The+Second+Coming+by+WB+Yeats

__William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)__ 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 convictions, 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: a waste of desert sand; 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 Wind 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**

[|Background] [|Analysis]

This is a famous and oft-quoted poem. Yeats believed that history moved in thousand year cycles and, after World Wars I and II, that the Western or European era was ending. From the chaos of that end would come a new beginning.
 * Introduction**

Read the poem again and answer the questions • The image of the falcon and the falconer begins the poem. Draw a picture of what Yeats means? What happens over time, as the bird gets further away from the falconer? Define the word "Gyre" • When the center cannot hold, what happens? • What happens to the ceremony of innocence? What drowns it? What could be an example of an innocent ceremony? • What is happening to the world? What happens to the "best"? What happens to the "worst" • What is "The Second Coming"? What is supposed to happen there? • What image does Yeats see out in the desert? Why is it having a nightmare? Why is a cradle doing it? • Where in the world, today, are "things falling apart"?

[|The Second Coming NY Times article] Techniques:

On occasion Yeats used allusion. In ‘**The Second Coming’** Yeats alluded to the [|Book of Revelations] of the Bible. In ‘**The Second Coming’** Yeats may have been alluding to Macbeth’s ‘seas incarnadine’ in the image of ‘The blood-dimmed tide’. ‘blood-dimmed’ ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’. ‘blank and pitiless as the sun’ [Second Coming] ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed’ [Second Coming]
 * Compound Words:**
 * Aphorism**
 * Simile**
 * Metaphor**

Poetic Techniques Yeats used literary techniques such as argument, figurative imagery and language, symbols and reference in his poems. He was a poet of protest and irony. He wanted to reform Irish politics and culture through his art. His poetry is formal, traditional and sweeping in scope. He also used a lot of direct conversational expression. He is a very musical poet, who sought to echo in the elegance of his rhymes, the grandeur of the heroic world he aspired to in his imagery and themes.

Alliteration is the repetition of the consonant at the start of words in a phrase or in a series of sentences. This has the effect of adding a rhythmic quality or emphasis to the meaning of a particular phrase. Sibilance is the repetition the "s" sound to create a hissing effect. Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds. Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line Cross Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming across two or more lines Consonance, including sibilance [or sibilant sounds]. Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds. Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds Consonance, Cross Rhyme and Internal Rhyme may incorporate Alliteration and Assonance. ‘twenty centuries of stony sleep’ [Second Coming] ‘Stone’ seems to mean something impassive and steadfast that can catalyse change.
 * Sound Effects**
 * Imagery**


 * "Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings." -- W. H. Auden**