Works Cited

William Butler Yeats “The Second Coming.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry , and Drama Ed. Robert DiYanni. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 188-201

Neil Mann "http://www.yeatsvision.com/SecondNotes.html" Ed. Colin McDowel
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W.B Yeats Biography

Yeats although born in Ireland in 1865 was raised in London England. Yeats returned to Ireland at the age of 15 to continue his education. While in Ireland Yeats became a part of the Celtic revival (but had never learned Gaelic).

Becoming strongly involved in Ireland's politics, Yeats was appointed senator of the Irish Free State in 1922. Shortly after becoming a senator Yeats received a Nobel prize for his poetry in 1923 and died 16 years later (1939) at the age of 73.

Some readers have been startled by Yeats' involvement in the occult and interest in mysticism.

The Second Coming by W.B Yeats

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?

Insight

The Second Coming by W.B Yeats is a poem that puts emphasis on confusion and chaos. The Second Coming shows a view of the world in chaos where the innocence of people is cast away and the morally bad people seize control of society.