The Second Coming William Butler Yeats Caceres, Maria Saheem, Sameena Renovato, Maria Mendez, Cecilia Garcia, Valerie

Structure Blank verse Rough iambic pentameter No rhyme scheme with heavy stresses Religious poem Divided into two stanzas First stanza 8 lines (octet) Second stanza 14 lines

T h e S 1919 c o n d C m i g W i l a m B u t e r Y s Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center 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? 1919 W i l a m B u t e r Y s

Definitions Stony: covered with or full of small pieces of rock; not having or showing feeling or sympathy Revelation: the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world Spiritus Mundi: “Spirit of the world” Vexed: Irritated or annoyed; difficult and much debated; problematic Indignant: Feeling or showing anger due to unfair treatment Bethlehem: City located near Jerusalem in which Jesus was born Falconer: A person who keeps, trains or hunts with falcons or other birds of prey Gyre: A whirl Mere: solely or no more or better than what is specified Anarchy: a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority Conviction: a firmly held belief or opinion Vast: of very great extent or quantity Reel: lose one's balance and stagger or lurch violently

What is the Second Coming? The Second Coming is a poem about the return of the second messiah and Armageddon/Judgement Day. The poet wrote this poem after World War I and during the build up of World War II. To Yeats, the war felt like armageddon and he believed people were losing their faith in Christ. Ask the class if they know what The Second Coming is or if they know anything about it.

Interpretation Prophesied return of Christ to earth at the last judgement Medieval Falconing Resurrection Armageddon (chaos) Day of Judgement good people go to heaven (right hand) bad people go to hell (left hand) The Spiritus Mundi means spirit of the world and is a reference to Yeat's belief that each human mind is linked to a single vast intelligence, and that this intelligence causes certain universal symbols to appear in individual minds

Poetic Devices and Figurative Language Caesuras: “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” Metaphors: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” Falcon= Mankind Falconer= Christ

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center 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 Ar full of passionate intensity. STANZA 1

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? STANZA 2

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet born in Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865. Yeats lived in London for fourteen years of his childhood and belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority. He is a very famous poet from the twentieth century. William Butler Yeats was a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre and served as chief. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irish man. Yeats died in Roquebrune, France January 28, 1939. Yeats wrote the poem using imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Christianity to describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. he originally titled the poem “The Second Birth”