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The Second Coming by WB Yeats Poetry Reading with subtitles
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=LD1zA7tvANc
William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) was a 20th century Irish poet, who studied poetry from an early age. He was greatly influenced by both religion and Irish mythology. Yeats's poetry is still popular today and taught in many schools around the world. • He wrote The Second Coming in 1919, soon after the end of World War I - during which he fought in the Battle of the Somme. It was published in his 1921 collection of poems 'Michael Robartes and the Dancer'. The poem is a visionary poem. • Interestingly, Yeats wrote this poem whilst his wife was recovering from the 1918–1919 'flu epidemic - an event that we can all now relate to. She had very nearly died from it. So having lived through the trauma of war, followed by a pandemic which very nearly took his wife, it makes sense he was probably very low, with a sense of the world being totally out of control. • Yeats saw history and time as being cyclical in nature. The word 'gyre' comes from the Greek word 'gyros', meaning 'ring' or 'circle' - so the opening line 'Turning and turning in the widening gyre' suggests that the falcon is moving further and further away from the falconer. Could the falconer symbolise God and the falcon mankind? • For Christians throughout the ages, the Second Coming refers to the day when Jesus comes back to earth. However, Yeats throws this theory right out of the window when he suggests that instead of Jesus, something beast-like with: • '[A] lion body and the head of a man' • and • • 'A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun' • is slowly making its way to Bethlehem to be born. Could he be referring to the anti-christ? The word 'slouches' in the last line of the final stanza is somehow very shocking - it's not a word choice that we see coming and it leaves us with an even more disturbed feeling at the end. According to several online articles, 'The Second Coming' is regularly cited by people as the most terrifying poem they've ever come across! • We do know for sure that this beast has been in a state of 'stony sleep' for 'twenty centuries'. Although it's described as moving slowly, we're left with a knowing that it is not going to stop until it reaches its destination and that nothing can get in its way. • 'The Second Coming' conjures up intense feelings of terror and chaos - of apocalyptic proportion. • ___________________ • 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? • • W.B. Yeats playlist: • • W.B. Yeats Poems • #wbyeats #wbyeatspoems #wbyeatspoetry #propheticpoetry #apocalypticpoetry
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