An inherent tension between stability and change is revealed through recurring images in Yeats poetry.

To what extent does your interpretation of Yeats The Second Coming and at least one other poem align
with this view?

In your response, make detailed reference to The Second Coming and at least ONE other poem set for
study.

Note to students:
This question requires you to write about The Second Coming. Students are reminded that they are
required to fully prepare all poems set for study in any elective, as the examiners can be very specific and
name one or more poems that must be addressed in the answer.

Sample response: Poetry

Prescribed text: WB Yeats: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney

Introduction Yeats had a distinctive world view that is evident in much of his poetry and explored
outlines the through recurring imagery and motifs, as well as through language and ideas specific to
common aspects individual poems. His views about civilization and change are expressed in Leda and
of both poems the Swan and The Second Coming which, taken together, explore the beginning and
while
the end of Western history in Yeats terms. Both poems look at the supernatural
responding to
the question influence on human affairs, at a tipping point between stability and change. They
consider human helplessness in the face of blind destiny, but also examine human
acquiescence in the march of history. While they share features of language and
structure, they also present ideas in ways particular to each poem.

Yeats world It is historically evident that all civilizations are subject to cycles of growth and decay.
view briefly Yeats was deeply engaged with how this happens and what are the catalysts that
addressed in produce chaos from order. As an occultist, he believed that significant historical change
terms relevant was supernaturally driven and that signs were evident at the time of this interference to
to the poems
show the emergence of the new era. The rift between order and chaos, between stability
and the question
and change, is shown structurally in both poems. In The Second Coming, the
differences are shown within the lines and in the structure of the poem itself. It begins
Discussion of with a description of the fracture the falcon cannot hear the falconer tells us that
The Second there is no controlling force, as does the disintegration described in the blunt things
Coming fall apart and the centre cannot hold. The blood-dimmed tide overwhelms the
ceremony of innocence and the best and worst are compared, with neither being able
to offer anything of value: those with possible answers lack all conviction and the will
to do anything, while only those without understanding or answers have the conviction
to act, the passionate intensity. The opening octet is a generalized picture of entropy.
Yeats imagery and language are abstract and non-specific, to encompass global chaos as
he saw it in 1919, including the aftermaths of World War I and the Russian Revolution,
the disintegrating political situation in Ireland and social change throughout the
Western world.

The Second In the next fifteen lines of the poem, Yeats presents a specific picture of the
Coming and supernatural rough beast that heralds a new historical age. The language here
Yeats world reinforces the troubled, fractious, conflicted spirit of the world in a time of upheaval.
view continued The image that troubles him is both human and beyond human, a man/lion
combination of the supernatural, wakening after twenty centuries of stony sleep
imposed on it by the Christian era. The turmoil of the world at large, which has been
vexed to nightmare, is a sign of the coming age. This new era is neither Western nor
Christian: the beast will be born in the Middle East, in Bethlehem, and the Sphinx-like
image bears no relation to Christian iconography.
Discussion of There are many similarities with Leda and the Swan. Yeats also employs internal
Leda and the contrast in this poem to convey the tension between stability and change: the poem is
Swan shows told from Ledas perspective, so we understand how she is affected by the immediacy
how the same of the rape, and also as a helpless human caught up in much bigger events. Whereas
ideas and
Yeats uses contrasts of chaos and order within lines in The Second Coming, here he
techniques are
used counterpoints Zeus actions and Ledas reactions. She feels the sudden blow from his
great wings, she is staggering, caught and mastered, while he holds,
engenders and has power. As if aware of what the rape will signify and the role she
will have in history, Leda both resists and consents she tries to push him away with
terrified vague fingers from her loosening thighs. Throughout the poem, there is
tension and interplay between the dominance of his actions and her vulnerable
submission, reflecting the single event, as Yeats imagined it, that symbolized the dawn
of a new age.

More The animal/human beast in The Second Coming is like Zeus earthly incarnation as
connections the swan, both god and creature. The supernatural creatures in both poems are blind to
with The human needs and suffering, suggesting Yeats view of the relative powerlessness of
Second Coming humanity in the face of an implacable destiny. The beast has a gaze blank and pitiless
to show
as the sun. After impregnating Leda, Zeus lets her drop from his indifferent beak.
consistency of
ideas and images The new era of history that is heralded by the conception of Helen is also non-
and how the Christian, and the beginning of literate Western civilization. This poem is Yeats
poems, taken conjecture about the dawn of Western civilization, while The Second Coming is his
together, show vision of its ending.
Yeats world
view

Similar images The poems share other aspects of language and content. A sign of instability and
in the poems change in both is war the blood-dimmed tide in The Second Coming and Troys
broken wall, ... burning roof and tower in Leda and the Swan. In both poems we see
a human being trying to read the signs and portents. In The Second Coming, it is
Yeats direct view of the world as he saw it in 1919, with its promise, to him, of
something that could be better growing out of the existing chaos. In Leda and the
Swan, we see the event from Ledas perspective and, because she is merely human, not
an all-seeing god, it is a vague and limited view. However, as the mother of Helen and
thus an integral part of the new era, she receives from Zeus an inkling of what might be
to come.

Similar content Both poems ask questions about the shape of the future. There is a prophecy in each:
in the poems the rough beast ... slouch(ing) towards Bethlehem to be born and the broached wall
and Agamemnon dead tell us something about what lies ahead. With historical
knowledge, we know about the civilization that developed from the ruins of Troy.
However, Yeats can only guess about what might lie ahead at the beginning of the
twentieth century. He dismisses the idea of a second coming in the Christian sense
Hardly are those words out / When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi / Troubles my
sight. He know(s) / That twenty centuries of stony sleep are awakening to a new era,
but he can only guess the source and the form that this new era might take on.

Conclusion links Yeats idiosyncratic views about historical cycles are revealed in both these poems. He
the two poems deals in both with causation and the tension between stability and change, presenting
to Yeats views his understanding of the signs and portents of the overthrow of one regime and the
in very broad arrival of the new era. The consistency of his thinking about history and the roles of the
terms
human and the supernatural in these cycles is shown through the similarities of ideas
and images in these two pieces, which bookend the start and the end, as Yeats saw it, of
the Western era.