Poem Analysis: The Second Coming

William Butler Yeates was an amazing and interesting literary figure. Not only was he a great Irish poet, he was also deeply connected with the occult, specifically the Golden Dawn. His membership into this occult allowed him to explore his interests in the mythological and astrological worlds. These topics became much of the basis for his writings.
Yeates’ book, A Vision, is composed of a collection of different writings, including, The Second Coming. This book and its contents are based on the mythical messages received by Yeates from the spirit world. He truly believed that by communicating with these spirits and writing down what they had to say was his way of saving the world.
Yeates viewed the world as being composed of gyres. When one gyre would end another would begin and no one would know what to expect. In 1921 when Yeates wrote The Second Coming, he believed that the world was on the edge of beginning a new gyre or perhaps none at all. It was right after the First World War and Europe was in shambles. Yeates occult also believed that western civilization was on the brink of destruction.
The Second Coming is Yeates’ view on how the world would transform from one gyre to another. He uses mythology and astrology to personify human sin and the second coming of Christ. The term “widening gyre” is a term used to describe the close end to the period of Christ. He was born at the bottom of the gyre and now time is reaching the top of it, signaling a change in gyres.
The falcon, a bird of prey, may represent that the new gyre may not be a pleasant one and the falconer at the bottom of the gyre has no control over this change. The rest of the poem makes references to creatures and objects that can be associated with myth and astrology. Spiritus Mundi was a spirit of the magic world who is mentioned in the poem that seems to cloud the image of what is about to happen in the rest of the poem. The spinx is referred to as the head of a man, body of a lion. This represents the astrological world, the lion (Leo, fire) and human (Aquarius, air). I believe that the two mixed together represents us as people and our sins. This creature in turn, reminds me of the evil world coming back to start a new gyre. It is mentioned in the Bible (Book of Revelations) that the Devil “rough beast” will come back to Earth first before God to take as many followers as he can. I believe that this is the new gyre that Yeates is talking about. Therefore, The Second Coming is not the coming of Christ back to Earth but, that of Satan coming to take in as many followers as possible before Christ comes for us.













Bibliography:

1. http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/
2. http://www.yeatsvision.com/Yeats.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)
5. http://www.yeatsvision.com/SecondNotes.html