Discuss the ‘significance of the title of the poem ‘The Second Coming’.

 The title suggests the theme of the poem, the “Second Coming” of the not Christ to announce the beginning of a Messianic Age, but of an anti-Christ, the rough beast, to herald a new world of violence, primitiveness and irrationalism.

W.B. Yeats's " Second Coming" is a highly complex poem and it is rewarding to know something of Yeats's theory of History as contained in his work" A Vision". Though a reader does not need to believe in or have a background in Yeats's system, the reader would certainly gain a deeper understanding of this poem if she/ he had some knowledge of Yeat's philosophy. Yeats believed or proposed that the world or history of the world moves in 2000 year cycles and he uses this along with other powerful archetypal ( and Biblical) images and patterns throughout the poem to comment on the state of the world in the Twentieth Century.

The first stanza gives us a picture of the disorder and chaos in the 20th century world . The disorder comes from the disintegration of traditional values . It is social, cultural, political and spiritual: " things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world .” In fact the whole of the first stanza elaborates on the current state of the world. It also describes the state of the world after the havoc caused by the First World War. The idea of force grows through the poem. The " falconer " loses control over the " falcon" and " the blood dimmed tide " is unleashed upon the world.”

In times such as these , the best men " lack all conviction" ( the intelligent , sensitive men) and the" worst are full of " passionate intensity" . These are the politicians and charlatans of today who lead us.

" Gyre " refers to the spiralling movement of the falcon but also in Yeats ' s mythology , the periods of time which succeed each other, ideas he develops in " The Vision". We have suggestions of archetypal myths both from the Bible and other cultures of floods destroying the world ( Noah's Ark for eg) . These literal or metaphorical floods are ones that destroy " innocence"…

So an event of universal significance is presaged : the " Second Coming" ( Matthew: 24, 25 . surely the Second Coming is at hand. )

(" Surely some revelation is at hand" in Yeats's poem.)

According to Yeats's views of the cycles of history, each cycle takes 2000 years to complete. At the end of the Christian cycle, that is the two thousand years since the phase of Christ, the new phase would be both equivalent and opposite to the moment of Christian revelation.; the new birth would be a contradiction of the Christ child. Yeats tells us what to expect in mythical imagery and terms.: A shape with lion body and head of a man/ A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun. This image of a beast reminds one of the the image that comes out of the " Spiritus Mundi" or storehouse of the race or racial memory. The nightmarish symbol Yeats presents us with is a compound of St. Matthews prediction of Christ's future return and St. John's vision of the coming anti-Christ or beast of the Apocalypse. The image also reminds us of the Egyptian Sphinx. So is there an ambivalence in the significance of the "rough beast" ? The poem suggests that the " Rough Beast " is about to bring a change in the world but will it be a good one? If we look at the mood of the poem, it is an ominous one, a terrifying one. Most apocalyptic narratives suggest a reversal accompanied by violence and a cleansing . This is so in Indian mythology too ( see the myth of Kalki).

So the first stanza sets the scene or the background for the second stanza where the " Second Coming “ of the title is predicted; the birth of a new age which will be " hierarchical, masculine, harsh and surgical" according to Yeats. To me it seems as if the " Beast" with it's " blank " and "pitiless " gaze is a force for good however horrific the beast may seem.

For the Christian world, “twenty centuries ago” marks the birth of Christ who was prophesied to return in two thousand years: the term for that event has been known as “The Second Coming” throughout western history. Indeed, our calendar —-our way of marking time in the West —- has been predicated upon the Birth of Christ and the eventual Second Coming since around 800 AD, or 800 anno Domini, or “800 in the year of our Lord,” or, more fully and formally, “800 in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” This mythology is the foundation of the Western world and the basis of our cultural tradition.

Yeats opens his poem with the signs, omens, that the end is near, the end of history as we know it, which will culminate in the Second Coming. However, in the second stanza, Yeats’ musings are interrupted by another image sprung from the spirit of the age (Spiritus Mundi) in which he lived (and, some would say, in which we are still living). In Yeats’ lifetime, he was witness to World War I (1914–1918) known as “the war to end all war” because the destruction was so vast and the loss of life so great that nations began thinking of a way to prevent such slaughter from ever happening again. However, no sooner had that war ended than Hitler and his nascent Nazi Party began their ascension to power culminating in another, greater World War, the most widespread and heretofore deadliest war ever.

Again in the second stanza, something monstrous has risen up from the desert, a creature that was asleep, but is now awake and lumbering toward Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ. That creature was irritated by the “rocking cradle” of the West, its civilization and its contentment and joy at the expectation of a Second Coming. The “rough beast” of the poem is placed in the context of the Bible and refers to the Christian nemesis, Satan, and the coming of Armageddon. What will be born again will not only be Christ, but the anti-Christ.

anand

Yeats did not live to see WWII; but he was residing in France upon his death, and Hitler had already become Chancellor of Germany. Yeats died in January, 1939, the year Hitler began his world conquest. Many believe that Yeats predicted the Second World War, and many people believe poets are prophets. One of my art teachers once told me that poets are poets because they cannot be saints.

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