Critical Study Yeats 17/20

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In the context of your critical study of Yeats, to what extent does your response to the poem, The second Coming, inform you judgement of Yeats’ poetry as a whole? In your response, make detailed reference to The Second Coming and at least ONE other poem set for study. Yeats’ poetry continues to engage audiences through his discussion of the universal themes of the acquisition of knowledge and the ambiguous and conflicting notions of nature. His poems are influenced by his personal, social and political context, and his style is typical of the romantic and modernist movements respective to his context over time. However, the textual integrity of Yeats’ poetry is maintained through the common ideas present in his poetry. ‘The Second Coming’ (1919) is reflective of these common concerns, in particular the knowledge of the decay of civilization and the undefined balance between order and authority in society. ‘An Irish Airman Forsees His Death’ (1918) further exemplifies these transcendent themes through looking at self-knowledge and the balance between life and death. A broadened understanding of Yeats’ outlook on the knowledge of social decay can be gained through exploring ‘The Second Coming’. The persona in ‘The Second Coming’ shows an acceptance of the imminent chaos which the poem envisages, highlighted by the anaphora and repetition at the opening of the second stanza, “surely some revelation is at hand;/Surely the Second Coming is at hand”. Short phrases illuminate the power of the persona, “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” due to the knowledge they possess. Yet it is not an indifferent knowledge. The contrast between “mere anarchy” and “the ceremony of innocence” highlights the coming loss of order which the persona has knowledge of. Yeats uses sanguinary imagery, “the blood-dimmed tide”, to illustrate his concern with the increase in violence which

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