The Second Coming

Hello everyone, 

Today i write blog on W.B.Yeats's poem The Second Coming as pandemic poem  and i will try to do critical analysis one poem of W.B. Yeats as thinking activity  and part of syllabus given by professor Dilip Barad.

First of all let me give some information about W.B.Yeats ,

William Butler Yeats

W.B.Yeats - William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

W.B.Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He was winner of the 1923 Nobel prize in literature  and a foremost figure in 20th century literature. To get more information about Yeats click here

1) pandemic reading of 'The Second Coming'

The Second Coming :-

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.

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 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?

 "The Second Coming" is one of Yeats's most famous poem, 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 poem's first stanza describes a world of chaos, confusion, and pain. And noone can able to do anything in this situation.The second, longer stanza imagines the speaker receiving a vision of the future, but this vision replaces Jesus's heroic return with what seems to be the arrival of a grotesque beast. With its distinct imagery and vivid description of society's collapse. It  Basically predicts that time is up for humanity. 

In this poem W.B.Yeats  wasn't directly mentioned anywhere that it was about pandemic but there is possibility to read this poem as pandemic because we also became the part of Corona pandemic and as we know during the time 1918 to 1919 there was Spanish flue widely spreading and many people around 500 million people affected by this. So we can read this poem as pandemic poem of Spanish flue and Corona.

Spanish flue which infected Yeats's wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees, while she was pregnant. She and their child would survive. During that time Yeats wrote this poem. Tone of this poem is Apocalyptic.

In the first stanza poet says that Gyre became wider and wider, everywhere allusion, Chaos and confusion are spreading and this all became the cause of 'Fall apart'. So as we know that during the corona time people facing so many problems together and economy also became worst. People of poor background facing financial and medical problems and people start attempting suicide as they have no option for survival. There was Chaos and allusion speeding everywhere. People became confused about life because situation became worst day by day. And We can use centre as government which can  not able to do anything in the pandemic time, Because there was lockdown.

In the second Stanza

 'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere'

We can say that here poet wants to give Idea his wife's situation and symptoms of Spanish flue like, Blood - dimmed, fever,Dry cough, Headache and body aches, Sorethroat, Chills, Runny nose,Loss of appetite, Extreme,

tirednessmany  this all symptoms we found in  Infected person and  also  found in COVID -19 so people are different of both the pandemic but symptoms and situation are same. In another way we can say that best people are confused what to do and  worst not a worst but free - wonderer are free to do what they  want to do and the poor people are facing so many problems due to lockdown. As we know that they were a rule that they don't allow to open shop and other things but they are sitting in the crowd and doing timepass which strictly denied by government. So here we can say "ceremony of innocence is drowned".

In third stanza peot says about birth of Jesus Christ as 'Avtari purush' as we know that during the lockdown people start believing that now is the time for God to take birth and save the earth for this pandemic.

In last stanza poet talked about the world which became dark and some dream related to morality which now turned into nightmare as we know during pandemic time also people have hope that their family member get well soon but then they get dead body of person so during the time people feel darkness everywhere.

So we can this poem as pandemic poem because as we know that when Yeats wrote this poem his wife was suffering through Spanish flue so might be he wants to give informative of flue indirectly.

2) Critical analysis of any other poem written by W.B.Yeats.

So here I would like to do critical analysis of poem ' A Prayer for my daughter' by W.B.Yeats click here for poem

Brief introduction of poem 

When his wife pregnant he wrote 'The Second Coming'  and then after the Birth of his daughter he wrote this poem A Prayer for my daughter'  As he was too concerned about his daughter's future as there was situation like pandemic and second world war. 

This entire poem is about to how he want to raise his daughter in the world of Chaos and allusion. And he was to ponder that how his daughter survive in this world. The poem not only expresses the helplessness of Yeats as a father but all fathers who had to walk through this situation. He wants to give his daughter a life of beauty and innocence, safety, and security. He further wants her to be well- mannered and full of humility free from intellectual hatred and being strongly opinionated. Finally, he wants her to get married into an aristocratic family which is rooted in spirituality and traditional values. Analysis of poem

Here we can say that Yeats might be influenced by Nietzsche's view about the Morality - because he expressed his hatred for the people who did such things in past and commoners and wishes his daughter to be trained in the school of aristocracy. He considers it an ideal way of life. This is a leisurely, well-reasoned ideal, based not only on mythology and history, but also on his own experience.

"Good is everything that is helpful, and bad is everything that is harmful".

So he wants that his daughter became kind of good person so no one can harm her or she made good relations in the modern world of chaos and allusions.

Critical analysis of poem :

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid

Under this cradle-hood and coverlid

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle

But Gregory's wood and one bare hill

Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

And for an hour I have walked and prayed

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

In first stanza poet described the atmosphere of the world as war is end now and then he talked about the gloom of his mind which don't allow him to sit calmly.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come,

Dancing to a frenzied drum,

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

In this second stanza he give the reason that why he is so worried and He is worried for his new born daughter's future then he again described the atmosphere of the outside world.

May she be granted beauty and yet not

Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,

Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,

Being made beautiful overmuch,

Consider beauty a sufficient end,

Lose natural kindness and maybe

The heart-revealing intimacy

That chooses right, and never find a friend.

In this Staza he says that what kind of beauty  he wish for his daughter. And he says that he don't want overmuch beauty for her and give reason behind it. Indirectly he wants give message that beauty is not everything and he wants kindness for her so she got good  and right friend.

So in whole poem he talked about what he wants for her daughter and he gave many examples of cruellest World and situation of girl in this world during the history time so he didn't want that his daughter suffer from any such problems. He also trying to give message to human being of morality.

Word count : 1624