classroom.synonym.

com

http://classroom.synonym.com/symbolism-poem-the-second-coming-2108.html

Symbolism in the Poem "The Second Coming"

About the Author Living in Canada, Andrew Aarons has been writing professionally since 2003. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in
English literature from the University of Ottawa, where he served as a writer and editor for the university newspaper. Aarons is
also a certified computer-support technician.

The Sphinx is a central image in Yeats' "The Second Coming."

Related Articles
William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet, wrote "The Second Coming" in 1919 at the close of World War I. It's a violent
and mesmerizing poem that outlines the end of an era and a coming, great destruction. Its symbolism largely
centers around destruction and rebirth, and most analyses of the poem stem from these types of symbols.

The Gyre
Yeats opens "The Second Coming" with an image of a falcon escaping the falconer, swinging outward in a
"widening gyre" -- a term Yeats coined to describe a circular path or pattern. As the falcon flies in great arcs
away from the falconer, so the world spins out of control. The "gyre" was Yeats' symbol of a human epoch of
2,000 years. The poem frames a 2,000-year historical progression, with the birth of Christ marking the beginning
and the war marking the end.

The Tide
The remainder of the first stanza, after the "widening gyre," deals with symbols of destruction and death. "Things
fall apart," says Yeats, and "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." He uses the symbol of a tide, "blooddimmed," drowning innocence, that destroys hope and from which humanity needs salvation.

The Second Coming

Yeats introduces the symbol of the second coming in the second stanza, which is used as an answer to the first.
The destruction of the first stanza must stand for something, and Yeats sees it as heralding a new epoch, or
gyre. Yeats draws on the language of the Book of Revelation to conjure an image of Christ's return. He further
included biblical symbolism when explaining that for 2,000 years (one gyre), the sleep of the Sphinx was "vexed
to nightmare by a rocking cradle," presumably of the Christ-child.

The Sphinx
As soon as Yeats introduces the idea of a Second Coming as salvation, he uses his most powerful symbol -- the
Sphinx -- to offer his prediction of the future of the world and of humanity. As soon as he alludes to Christ, a "vast
image" of a pagan religion appears to wander toward Bethlehem. The symbol here is of the end of a religion
that, for Yeats, embodied hope and innocence. Its power is gone, and the hour of the "rough beast" -- the
Sphinx, an allusion to pre-Christian religion -- has come around again.

Style Your World With Color

References
Photo Credits
Ablestock.com/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

1/2

2/2