Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The Widening Gyre
Well, we have a new phrase to add to our lexicon of unease as we turn the corner into a new century: the widening gyre joins "the horror, the horror," the heart of darkness, the dead, the weakening eye of day, the waste land, etc. In the deadened, spiritless atmosphere of our recent poems, do we expect the "blessed Hope" of the Darkling Thrush or the ghastly monster represented by the sphinx in Yeats's poem? Anyway, since we'll only have a brief amount time to return to Yeats's poem on Friday, I was hoping some of you might like to leave some comments here on "The Second Coming." What do you think of this poem? What is the significance of falconry in the logic of the poem? What is the vision the speaker has and how does he respond to it? Can you explain what the speaker comes to know in l.19-20? What is the second coming in this poem? ... Here, by the way, is a reading of "The Second Coming" by the great contemporary Irish novelist, Colum McCann.
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The image of falconry seems to convey the relationship between God and man. "The falcon cannot hear the falconer," refers to the idea that man can no longer hear God, no longer listens to him, and without his guidance man unleashes anarchy upon the world. With the ending of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the onset of the Anglo-Irish war, it appeared that man no longer looked to God and instead began to lead himself into turmoil.
ReplyDeleteIn lines 19 and 20, Yeats seems to be concluding that, in this 2,000 year cycle in Christianity (each age spiraling towards an end and beginning in the next with a "violent reversal"), the apocalyptic beast he's described has been woken from it's "stony sleep". The chaos that humanity has brought on the world has turned existence into nightmare, hailing this biblical revelation that, at the end of the this part of the cycle, would bring about man's judgement day. Humanity is simply left to wait in terror for the hour that the beast comes.
-Jami
I'm interested in the dual birds used in the poem- the falcon and the "indignant desert birds". The falcon as a bird of prey is dangerous when loose from its handler- perhaps that is a reflection of the relationship between man and God that Jami mentions. The desert birds are most likely scavengers which are strongly represented in older war literature for their presence after battles- making a feast out of the human folly that is war. As far as lines 19-20 it may be that the "stony sleep" he refers to is the monuments Britain and all of Europe has made to its past. After WWI the past can no longer be counted on to keep society safe or as a model for the future.
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