Critical essay on “The Second Coming”

“The Second Coming” from W.B. Yeats is a description that transcends the limits of poetic beauty to become a work of critical character. The poem transmits to the reader an atmosphere of chaos and destruction, this description chaotic of environment has a direct relationship with the cultural and political interwar period. The poem has three common themes: 1) the presentation of chaotic motion as the bustle of the World War I destruction left in its wake, 2) the animal metaphor as a sign of irrationality and 3) treatment of topological aspects as description of the destruction. It is possible to construct an interpretation through historical analysis of the three aspects mentioned above. This essay …show more content…

An arrival with lack of hope and it will be a “rough beast” (55). So, the importance of the beast of Bethlehem, is to be a product of irrationality that replaces the redeemer. But this substitution is not to save mankind, but is born of acts of this and comes from the uncertainty about the future. The relationship between uncertainty and animal nature lies in the irrationality.

The chaotic motion becomes meaningful when integrated with a series of purpose-built environment to emphasize the relationship between chaos and destruction. The topological aspect is therefore a vital element of the poem and a need to understand the presence of deception and pessimism. To raise the topological aspects described in the poem we must take into account four aspects directly related to the war: the radical change in the map of Europe, killing millions of people, loss of civil liberties and the destruction of the values of progress science and liberalism. By 1919, the year the poem was written, Europe is facing the disappearance of the conventional power; on the one hand, the creation of new nation states such as Poland and Yugoslavia, on the other, the disappearance of central and eastern European powers such as Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. The map of Europe has two features around 1920, the search for affirmation of life and the loss of a glorious past of the great powers of central and eastern. A halo of confusion pervades the very constitution of