Topic 5: A few pieces of Music/ Film/ Art that Convey the Mood of "The Second Coming"

I originally said that I would find just two pieces of either music, film, or art that convey the mood of the poem, but there's just so much interesting stuff out there in the world, and I couldn't help but find more than that to connect to "The Second Coming."

My first two pieces were paintings:

Painting One: The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch

 

This painting relates to "The Second Coming" for one main reason: This painting portrays the second coming of Jesus, also known as "judgement day" or "the last judgement." This is the day that Jesus would come down and judge good and evil.

 

In the center is an image of earth, along with the remaining human population. To the left of this is an image of what I assume is supposed to be Heaven, as it is very green and lush, and seems calm. Also, in the distance, you can see a glowing figure in the sky, the figure of God. To the left of the center drawing is an image of what must be Hell, which seems to be barren and chaotic. What I found a bit odd was that the picture of earth in the center looks very similar to the picture of Hell, as if once judgement day comes, earth will be in a hellish state.

 

This painting does, however, show Christ as a great and heavenly figure, which opposes the voice of Yeats in his poem.

 

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Painting Two: The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel

 

 

 

 This painting is of an apocalyptic-type setting. Death is occurring everywhere; in the distance, you can see a person hanging from the gallows, another about to be struck by the sword of a tall, slender creature. Towards the front, the ground is littered with dead bodies.

 

To the left, there is a group of people gathered around a cross. I'm guessing they are present to symbolize looking to and praying to God in such a disasterous time, in hope that He may help them. From the look of how things are, though, it doesn't really looked like they can be helped.

 

There is no image of Christ or God in the painting, so it doesn't seem like - if it is the end, if it is Judgement Day - that Jesus would come to save them. That is how this painting represents Yeats's opinion in "The Second Coming." There is no savior that will rescue them. Only a beast that will cause destruction. Perhaps the beast mentioned in the poem is what caused all of this havoc in the first place. After all, the setting is very similar to a desert, as was spoken of in the poem. 

 

 

I will be posting more pieces in future posts.

Topic 4: How I would describe "The Second Coming" to the Average Fourth-Grader

If I were to give a lecture on the poem "The Second Coming" to a fourth grader or a class of fourth graders, I would do my best to make sure that they understand it as best as possible.

I would start with telling them a bit - not too much, though - about the author, William Butler Yeats:

William Butler Yeats, the author of the poem, was a Catholic soldier in World War II. One of his really good friends in the war was killed, and this was extremely saddening for Yeats. When he came back from the war, he was very emotionally damaged, and his faith with God was destroyed. He wrote this poem after returning from the war.

I would then rephrase the poem in a way that they would be able to understand:

Turning and turning in the center of the storm,
The bird cannot hear the bird caller;
Things fall apart; Chaos is everywhere
There are no leaders, no laws, and nobody knows what to do,
War is taking over, and everywhere
The ceremony of Baptism is made evil;
Good people remain silent and without opinion, while the worst of people
Are taking over, with strength and boldness.

Others believe that the Second Coming of Christ will occur,
That he will save us, and judge the good and evil;
But when I hear of the Second Coming,
I see a vision of the Holy Spirit
In dry, lifeless lands;
I see it as an evil creature,
A pitiless, killing monster
Which, as it drags itself across the land,
Throws off the shadows of other creatures.
Nighttime returns to all of the land, but now I know
That for the twenty centuries that people have been waiting,
There was nothing good worth waiting for, and they were fooled into thinking that there was.
Now, though, is there a terrible beast, whose time has come at last,
Slouching towards Bethlehem, the center of all religion, to be born?

After reading this, I would summarize it breifly to make sure that they would get the main ideas:

Around the world, everything is out of order and chaotic. War is occurring, people are dying, and evil is taking over, while the good people do nothing. Everyone thinks that they will be saved by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ who will judge good and evil, but they are wrong. What the author sees when he hears about this "Second Coming" is the spirit of God in the form of a monster that will destroy, rather than save, if it ever does come to earth.

Topic 3: How "The Second Coming" reflects Dissent

The definition of "Dissent" is to hold or express opinions that go against those of another person or group. In other words, it means to disagree or differ with someone else's opinions.

Within the whole concept of the poem is Yeats' dissent towards what others believe the Second Coming is. He explains in lines 9 and 10 what other people think when they hear about the Second Coming, but then follows it with his dissagreeing opinion, showing his dissent against what they believe. For example, he describes his vision of the spirit being evil and monster-like rather than brave and heroic.

Topic 2: Some Lines from "The Second Coming" that are Meaningful to Me

I really liked all of the lines from the poem, as they all had special meaning and description behind them all, but there were a few that stood out to me more than others.

"The falcon cannot hear the falconer" (line 2)
For some reason, this line really sparked some thought in my mind. The falconer is the person who leads the falcon, and tells it what to do, and where to go. I saw two sides to this line. One is that, once the falcon cannot hear its orders, it doesn't know what to do. It is completely helpless and out of control. The second side is from the view of the falconer. Its duty, its job, is to be a leader and guide to the falcon, but now that the falcon cannot hear him, his efforts are pointless. He fails to do his job because it can't work. He no longer has purpose. I just thought that there was so much to think about in one single line, which is why I found this line meaningful.

"The ceremony of innocence is drowned" (line 6)
I really liked, I guess you could say, the connection of water used in this line. Water, which can be used for cleansing the spirit, as in Baptism (the ceremony of innocence), and water, which can be used for harmful purposes, such as killing by drowning. This line is meaningful to me because it shows that, what may at first seem good, can be turned around and become something terrible. The cleansing ceremony is killed by its own strength. And with that, comes the death of innocence.

"The best lack all convinction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity" (lines 7, 8)
I just thought that this line was an interesting way of  saying that evil people are taking over while the good people stay silent and do nothing. I extremely liked the use of the words "conviction" and "passionate intensity." Conviction is opinion or trust. When it is lacked by someone, they do not get a say in anything, and if they did say something, others would not believe them, or have trust in them. Passionate intensity means that someone is forceful with great passion or strong feelings. Basically, I believe Yeats is saying that the best of people don't try to change things, and even if they did, nobody else would listen to them. He says that the worst of people are the ones with the strength and determination to get power and get people to listen to them and obey them.

"A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun" (lines 14, 15)
I touched base on this in the previous post, in which I described how the combination of the lion body and the human head is truly horrific. I found the way Yeats hid this in the literature extremely clever and interesting. The spirit that people think will come to save them is only a cruel killer, completely aware of what it does. A killler that shows no emotion for doing that. Pitiless as the sun. He does not care for the harm that he inflicts on others, even though he knows exactly how terrible it is.

Topic 1: Main Idea of "The Second Coming"

The poem "The Second Coming" compares what most people think the second coming means to the way that Yeats sees the second coming as being. Other people seem to think that the second coming of Christ means that they will be saved from their sins, as well as from the depressing lives that they are faced with. The author's experience with the hopelessness and destruction of war is what led to him writing this piece. He explained that people's hope of a savior coming down again was merely an illusion, and that this "Spiritus Mundi" (Spirit of the World) is no hero, but a monster which resembles a sphinx.

In the first four lines, Yeats describes a setting in which there is no control, and there is complete anarchy; no rules, no government, no center to what is to come, no plan. Everything is chaotic and nobody knows what to do. "The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned." With war, comes blood and death, but war not only kills people physically, but it kills innocence. Yeats makes a reference to Baptism, a cleansing ritual of water, which is supposed to welcome you into the Church, and to purify you. He takes the concept of water, and changes it from good to bad. From cleansing and freeing, to drowning and killing. He mixes up the places where others would see hope. In the next two lines, he then writes that those who are best and deserve to be the leaders remain silent, while the evil rule the world. Nothing is how it should be. Evil people are taking over.

In the second half, Yeats starts discussing the Second Coming. He mockingly imitates what other people might say, celebrating the hope of the Second Coming, but then beats their side down with his own opinion of it. Whenever he thinks of the Second Coming, he says, an image of a sphinx-like monster appears in his mind. It is important when he uses the body of a lion and the head of a man for this. A lion is a killer, a predator, but it kills only out of instinct and survival. Man, on the other hand, has the mind to be aware and conscious of its doings. This Spiritus Mundi is a killer, and it is perfectly aware that it kills. It murders. "A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun." Yet the creature shows no emotion. It does not care. It just wanders through the desert, throwing off the shadows of the creatures about it, dropping a curtain of darkness over the land. This creature has tricked mankind into waiting endlessly and pointlessly for the Second Coming. And now, it "Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." This creature does not march with pride and dignity, but it slouches. It drags itself to the place where all religion began. It prepares the land for something much worse.

A summary of the main idea of this poem is that the "Second Coming," as well as any other hope that people look forward to in the future, is not what people will expect. Where people think there will be light, there is only darkness. Where people think they will be saved, they will be destroyed. There is no hope. The hope others see is only a false dream. A dream that hides what will become reality.

About William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats, as many of you may know, is the writer of "The Second Coming." It might be helpful to know a bit about him as you study the poem.

Yeats - born June 13, 1865 - was a strong Irish Catholic, raised to never question the Catholic Church. Anyone who went against anything said by preists in the Church would be punished severelly. He grew up obeying the Word of God and whatever was spoken by the preists.

Eventually, World War I started, and the Irish had to help Britain in the war. A preist came to Yeats and told him that this was God's war, and that God wanted him to fight for their country. Not knowing any better, Yeats obeyed, and became a soldier fighting for Ireland. He and another soldier became good friends in the war. One day, Yeats watched his friend get blown up by a land mine before his very eyes. He witnessed the death of his war companion who he had stood by for his entire career as a soldier.

He came back from the war with barely a scratch physically, but was emotionally and spiritually damaged. He went back to the priest who had convinced him to go to war, and, infuriated, expressed his anger to the preist for lying to him. He tore himself from the Catholic Church, too hurt to continue to listen to the Word of God spoken by the preist who had lied to him so cruelly. He then wrote this poem, "The Second Coming," about what he felt was the true meaning of the "second coming" of Christ.

Before any analyzing, how about reading the poem?

For anyone who has never read the poem, or would like to read it again, here is a copy of the poem for your convenience:

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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?