Table of Contents
What is the gyre Yeats?
A gyre in “The Second Coming” refers to a spiral or a circular motion, but it also stands for the larger cycles of history. Yeats believed that an orderly gyre or cycle of history that began with the birth of Christ was ending, about to be replaced with a new historical cycle of chaos and cruelty.
How does the gyre in each poem illustrate Yeats philosophy?
The world “gyre” means spiral. As he was writing the poem in 1919, it felt to him as if the spiral of Christian history had unwound to its farthest point and a new period was beginning. The significance of this new cycle or gyre is that it is characterized by Yeats as full of darkness and violence.
Why does Yeats use a gyre as his conception of time?
Yeats believed that this image (he called the spirals “gyres”) captured the contrary motions inherent within the historical process, and he divided each gyre into specific regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual’s development).
Who wrote the Second Coming What is a gyre?
W. B. Yeats
The Second Coming (poem)
| by W. B. Yeats | |
|---|---|
| Written | 1919 |
| Country | Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Form | Lyric poetry |
What does the center Cannot hold mean?
That “the center cannot hold” is an ironic reference to both the imminent collapse of the African tribal system, threatened by the rise of imperialist bureaucracies, and the imminent disintegration of the British Empire.
What does blood-dimmed tide mean?
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere. The ceremony of innocence is drowned; These three lines describe a situation of violence and terror through phrases like “anarchy,” “blood-dimmed tide,” and “innocence [. . .] drowned.” (By the way, “mere” doesn’t mean “only” in this context; it means “total” or “pure.”)
What does the rough beast symbolize in The Second Coming?
The poem is alluding to the Book of Revelation. The “rough beast” is the Anti-Christ. The scene is set for the final showdown and the Second Coming. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre” also alludes to the view of a cyclical nature of history expressed elsewhere by the poet.
What does blood dimmed tide mean?
What does the falconer symbolize in The Second Coming?
The falconer in “The Second Coming” is generally thought to represent Christ. The falconer also hints at Yeats’ fundamentally aristocratic understanding of politics. Hunting with falcons is an activity traditionally associated with the upper-classes, with “the best people” in society.
How does the poet ask the earth to receive Yeats?
William Butler Yeats died in winter: the brooks were frozen, airports were all but empty, and statues were covered in snow. In the third, final section of the poem, the poet asks the Earth to receive Yeats as “an honoured guest.” The body, “emptied of its poetry,” lies there.
What does Spiritus Mundi mean in The Second Coming?
The term “spiritus mundi” in the second stanza of W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” means “spirit of the world” and refers to the collective spirit or consciousness of humanity.
Where does the center Cannot hold come from?
Yeats wrote this poem in 1919, when post-World War I Europe was in the grip of a stark and bleak period, one in which the center felt as if would not hold. Then there was a sense that the institutions upon which a nation depends were in distress and the very fabric of society was fraying.