University of St. Francis: The Second Coming, Chapter 12: 'Easter, 1916'-- Yeats' First World War Poem; Marjorie Perloff, Slideshare: The Second Coming -- William Butler Yeats, Dallas Baptist University: Yeats' View of History, Western Michigan University: Things Fall Apart, The New York Times: What W. B. Yeats’s ‘Second Coming’ Really Says About the Iraq War; Adam Cohen. In a nation where the English language was inseparable from a suppression of Irish culture and tradition, Yeats wondered, “Can we not build up a national literature which shall be none the less Irish in spirit from being English in language?” and responded, with his verse, in the affirmative. And within Yeats’s opus, “The Second Coming” is perhaps his most masterful, highly regarded poem. In presenting this scenario, Yeats is subverting the traditional Christian, biblical view of history. They chose, instead, to discover and explore types of spirituality that were supposedly more ancient and powerful than Christianity. The Senate Speeches of W. B. Yeats, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1960. Like the last book of the Christian Bible, and partially in reference to that narrative, Yeats’s “The Second Coming” is also an apocalypse, in both senses of the word. 2002 Yeats didn't support the Irish rebellion, but he didn't approve of the subsequent executions. Since its publication in 1921, “The Second Coming” has been hailed by critics as an accomplished poem and embraced by readers, making it Yeats’s most popular and central work. He first surmises that “some revelation” is here. Composed of commentary on the history of Yeats’s nationalism, his service as senator, and his attitudes toward the politics of his day, this book also traces Yeats’s eventual dissatisfaction with politics. Also, Yeats had just witnessed the bloody Irish War of Independence, which split Ireland into two parts, as well as the Bolshevik Revolution that tore Russia apart. In the friction between opposites, he saw the sparks of life. In the Irish Easter Rebellion of 1916, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the vicious civil wars and homicidal insurrections that followed, Yeats could discern the “mere anarchy” (line 4) unleashed by the gyres’ reversal, an anarchy that would eventually call forth a return to aristocratic conservatism. 1999: While the impending turn of the millennium has inspired many to postulate new spiritual orders culled from ancient mythology, contemporary apprehension of the impact of the year 2000 c.e. The vast image out of Spiritus Mundi is at first a mere annoyance that “troubles” his sight, only to inspire fear as it comes into focus. That it is a powerful, mysterious, and beautifully crafted poem has never been challenged. But for now, no aristocratic “ceremony of innocence” (line 6) could possibly escape the wave of blood—as Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family were soon to discover (they were murdered by Bolsheviks in July of 1918). Gyres are spindles or bobbins made of two cones that meet internally. The first line of “The Second Coming” presents the metaphor of a spinning gyre. Since much of Irish literary history had been lost or suppressed during the long period of Ireland’s domination by England and English culture, much of the Irish tradition available to Yeats was oral history and folkTate.