1/20/2024 0 Comments Things fall apart yeatsIf you just read The Second Coming for the first time you probably noticed some phrases or lines that you've heard before. It certainly isn't the most uplifting poem I could have chosen to focus on for this Easter Sunday, but as Yeats himself wrote in the poem “Surely some revelation is at hand.” Those fears forged with his amazing poetic skills and created The Second Coming. With the Anglo-Irish War just around the corner and tensions always rising, Yeats had valid reason to fear the worst. This evolving barbarism changed all people in the world, including Yeats. When Yeats wrote The Second Coming, World War I had come and gone, changing the world forever with an efficient and sweeping ability to mass produce painful death. Yeats tackles the faults of the world, including those of organized religion, specifically Catholicism. It takes very few lines to realize The Second Coming is not an optimistic and hopeful look at the return of Christ. But, now, we'll turn our attention to the poem I chose for this Easter Sunday: The Second Coming. Easter, 1916 is worth your time, please do yourself a favor and read the poem and the history behind it. Yeats crafts an extended metaphor using hearts and stones that reaches these lines: “Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart.” Shining a light upon their sacrifices, Yeats immortalizes MacDonagh, MacBride, Connolly, and Pearse, he “writes it out in a verse,” ending the poem with a haunting refrain: “Wherever green is worn, / Are changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born.” Still, the poem is not a propaganda piece Yeats is not afraid of holding the Irish nationalists to a higher standard and raising concerns. Easter, 1916 is an honest and, at times, heart breaking dissection of the nationalists and their cause. Suppressed in just about a weeks time, the Easter Rising would ultimately lead to the horrific punishment of execution by firing squad for many of the Irish nationalists Yeats was friends with. The leaders behind the rebellion were friends of Yeats and his personal knowledge of them and the situations contained in the poem add an intimate texture to his account of the events. Originally I settled upon Easter, 1916, a poem in which Yeats details the Easter Rising of 1916 which saw Irish nationalists rebel against the British government. After I'd narrowed today's selection down to Yeats I still had some work ahead of me. Reading Yeats is never easy, but the payoff is staggering. William Butler Yeats is not only one of the most famous and skilled writers of the 20th century, but he's also one of the poet's I've learned the most from. Carrion Comfort and God's Grandeur are fantastic poems worth exploring, but I chose to go in a different direction. A handful of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Catholic priest and wholly original innovator of the English language, were in consideration. Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate today's holiday! In the spirit of Easter and the end of a long Lenten season, I had a few poems at my disposal to write about today. Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,Īnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desertĪ shape with lion body and the head of a man, The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out The best lack all conviction, while the worst The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere Things fall apart the centre cannot hold
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