1865-1939
“The Second Coming”
the Bio & History:
links
Yeats was an Irish Nationalist striving for Ireland’s cultural independence from Great Britain, a modernist who admired Pound and Eliot, and a mystic with his own unique blend of Celtic mythology and Christianity. (source)
His poem, “The Second Coming,” was published in 1920 and reflects Yeats’ belief that Western civilization was headed towards its inevitable decline (based on the 2,000 year cycle of apocalyptic tradition), especially after the major revolutions in France, Germany and Russia and the first World War. (source)
For those SciFi TV fans, this poem was the central allusion in Mohinder’s voice-over narration in the premier episode of the third season ofHeroes. (source)
the Poem:
 |
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Surely some revelation 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? |
|
The Audio Version:
The Analysis:
Yeats’ poem conveys the spiritual malaise of the generation caught between the devastation of WWI and the political turmoil proceeding WWII. The loss of a generation of young men to the Great War, the world-wide economic depression, and the waning faith in political and religious institutions to provide an effective response to these tragedies could all be seen as signs of a coming apocalypse.
Yeats’ spiritual system included a belief in a 2,000 year cycle in which the great civilization dominating the age would be on the verge of collapse while the next great civilization would rise out of those ashes (source). The ancient Egyptian culture survived by Imperial Rome, the fall of the Roman Empire with the rise of European dominance ending with Great Britain at the height of its power right before the start of WWI, and finally, the Judeo-Christian belief that God’s Kingdom would come to end this cycle once and for all with the advent of the Christ: each bracketing a 2,000 year span of destruction and rebirth.
Yeats begins his poem with the image of a falcon creating a spiral by circling the falconer. However, the imaginary string linking the two has broken as the diameter of the falcon’s circle has grown too large for the falcon to hear the falconer’s commands any longer. This symbolizes man’s loss of control and the natural world separating itself as the next cycle of destruction is about to begin: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” The falconer symbolizes the leading civilization that has lost power as “anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
“The ceremony of innocence” alludes to the people not responsible for the rise, or the fall, of the great empire, but who as pawns will “drown” in the destruction wrought by the coming apocalypse. These innocents symbolize the soldiers and civilians who may be lost because of the battle between great powers. The best, those who should be in command, lack clear direction while the worst, those selfish powers, “Are full of passionate intensity.” The Christian tradition of the apocalypse imagines that evil in the guise of a false messiah — the “worst” — will gain power and dominance shortly before the return of the Christ. In the poem, that evil is able to gain power due to the loss of faith (”lack all conviction”) the “best” have suffered because of the overwhelming tragedies or “signs” of the coming apocalypse.
The “blood-dimmed tide” in the first stanza of the poem is an allusion to one of the signs of God’s power Moses gives to the pharaoh in the book of Exodus. Moses turns water to blood as a sign of God in his efforts to persuade Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, and this image is used again in the apocalyptic books of the Bible as a sign of God’s power and/or of the Christ’s return. Yeats’ uses this imagery to conjure this tradition of signs from God of impending doom to worldly civilizations.
Yeats’ makes that connection explicit using repetition in the short stanza separating the two main stanzas: “Surely some revelation is at hand;/Surely the Second Coming is at hand.” The Second Coming is an allusion to the Christian belief that God’s messiah has come before in the body of Jesus and that Jesus’ return will enact the final judgment of God, the apocalypse, that will lead to the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.
However, this advent of Heaven on earth is preceded by the great destruction of human civilization that is the apocalypse. Those found wanting in faith in God will be lost and those who believe will be saved. The cycle of destruction and rebirth inherent in the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition is one of the common symbols found in the “Universal Unconscious” that the psychoanalyst Carl Jung calls the Spiritus Mundi (source). Here the symbols we all can recognize because we share this universal unconsciousness (genetic memory, if you will) are stored, and when the signs appear, we all should be able to recognize them for what they are.
Yeats’ alludes to this concept directly at the beginning of his last stanza and goes on to depict the imagery at the heart of the Christian apocalyptic writings, where Christ returns not as the lamb but as the lion: “a shape with lion body and the head of a man.” The desert imagery and the description of the Sphinx here harkens back to the Egyptian civilization; however, this “creature” comes to pass judgment with “a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.”
The desert birds “reel[ing]” around this figure are vultures ready to feast on the people who will be destroyed by God’s judgment because of their lack of faith. The horror, of course, is that many of Yeats’ generation, in their despair over the destruction of WWI, could be found lacking the very faith they need to survive this apocalypse. The desert birds replace the falcon and their shadows cloak the appearance of the “destroyer.”
“Twenty centuries of stony sleep” is a direct allusion to Yeats’ 2,000 year cycle applied to the fall of Great Britain’s empire as the last human empire before the establishment of God’s Kingdom. “The stony sleep,” our ignorance of this cycle and/or lack of faith is “vexed to nightmare” by all the signs of the coming apocalypse that are now undeniable: the war, the chaos, the hopelessness. However, this time the birth in “Bethlehem” does not bring the joy of Jesus’ birth as the lamb to save us, but rather the lion of judgment “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born.”
This poem connects to the Road of Trials stage of the hero journey as one of the obstacles the hero must face on his/her road will be that of the loss of hope or despair. The poem depicts the enormous power of this obstacle and the potential consequence if one gives into despair; this is the one obstacle that can end the hero journey at any point along the road if the hero succumbs to it.
