An Examination of Yeats' 'The Second Coming' in English 102

This essay provides an analysis of William Butler Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming." The essay begins with an introduction to Yeats and the significance of the poem, highlighting its themes of societal collapse and the anticipation of a new era. The core of the essay involves analyzing specific lines and phrases from the poem, linking them to contemporary issues such as human trafficking and the climate crisis. The first section focuses on the lines "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," connecting them to the rise of human trafficking. The second section examines the lines "A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun," relating it to the cyclical nature of time and the return of darkness. The third section discusses "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last," associating it with the chaos and destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay concludes by summarizing the main points and reiterating the poem's enduring relevance in understanding the challenges of the modern world. The student uses the poem to reflect on societal issues and the human condition. The essay uses literary analysis and provides a thesis to support the arguments made.

Running head: ENGLISH
The Second Coming
Name of the Student:
Name of University:
Author Note

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William Butler Yeats is considered to be the most accomplished poet of the twentieth
century who wrote in English. He is well known for being able to compose his writing
concerning the everyday and mundane with the grandiose. The Second Coming is considered to
be one of the most famous poems created by him and bear great significance too. Yeats is highly
regarded by critics as well as readers. Yeats is famous as a dramatist an Irish Metaphysic poet
(Khader). He is the father of the symbolist movement and won the Nobel Prize for literature in
1923. The gloom and foreboding of the bloodshed can be traced in his poems. He was the
greatest figure of the first half of the twentieth century without having to resort to any kind of
controversy through his poetic representations or otherwise (Didi, Gaboussa, and Mouna). The
thesis of this paper is to analyze The Second Coming with respect to some portions of the poem,
through discussion.
The Second Coming underlines the world scenarios which were triggered by religion and
thus employs the theme of cataclysm. The name of the poem, The Second Coming is suggestive
of the theme and the content which Yeats has offered in the poem. Ye the theme of the poem is
abstract in the subject matter (Khader). It bears timeless symbols and imaginations which
resonate of the modern world which has been claimed by several scholars to link the Irish
historical and –political turmoil along with the Russian too. It also haunts the readers because of
the silence which can be heard before the storm, i.e., the World War II, especially because Yeats
had already witnessed the First World War and its destructive force on the face of Earth
(Khader). It this offers a self-declared vision of the cataclysmic events which have preceded
earlier and he dreaded for succeeding in the future too. Twentieth century, has been captured as
that precise moment which the world is chaotic and the poem stands as the anthem for demise
and degeneration in the world.

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The poem is divided into two sections. The first section comprises of eight lines which
talk about the futility of the modern society and barrenness of the world (Malins, Edward, and
Purkis). However, the first four lines capture sets a setting of dissatisfaction which the poet has
been feeling while writing the poem and talking about world order.
“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 very first line of the poem, bear metaphor of a gyre which is spinning. Gyres usually
have a form which is circular in form, very much like the shape of a tornado or a vortex. Gyres
have two cones which converge and meet internally. In the lines, Yeats make a comparison of
civilization to that a gyre in rotational motion. Yeats’ dissatisfaction become very prominent as
he hints at spirituality and morality being erased from the modern society (Saxena). The readers
can understand from the tonality, which has been employed by Yeats that faith and innocence are
gone, while the world has been taken over by chaos and turmoil. The lines present a picture
which is realistic and nihilistic, resonating the philosophy of Nietzsche as if God is dead from the
world (Ehrmantraut).
The gyre which Yeats talk about, in his poem is so vast that it can contain in itself, a
falcon as well as a falconer. Yeats has presented the gyre which has the size of the world. The
falcon and falconer serve as a metaphor in the poem, for the distance and disorder, which he
fears, is approaching (Rajan). The announcement of Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,
which is a bold as he states that the center is losing hold of order and doom is near as it will all

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disintegrate. It would lead to anarchy and social chaos, suggesting that the end is near. Yeats
talks about innocence to get drowned. The tide, he fears will drown everyone including the most
innocent and pure. He asserts that the goodness is lost while the evil gets more powerful in the
world. A parallel could be drawn to the contemporary issue of Human Trafficking in today’s
world, while Yeats underlines how violence is amplifying in his contemporary world. Human
Trafficking involves coercion, force and fraud to trade people for commercial exploitation like
slavery, labor and sexual abuse. The issue has been increasing to the speed of becoming the
fastest growing criminal activity happening across transnational organizations. It is suggestive of
the doom which the evil actions of human beings are inviting, like Yeats prophesized in his
poem, the Second Coming. The worst part of this heinous crime is that the most innocent are the
victims of this trade, which systematically has built networks.
“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”
The poet makes some predictions about the events he dreads thinking will follow next or
is the condition now. The words which have been quoted bear suggestiveness but no clear
indication for revealing what might follow. A parallel can be drawn to that of the Christian
God’s plan which has been suggested in the Bible and titled as Revelation, as Yeats does the
same by offering mystical visions of future for humanity and people as it all comes to an end
(Saxena). His words are hauntingly hinted towards an end which he sees approaching just as
much he thinks that the second coming has at the juncture, waiting (Rajan). There the narrator

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gets prompted by a vision which troubles him, which is out of the spirit of the world, or the
Spiritus Mundi. This suggests that he is a visionary who alarms people about doom and fate,
mystically. The darkness shall return and t is revealed through a vast image offered by Yeats.
The phrase ‘The darkness drops again’ is a reference to the notion of time which is common to
non literate and oral culture as time is viewed as cyclical in order. Yeats hint that as ignorance
has been preached and practiced, mankind is yet again entering into cycle as darkness drops. The
lines are hauntingly beautiful and reverberates in the ear, when the world is facing challenges in
the form of climate crisis and change. It is frightening what the future holds as it is unknown
how nature shall retaliate to the impact caused by humans to it. Nature has been compromised
for the unending desire of human beings which will only pave a way into future bereft of light.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
The poet tries to assert that the end of the era will be marked by the awakening of a beast.
The end of the vision is full of darkness and a menacing creature awaits. However, he also adds,
right before the lines that he was noticed a rocking cradle which is the reason for which there is
almost a standstill and thousand years of sleep culminating into a night mare when the beast
awakens and in born in Bethlehem (Rajan). It is the same city where Christ was born and the
readers are reminded of the Second Coming of Christ which, in the Bible is prophesized and
titled as Revelation. The readers are not told about what creature is to be awakened even though
it was suggested before about a sphinx or a sun beast. However, what has been clearly suggested
that something is awaiting which will change course of everything and set it all in a chaos,
disorder and destruction. Ruin shall be reincarnated, thus. The beast shall yet again awaken
amidst all chaos and destruction similar to the pandemic caused by Corona Virus 2019, globally,

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which no force across the globe is being able to combat with, while lives are being lost every
hour as the power and might is too strong for human beings to fathom. The chaos has been
awakened and there is no running away from it. It is at this moment that Christ shall also be
born, simultaneously putting an end to the destructive force which human beings have only
rekindled as he saw in his visions and dreaded for them to happen in real.

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References
Didi, Gaboussa, and Samia Mouna. The Implication of Modernism in WB Yeats’ The Second
Coming. Diss. جامعة الوادي University of Eloued, 2019.
Ehrmantraut, Michael. "Nihilism and education in Heidegger’s essay:‘Nietzsche’s Word:“God is
Dead”’." Educational Philosophy and Theory 48.8 (2016): 764-784.
Khader, Khader T. "William Butler Yeats’“The Second Coming” A Stylistic Analysis." IUG
Journal of HumanitiesReasearch Peer-Reviewed Journal of Islamic University-Gaza,
xxiv (2016): 25-32.
Malins, Edward, and John Purkis. A preface to Yeats. Routledge, 2014.
Rajan, Balachandra. WB Yeats: A critical introduction. Routledge, 2016.
Saxena, Shweta. "A mythical interpretation of Yeats’ The Second Coming." International
Journal of English and Literature 4.1 (2013): 17-18.