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"The Second Coming" is one of W.B. Yeats's most famous poems. Written in 1919 soon after the end of World War I, it describes a deeply mysterious and powerful alternative to the Christian idea of the Second Coming—Jesus's prophesied return to the Earth as a savior announcing the Kingdom of Heaven.
Because of its stunning, violent imagery and terrifying ritualistic language, “The Second Coming” is one of Yeats’s most famous and most anthologized poems; it is also one of the most thematically obscure and difficult to understand.
Here is a summary and critical analysis of 'The Second Coming' by William Butler Yeats, looking line by line at what this poem is about and why.
Summary & Analysis. In “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats reflects on the cataclysmic violence that had shattered many parts of the world in the tumultuous 1910s. Yeats wrote the poem in 1919, just one year after World War I ended, two years after the Russian Revolution, and three years after the failed Irish nationalist insurrection ...
Read our complete notes on "The Second Coming", a famous poem by William Butler Yeats. Our notes cover The Second Coming summary and detailed analysis.
In the seventh and eighth lines, Yeats mourns that the best people have become silent and resigned to their fate, while villains are the ones in power, speaking the loudest and caring the most about their causes. In the second half of the poem, Yeats looks beyond the present into the future.
The Second Coming study guide contains a biography of William Butler Yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
