Hello readers,
Welcome to my blog. After completing any particular unit, our professor dr. Dilip Barad sir gives us a task about that unit. So this is the task on W. B. Yeats poems.
“a magnificent temperament associated with a magnificent style”
(Safier 928).
W. B. Yeats is well known for his two war poems. The first is "The Second Coming" and the other one is "On Being Asked For a War Poem". Both poems indicated that war is the way of our annihilation. Basically Yeats doesn't like wars, he is against world wars. So let's talk about both poems in detail.
◆The Second Coming◆
William Butler Yeats began his poem, "The Second Coming" in 1919 right after World War One. It is important to note that Yeats did not believe in Christianity. Magic and occult theories are important elements in Yeats’s work. Yeats created an imaginary but believable religion that was cyclical. In “The Second Coming” Yeats shows us a vision full of apocalyptic, ritualistic and mystical symbolism. Here is the full poem…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in 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.
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?
We can read this poem in three different contexts.
The first is political context
The second is religious context
The third is as pandemic poem
Here is the reference of 1918–1919 Spanish flu pandemic. In the weeks preceding Yeats's writing of the poem, his pregnant wife Georgie Hyde-Lees caught the virus and was very close to death.
When we re-read the poem we got the idea that the poem is basically written as a pandemic poem. In this lines we can relate that,
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
We know that the virus had no shape. But in this poem poet described virus as,
A shape with lion body and the head of a man.
Yeats's wife caught the virus and she was very close to death. The highest death rates of the 1918–19 pandemic were among pregnant women in some areas, it was an up to 70 percent death rate for these women. It was a very terrible situation as we are facing today because of the CORONA virus. This situation we see in this lines,
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The another thing is the Bethlehem is not taken here as birth place of Jesus Christ, but it's consider here as birth place of flu virus.
To wind up we can say that this poem is also read as a pandemic poem. And we also connect it with today's time. The Spanish flu was as terrible as coronavirus. Both ruined lot's of families and their futures.
◆On Being Asked For a War Poem◆
"On Being Asked for a War Poem" title itself seems like someone is asking a poet to write a poem about war. Later on we recognize it's Henry James and Edith Whortan who tell W. B. Yeats to write a poem about war. Well this is a poem by William Butler Yeats. The poem has six lines only. This poem was written on 6th February, 1915. It's the beginning of the First World War. Before we analyse ‘On Being Asked for a War Poem’, here’s a reminder of the text of the poem.
I think it better that in times like these
A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
Poet should not write a poem about war, but here the poet is writing a poem, it is like refusal as assent. It's very interesting fact to be noticed here is that,
The poet don't want to write a poem, but a poet telling that through writing a poem !
It is quite a different style of answering by Yeats. In the first stanza of three lines the speaker said that it is war time; a very tough time poet should be silent. Because poets haven't the gift of speaking truth. It's the right of a statesman ! Here the poet uses irony. He wanted to tell the crowd they don't believe what the poet says, but they blindly believe in what the politicians say. Here is conflict between what is right and what is truth.
In the second stanza of the remaining three lines, the poet talked about his subject matter of the poem. About whom and which type of poetry he wants to write. And another thing the poet says about statesmen is that he doesn't want to interfere with others. The poet talked about
Young girl, youth - unripe and immature youth
Old man, winter's night - mature people
Poet don't want to write a poem about battle, he wants to write a poem about youth and ballads for old people. It seems like the poet has a conflict with the statesman. The intention of speaker in this poem is,
If a poet is not ready to accept the challenges, it's better that the poet remains silent.
If we talk about the rhyming scheme of the poem, it has an ABC ABC rhyme scheme. For example,
These : Please
Truth : Youth
Right : Night
So we can see that it is also an ironic poem. The speaker is trying to tell the truth through his poem. Remaining neutral as a poet is very difficult. Here we see the difficulty of the speaker. Poetry is the best way for them to give their opinions about subjects.
Here is the video recording of online class :
1. The Second Coming :-
Thank you…
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