After reading "The Second Coming" I was very interested in writing about it. Even though it is somewhat difficult to understand and analyze, there is a lot that can be left to the reader for interpretation, which I like. There is a lot of imagery, really making the poem come alive for you in a way that most of the other writings we've read haven't been able to do. I'm sure there is a lot of symbolize and ideas that I am not capable of identifying but I really enjoyed this piece.
William Yeats makes several references to the Bible, particularly ones in relation to the occurrences that we believe took place in Egypt. "The blood-dimmed tide is loose and everywhere, The ceremony of innocence is drowned;" probably symbolize the display of the Nile River turning to blood by Moses' staff and the sending of the Death Angel in order to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go free (1122). So because the "shape with lion body and the head of a man" is presumably the Sphinx of ancient Egypt, are we to assume that the beast of Yeats' Second Coming is related to the forces that were against Moses and his followers (1122)?
I don't think he meant to say that there was literally a Second Coming involving a Sphinx or any other man-made creature. I think it is a reflection of the times in the sense that things were falling apart as he says in the first stanza of the piece. Different people were beginning to think differently and explode in controversies with one another, prime example World War I had taken place before the poem was published. He ends the poem with a question, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/ Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" ultimately asking what will come of the many varied and opposing view points at the time (1123).
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Jalisa,
ReplyDeleteYour post selects a very challenging and intriguing poem for discussion, and you make some interesting connections. I am not sure the allusion you claim to Moses are fully convincing, though I agree with your identification of the beast as the sphinx (representing paganism, which Yeats feared was returning in a second coming. I am glad to see you quoting specific passages from the poem for discussion--I would have appreciated more discussion of them, though.
The idea about the sphinx representing Egypt and being an allusion to Moses is really cool! That never would have occurred to me. Whether Yeats consciously put it in as a reference to Moses or not, he certainly would have understood that the Sphinx represents Egypt, which has its own slew of associations. These associations, like Moses and the ancient world in general, factor into the symbolism, so really ideas of Moses and the Old Testament are present in that image no matter how conscious Yeats' decision to put them in was.
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