“The Second Coming” a Poem by William Butler Yeats Essay (Critical Writing)

The second coming was written soon after the end of the First World War. William Butler Yeats had also experienced at this time the Easter Rising in Ireland which ended brutally and the Russian Revolution that took place in 1917 leading to the end of the Czars and was accompanied by lingering chaos. What would a person living in an era where Christianity was the norm conclude of the world? The title “The Second Coming” is taken from the Christianity prophesy from the book of revelation that the world will end through a series of events and eventually Christ will come back to rule over the earth. This article tries to explain how the poem has the most allusions to World War I.

The term allusions when used in poetry describe a rhetorical technique in which reference is made to an event, person or object. This poem has mainly conveyed the destruction of mankind. Yeats incorporates symbolism, imagery, dark diction, and allusions to show the end of the world and the destruction of mankind (Morton 15). World war one was called “the war to end all wars”. People at this time had never experienced such an outbreak of war, death, and misery and in their mentality, the war was going to end the world. The poem thus has derived many allusions to world war I.

The title itself is an allusion to the Biblical apocalypse. It states the apocalypse will rise through periods of great famines, international conflicts, wars, suffering perpetuated by others, persecutions of the righteous, and sufferings. These are the events that had taken place during the world war. Countries were at loggerheads and people had died in multitudes.

In the first line, Yeats talks about the gyre. This is a favorite of his as he had used other times in his works. The spiraling motion is used to denote the suffering in life. The gyres represent forces in human life that shape the human spirit. Zwerdling in his book remarked that Yeats in his poem views the way world history moves. Yeats’s view of the world is that history does not progress smoothly but through revolutions and brutality (Zwerdling 18). The war was a revelation in that people came to terms with something out of the ordinary. Not only did people suffer great losses but their spirits were on the brink of breaking. Hope was a rare thing at the time with no one knowing when the end will come and what will remain after the end of the war. Yeats also talks of the falcon not hear the falconer. The falcon is used to represent humans and the falconer is the greater good i.e. that force with which all human action, feelings, and thoughts are judged. Some analysts have taken the falconer to mean God and some have taken it to mean that which is good in man. The separation of the falcon from the falconer is taken from the brutality evident in the war where a high number of people had been killed and morality was low.

In the poem, Yeats states that “Mere anarchy has befallen the world”. The war was symbolized by a state of anarchy. Countries wanted superiority and did not hesitate to wipe out millions of people from enemy countries. It was a time when people in the same country survived by abusing and destroying one another. This was the state at the time as Yeats in the next line plays reference to the blood-dimmed tide. Here he tries to present the reader with a picture of how bloodshed was rampant during this time. During World War I no good could be easily found. The innocence that was in people had been destroyed living only a will to survive under all cost; it was killed or be killed.

In the second stanza, Yeats talks of “A vast image from Spiritus Mundi”. He describes the image with the shape of a lion’s body and a man’s head. This is an allusion from the bible that describes the beast that is to appear at the end of time. In world war one man combined with a machine to create chaos. It was a union in which much suffering and death were unleashed on the people thus in using the symbolism from the bible, Yeats shows how the war was to bring about the destruction of man and the end of the world (Warren 27). Further on, Yeats notes that the world had enjoyed 2000 years of bliss since the departure of Christ. This had now come to an end and the world was in chaos. He alludes to a nightmare that affects a child (rocking cradle here denotes a young baby) and uses it to show the trouble and destruction that affected the world during this period (MacNeice 36). The world here is denoted by the child and the nightmare is the war that jolts up the world to a rude and scary awakening.

In looking at the relevance of the poem to the reader, the allusions used have greatly helped the reader to relate to the writer. Most people were born after World War I and others did not experience the Second World War. To understand what the writer was trying to communicate, one has to visualize the situation and conditions surrounding him. Even though people have read about world war one most cannot relate to the feelings of those who experienced it first hand. Through this poem, Yeats has helped the reader to visualize and experience the feelings people had during the war. This is through the use of allusions that speak to most people.

The poem is mainly about the destruction of man and the end of the world. Using the allusions to war and symbolism Yeats aimed to set a tone that portrays death and destruction. By using allusions, Yeats allows one to reflect on the events that happened during that and compare them with the story of the apocalypse (MacNeice 42). The allusions in the poem help to portray the death, destruction, and inhumane conditions of the war. The writer’s tone is that of hopelessness and a sense of doom. By using allusions, Yeats has presented the theme of death to the audience. When the writer talks of a blood-dimmed tide, the reader can envision the amount of bloodshed during the war. The allusion to the beast shows the unstoppable nature in which people were fighting. The beast is an alien, something out of this world and this is exactly what people experienced through bombardment with all types of military machinery.

Conclusion

The article focused on the allusions about World War I in the poem the Second Coming by Yeats. We have shown the various allusions to the war and the relevance it has to the audience. A poet has to use various styles to convey his message to the audience. Yeats used symbolism, dark diction, and allusions to convey the doom of mankind in this poem. The poem has used many references from the Bible all about the end of the world. At the time of world war one, people had given up hope and most people had concluded that the apocalypse was at hand. Yeats in this poem wrote on the end of humanity as he saw it at that particular time.

At first look, one might assume that the poem has a religious message but with scrutiny and understanding, one realizes that the poem has a deeper meaning. The poem is about impending doom and the end of mankind. The war was one of the signs as portrayed in the bible. As pertains to Yeats’s religious nature we do not know but he has used the religious imagery to show the fulfillment of a prophecy (Morton 17). In the poem, Yeats combines both the traditions and ancient myths with modern, real elements of war and destruction. He brings about a sense of hopelessness to accurately bring about his message. Through allusions to war, he ensures the reader also feels the destruction of mankind is at hand.

Yeats’s cyclic view of history shows the change in religions and human nature, one rises as the other falls (Stallworthy 19). Stallworthy noted that Yeats used the Gyre to portray how events culminate to a climax becoming stronger and greater. The point of a gyre is small but goes widening as one approaches the top. The spiraling motion represents suffering and the end of the gyre is the end of mankind.

Works Cited

MacNeice, Louis. The Poetry of W. B. Yeats London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1941.

Morton I. Seiden, William Butler Yeats: The Poet as Mythmaker. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1962.

Stallworthy, Jon. Vision and Revision in Yeats’s “Last Poems”, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

Warren, Austin. William Butler Yeats: The Religion of a Poet: Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1942.

Zwerdling, Alex. Yeats and the Heroic Ideal. New York: New York University Press, 1965.