Research Paper on:
William Butler Yeats' Poem 'The Second Coming'

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
down into its independent parts, with a thesis and explanation. The language, tone and context are all taken into consideration in the analysis of this poem. THE SECOND  COMING In Yeats strife-filled poem his belief in the Second Coming is described. Yeats felt that the world was on a two thousand year cycle. His belief was  that the ancient world was first, followed by the Christian era, and that the next to come was the world filled with the ominous beast of his poem, a monster  of almost mythological proportions. His feeling was that Western European civilization would be ending as a tidal wave of savageness swept over the world after this Second Coming.  While Yeats describes the Second Coming as that of the return of Christ, at the same time it can describe the thirteenth chapter of Revelation in the Bible in which  the time is marked by the appearance of a monstrous beast. In the first stanza of the poem the reader can  imagine a maelstrom as Yeats words swirl around our head much like the whirling winds of a tornado. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre  The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;" (Yeats PG). This describes the inner workings of a spiraling wind that has gone out of control,  and indeed if it is the Second Coming that is indeed how it must feel. That the falcon can no longer hear its master and the center can no  longer hold everything together brings the reader to a rushing crescendo as the pressure builds and we feel the world turning on its axis. This would well describe the