William Butler Yeats was a renowned Irish poet who tried to bring back the Irish Drama, the Celtic. He was ‘a man of letters’ and was one of the spiritualistic persons of the modern era. He wrote poems with reality in them. “The Second Coming” is one such poem and a spiritual one as well which was published in 1919.
“The Second Coming” is an aesthetic and a prophetic poem. It talks about the theme of spiritual disintegration and physical disharmony of the modern age. Many global events took place during that time like, First and Second World Wars, Russian Revolution and so on. This repercussions lead the poet to his prophetic vision or an apocalyptic vision. The title is iterative, prophetic, ironic and biblical. This poem has Yeats’s concepts of the gyre civilisation.
Gyre means ‘Magnus annus’ in latin which leads to a period of two thousand years to make a complete civilisation. He further says that the gap between Man and God is widening, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre”. The poet compares God and man to a falcon. This falcon holds a communication gap due to which it cannot hear the falconer. In an ecological level, there is a gap between Man and nature, in a social level resides a gap between Man and culture, tradition and moral values, in an intellectual level there is a gap between Man himself who is torn apart – “The falcon away from the falconer”. The poet who was in his hopelessness has now gained hope. He says that man has lost his integrity and unity and that the world is soaked with blood. The innocence, the joy and happiness have disappeared which has been replaced by violence. He uses the phrases ‘water’, ‘tide’ which are nautical.
He repeats the title of the poem “The Second Coming” which is an irony by stressing it. This repetition of the title is an iteration through which the poet conveys a message that the violence will be destroyed by something with the help of “spiritus mundi”, the store room of spirits. He is able to look at an image which has a body of a lion and the head of a man which looks monstrous as he refers to the sphinx here. That shape shocks the poet’s sight thereby losing his hope. The shape is not clearly visible and he calls it “reel shadowed”. It looks blank with no expressions as the sun, and slowly moves its thighs. The poet refers to the physical quality and sexuality here.
The poet is very much shocked about this creature which is going to be born in the same place where Christ was born twenty centuries before. The poet talks not about Christ but the antichrist who is going to be inductive, sensuous, cruel, furious, savage and sensual. This is what he refers to in his ironic title “The Second Coming”. This title has been taken from the Gospel of St Matthew, chapter 24.