The Second Coming (poem): Difference between revisions
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*The line "the cent[er] cannot hold" is the title of a memoir by [[Elyn Saks]] that largely focuses on her experience living with Schizophrenia. |
*The line "the cent[er] cannot hold" is the title of a memoir by [[Elyn Saks]] that largely focuses on her experience living with Schizophrenia. |
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* [[Kenneth Clark]] cites the first paragraph of the poem in the concluding minutes of Episode 13 in his ''[[Civilisation (TV series)|Civilisation]]'' television series. |
* [[Kenneth Clark]] cites the first paragraph of the poem in the concluding minutes of Episode 13 in his ''[[Civilisation (TV series)|Civilisation]]'' television series. |
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* This poem is the basis of [[Joni Mitchell]]'s song "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from her 1991 |
* This poem is the basis of [[Joni Mitchell]]'s song "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from her 1991 ''[[Night Ride Home]]'' album. |
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* The lines 'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned' are used at the start of television program Grimm second season episode 1 'Bad Teeth' |
* The lines 'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned' are used at the start of television program Grimm second season episode 1 'Bad Teeth' |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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Revision as of 10:29, 22 October 2014
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: somewhere in sands of the desert
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
Reel 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?
The Second Coming is a poem composed by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and second coming allegorically to describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe.[1] The poem is considered a major work of Modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections, including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.[2]
Historical context
The poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War[3] and was at first entitled "The Second Birth".
Literary influence
- Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel Things Fall Apart takes its title from a phrase in the poem, as does Joan Didion's 1968 collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem'."
- Lou Reed quotes the final lines of the opening verse ("The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity") at the beginning of his Live: Take No Prisoners album (1978).
- The band sleepmakeswaves takes the title of their song 'a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun' from the line in the poem.
- Referenced in Stephen King's "The Stand" by the character Major Len Creighton, in both the book and mini-series.
- The lines "The falcon cannot hear the falconer" and "the centre cannot hold" quoted by Dr. Melfi to Tony Soprano in The Sopranos Season 5 Episode 10 Cold Cuts (The Sopranos), with further references in Season 6.
- Woody Allen titled one of his books of comedy "Mere Anarchy."
- The poem is quoted multiple times in Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos.
- The last five lines are quoted by Dr. Akley to Dr. Isaacs in Manhattan, in Season 1 Episode 8; the episode title is "The Second Coming."
- The line "the cent[er] cannot hold" is the title of a memoir by Elyn Saks that largely focuses on her experience living with Schizophrenia.
- Kenneth Clark cites the first paragraph of the poem in the concluding minutes of Episode 13 in his Civilisation television series.
- This poem is the basis of Joni Mitchell's song "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from her 1991 Night Ride Home album.
- The lines 'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned' are used at the start of television program Grimm second season episode 1 'Bad Teeth'
See also
References
- ^ Albright, Daniel. "Quantum Poetics: Yeats's figures as reflections in Water", Cambridge University Press (1997), p. 35.
- ^ Childs, Peter, Modernism, Routledge (2007), p. 39.
- ^ Haugheny, Jim (2002), The First World War in Irish Poetry, p. 161. Bucknell University Press.
External links