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William Butler Yeats

The Second Coming

Even more challenging questions!

Keith Tankard
Knowledge4Africa.com
Updated: 4 March 2014
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The poet wrote this poem shortly after the conclusion of what was termed "the Great War" or First World War. He had witnessed the destruction caused by the war: destruction not only of property but also of people and customs. Kings and Emperors were being deposed while in Russia the October Revolution had seen the triumph of Communism.

The poet sees this collapse as an indication of the coming of the end times. This is not the end of the world in the Christian world view but rather the end of the Age of Pisces and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, with all the changes in society that this will bring about.

To understand this, perhaps you should read the note below and then read the note in the next worksheets.



NOTE ON THE POEM

Yeats, after a Protestant upbringing, had felt his world challenged by the Catholic dominated Ireland in which he lived. Eventually he moved away from orthodox Christianity altogether and entered a world of spiritualism, mysticism, astrology and the occult. He became deeply involved in schools of theosophy which dabbled deeply in oriental mysticism.

He wrote this poem in 1919, and it was published in 1920. The world had just witnessed the devastation of what was termed "the Great War" or First World War, a war which had brought unparalleled destruction and loss of life. This brought to Yeats's mind a belief in the two thousand year cycles of the Ancient people that are commonly called "Ages" or "Aeons".

Did you know that, as the earth spins on its axis, it also has a counter-wobble in the opposite direction? This is known as "precession". While it takes the earth just 24 hours to complete one rotational spin which causes night and day, it takes roughly 25,000 years to complete one precessional spin.

The Ancients knew all about precession. Indeed, they had measured the earth's precessional spin by its effect on the stars. They drew pictures in the star formations along the belt of the equator -- which star formations we call "constellations" -- and gave them names such as Libra, Pisces, Taurus and Aquarius. They drew twelve such pictures in the star patterns and these, of course, have become the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

If one were to stand on the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at dawn on the first day of spring and look due east, one would see one of these constellations just above the horizon. At the moment it would be Aquarius.

Another interesting point is that the Sphinx -- mentioned in this poem -- lies on or close to the Tropic of Cancer looking east and has witnessed the dawn of the Ages for thousands of years. Indeed, Robert Bauval argues that this gargantuan carved lion has been lying there since the Age of Leo -- which was about twelve thousand years ago.

Because the Ancients divided the night sky into twelve zodiacal signs, and because it takes the earth about 25,000 years to complete just one precessional spin, that means a zodiacal constellation will remain in the dawn sky for some two thousand years.

And so the Ancients named these two thousand year periods after the zodiacal sign that was then showing at dawn on the first day of spring. They called them "Ages" or "Aeons".

At about the time that Jesus Christ was born, they were just entering into the Age of Pisces the fish. Indeed, the Age of Pisces is the time-span between Jesus and our present day. Ever wondered why the fish is so symbolic of the time of Jesus and the early Christian Church? And why Jesus called fishermen to be his special friends?

Somehow this two-fold spinning of time is what Yeats meant by "gyres" -- a spin within a spin or a precessional spin within a natural spin. It is these gyres which mark the passage of time and mark the passage of the Ages. We have currently just reached the end of the Age of Pisces and are now entering the Age of Aquarius.

Yeats, through his mysticism and theosophy, would have been well-versed in this idea of the Cycle of the Ages and it is therefore absolutely impossible to understand this poem without a rudimentary knowledge of it.

Be prepared:
1. This is a very challenging poem;
2. It is probable that neither your teacher nor your examiner will have understood it all that well either -- so be careful how you word your answers!

Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:



"Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!"
  • Is the poet approaching this theme from a particularly Christian point of view? If not, then what does he mean by "the Second Coming"? (8)

[Need help?]




"Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight."
  • What is meant by "Spiritus Mundi"? (4)

[Need help?]

  • What does he mean when he says that this "vast image . . . troubles his sight". (4)

[Need help?]




"Somewhere in the 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."
  • What is this image? (2)

[Need help?]

  • Why would its gaze be "blank and pitiless as the sun"? (4)

[Need help?]

  • How could it be moving its "slow thighs"? What message is the poet attempting to portray here? (4)

[Need help?]




"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?"
  • What does Yeats mean when he speaks of "twenty centuries of stony sleep"? (4)

[Need help?]

  • Comment on the poet's depiction of the "rocking cradle". (4)

[Need help?]

  • Is this scene in Bethlehem a normal nativity scene? If not, what image is the poet attempting to convey? (4)

[Need help?]




Try another worksheet?


See also:
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