'The Second Coming' by William Butler Yeats (Poetry Analysis Video)
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- Опубліковано 28 лис 2024
- This video contains a close Analysis of William Butler Yeats', 'The Second Coming', with a discussion of the poem's historical context, major themes, and Yeats' use of poetic techniques.
'The Second Coming' is a video in the 'Poetry Analysis Series' from Litpoetry and is designed for students of poetry at both the beginner and advanced levels.
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James Laidler: Poet/Writer/Teacher. Published works including the verse novel, 'The Taste of Apple', / the-taste-of-apple , &'the YA novel 'Pulling Down the Stars', / pulling-down-the-stars
Featured Poem:
'The Second Coming' by William Butler Yeats (Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats - 1989) www.poetryfoun...
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He wrote it in 1919 so in addition to WW1, a man made monster, he was also addressing the chaos wrought by the flu pandemic, an event outside mans control, in which more died than in the preceding conflict. Also, on a more personal level for Yeats, this year witnessed the start of the Irish War of Independence, a bloody and divisive war.
What an incredible explanation 👏👌
Thanks, Ashish!
Indeed! The best I've heard.
a delicate interpretation of history by biblical stories! What a relevance
Came just to listen the poem however the analysis kept me intrigued. Took me back to high school this is so much deeper than I had imagined st that age
This helped me out a lot!! Thank you so much for putting up such a good explanation. Hope you can add more videos for the modern/post modern poets as well.
Thank you so very much my brother, a brilliant analysis of a poem relevant for our time.
Lovely analysis. One of my favorite poems of Yeat's, alongside Sailing to Byzantium. Will enjoy making some of my own videos on Yeats. Cheers.
Go for it!
Hi James,, Just used part of this video with my Year 12s as we revise the novel Things Fall Apart for the VCE English exam in a coule of weeks, Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you. I have always had a gut feeling about this poem. That is, I felt it inside more than I could describe. Though I disagreed with you on some of the more subtle images, you have given me a better structure of the poem, and so, a better grasp. Thank you
no problem
Same it gives me a visceral response that I can’t explain.
This was excellent. Thankyou.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I appreciate the analysis and your sharing of it.
My pleasure!
The commentary is incredible, many thanks
thanks Celia😀
Thank you so much 🙏
Excellent work !
I have read that the Pandemic of 1918 - 1919 was also an influence of Yeats. His wife was quite ill at the time of the writing of the poem.
That's a very interesting point, Anthony, thanks!
Brilliant poetry, and brilliant analysis.
thanks!
‘Collective unconscience’ [sic] 😆 Though lots of interesting perspectives on construction.
Is there perhaps occult reference to Horus when mentioning the falcon? With Yeats such an enthusiastic member of the Golden Dawn, it’s quite striking that this always seems to be ignored when people analyse his poems.
To me this is the ultimate apocalyptic poem
Apart from John’s Book of Revalations itself… this poem is what Inhave been seeing for the last two years…
Apart from John’s Book of Revalations itself… this poem is what we have been seeing for the last two years…
Thank you 🙏
You explained it well
Thank you so much
No problem and thanks for your kind email :)
That really helped me alot, thank you 💜
no problem
Thank you 🙏🏼
Central themes in my opinion:
1) All good things fall apart, alas "the center cannot hold".
2) Near anarchy is loosed upon the world...This speaks to man's natural gravitas towards chaos, war, revolt and uprising. (Equally applicable in 2023).
3) The ceremony of innocence is drowned...
This speaks to youth coming of age and realizing the world is a bad and dangerous place. And realizing that most human made systems are inherently flawed. Leading them to question government and humanity (now full circle to point #2).
4) The best lack all conviction...
When good people devolve into apathetic creatures.
5) While the worst are full of passion and intensity...
Look at how historical traumatic human events have brought out the worst people in our societies. See also: Pandemic 2019.
6) Surely a "revelation" is at hand, a second coming...
Is this the returning of Christ, and Armageddon? Or is the "revelation" what Yeats speaks to next...Which is that we are going to wipe ourselves out.
7) Spirits Mundi troubles my sights...
This alludes to a "group think" single conscious world mentality. Which troubles the narrator. Group think can be dangerous and is laced with emotion, whereas individual thought can be more analytical and less emotional.
8) The lion body = represents all of mankind in a single body.
9) With the head of a man = represents each individual person within that body and how we are all pieces of a collective "whole".
10) A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun = Mankind is spiraling out of control, and is devolving to meet it's destiny. Which is inevitable self- destruction.
11) Indignant desert birds = No allusions here, he is talking about Buzzards, circling the dying carcass of mankind, waiting on their impending meal...Which is us, the human race. The Buzzards are preparing to clean the meat from our bones.
12) 20 centuries of stony sleep = Our human arrogance has blinded us to the fact that we are unknowinglt marching right into the end times. The meat grinder, if you will.
13) And what rough beast, it's hour comes round at last slouches towards Bethlehem to be born = The rough beast is us, people, slouching under the weight of the pending apocalypse (our final hour has now come). And why Bethlehem? Because that is where Christ was born, and the bible, in Revelation tells of end times. Man has now made the book of revelations a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it is of our own doing, not the doing of a bearded man in the sky.
Yeats = Visionary
Well explained ✨
hi, i love your videos, they have actually helped me in school a lot. I was just wondering where you got the cool gifs in the background
I get them from everywhere. It's really difficult to source clips that are copyright free
Thank you, this helped preparing for my exams
A's in JESUS NAME
Thank you 😊 so much sir.
no problem😀
@@LitPoetry need more poems of yeats from you sir.
One of the great masterpieces of world literature. And yet a remarkably easy poem to understand, for those open to its message.The poem's theme is the consequences of secularism and the rejection of Judeo-Christian values. We, humanity, are the falcons who in a post-religious world have distanced and cut off ourselves from the falconer, God. With what result? A gradual then sudden descent into madness, irrationality, and cruelty under the guise of a new Age of Enlightenment. This is exactly what happened in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Soviet totalitarian state. And this is where the West is heading today. Dostoevksy issued similar warnings 50 years before Yeats. Bonus points: Cruelty and mayhem is the norm in human history. 2,000 years of biblical values was the aberration that more or less held such evil at bay. Now that we have jettisoned those values, life will return to its primitive natural dark ways.
A perfect commentary on today's geopolitical mess
We, the falcon, really have lost sight of our Falconer. High time we listened for his call and return to his steady arm and guidance.
I refuse to bow to any bird tamer! With the exception of a Bob Ross type character.
James, a good interpretation. Yeats was from Anglo Irish ascendancy stock and in 1919 their world looked shaky as the native Irish were putting pressure on the English government to grant Home rule. !919 was the midpoint of our war of independance.. It took until 1921 to get our 26 counties back. Many of Yeat's friends were terrified of what awaited them. To his credit he put his shoulder to the wheel of the Irish Free State and he deserved his cheque from the Swedish Academy. Thank you for the analysis.
My father who was an assertive atheist used to say that if Christ returned today our culture would greet Him with a rifle with a long range sight.
Do the sphinx represent coming of Jesus?
This guy talks about the book of Revelations as if it's all roses and rainbows. He should re-read it, as there's all kinds of strangely headed beasts, false messiah drama, death and destruction which this poem could be referring to.
sadly, there are many gyres where the good perish, where does that leave humanity? the ceremony of innocence is a dagger in the back of the blind
"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him."
Shouldn't gyre rhyme with hire?
Perhaps in some Irish/British accent it does.
Good god man! Where is the masculine energy?
The onset of AI ?
I' have always had trouble with the Second Coming, given what we have seen happen to the First coming .A physical Jesus would be killed in less than a week. Better if we all carried him in our hearts
.I am returning now as Love,
like a lamplighter that ignites
every wakening heart,
a tender glow to invite you
to remember who you are.
I am alive again in new bodies of light
each a spark set upon its course
to radiate in the night
what I am made of.
As this light grows brighter,
exposing all the shadows,
it parts the clouds to clear the skies of heaven,
clears the mind of doubt.
I am the flame that burns away the lie;
I am the voice that opens up the eye.
I come in a form that will never die.
I am one with the Father
I am one with the Mother.
I am the radiant Son.
December, 12, 2012
Global Varmint, yeah! 😂
It feels like he predicts Hitler with it too.
Some say _gyre_ , others say _ghyre_ . How come?
Or perhaps the beast is AI.
Yeats was NOT a christian. Note: 20 centuries of Stony Sleep...
True, but he wrote within a Christian paradigm and is influenced by it
Predicting the anti-Christ ( and anti-Christianism): the anti-Christian beast? The anti-Christ also rhymes with the hatred, so prevalent today, of a certain culture.
Give your life to Jesus today,tomorrow may be too late
The poem is cool. But everything else alien and lies.
Pronounce 'Rambo'.
Could you read about Islam, please brother?
Allelujah to that! No poetry lesson is complete without some good'ol Islamic readings!
lol!
Stupid poem.How are people who have English as a second language understand this?
lol, moron!
It wasn’t written for them . Sorry but just as poems in other languages may be tricky for those with a different mother tongue.
What does the word sagira mean 18:29? I couldn't get that. If anybody knows please let me know. Thank you.
@@belishakemprai2969 it’s caesura - it means a pause near the middle of the line .