around 1904 as always at
my left side just out of range of sight, a brazen winged beast which I
associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction….Afterwards
described in my poem ‘The Second Coming’ “
Mystic stare/trance – determination of cruel stupidity?
2nd
bird image: disturbed by the movement of
the sphinx
SIMILE
Uncertainty = threatening
Birds are frantic – have been frightened

18. The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
Loses sight of image/vision – begins to think again –
now he is filled with dread
20 centuries since the
birth of Christ – little
progress has been made
since – mankind has been
asleep

19. 4
I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to
judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their
testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped
the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or
their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5
(The
rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.)
This is the first resurrection. 6
Blessed and holy are those who have part in the
first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be
priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
7
When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison
8
and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth - Gog
and Magog - to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the
seashore. 9
They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the
camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and
devoured them. 10
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake
of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.
They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
REVELATION 20, VERSES 1 - 5

20. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Lumbers towards
Bethlehem –
birthplace of Jesus
– second messiah
Poem ends with a ?
– puzzle/riddle –
hints at an answer
throughout but it is
never fully
expressed
Ugliness, slyness,
clumsiness,
laziness

22. GO BACK