yeats the second coming

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THE SECOND COMING Critically analyse the poem above, paying particular attention to its form, rhythm, imagery, allusions and diction and the way they serve to create meaning. What is Yeats’s central preoccupation in the poem? How does he interpret the idea of ‘the Second Coming’? You might consider other poems by Yeats that you have read for this unit that might add to your commentary on this poem. William Butler Yeats is considered to be one of the finest poets in the English language. His works reflect his devotion to Irish nationalism and play a noteworthy part in the Celtic Revival Movement. Yeats’ poem "The Second Coming" is generally viewed as a symbolic revelation of the end of the Christian era. It is one of Yeats' most popular works. The poem is viewed as a prophetic poem that envisions the impending end of the Christian era and the brutal birth of a new age. William Butler Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” soon after the end of World War I. It was also not long since the Easter Rising in Ireland, a rebellion that was brutally suppressed and the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the long rule of the Czars and was accompanied by its full share of lingering chaos (Holman, Snyder; online). This context in which the poem was written is quite obviously reflected in the poet’s words, which convey his sense that the world he knew was coming to an end. The poem uses a plethora of poetic techniques to convey its message. These include the structure of the poem in metre and rhyme, biblical allusion, metaphors, and symbolism. The underlying metric pattern of “The Second Coming” is iambic pentameter. However this fundamental meter is not immediately evident in the poem, this is because the first line of each section begins with an emphatic trochee and then moves into a very irregular rhythm of mostly iambs. The poem consists of variant feet, which

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