What beast slouches towards Bethlehem?
What beast slouches towards Bethlehem?
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? “The Second Coming” is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer.
Is the Second Coming by Yeats blank verse?
Yeats believed that history is cyclical, and “The Second Coming”—a two-stanza poem in blank verse—with its imagery of swirling chaos and terror, prophesies the cataclysmic end of an era.
What does the rough beast symbolize in the Second Coming?
Of great significance in Yeats’ poem is the “rough beast,” apparently the Anti-Christ, who has not been born yet. And most problematic is that the rough beast is “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born.” The question is, how can such an Anti-Christian creature be slouching if it has not yet been born?
What rough beast it’s hour come at last?
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats, widely considered one of the greatest poets of the English language, received the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature.
What kind of mythological creature is featured in the poem The Second Coming?
His seminal poetic work, The Second Coming, can be read in the light of the ancient Indian myth of Narasimha avatar, the hum-animal hybrid incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
Is The Second Coming a sonnet?
The Second Coming” is written in blank verse, which means that has a consistent meter but no rhyme scheme. With 22 lines divided into two stanzas, it does not appear to follow a particular formal tradition. However, notice that the second stanza has fourteen lines, making it the same length as a sonnet.
Why does Yeats use the Sphinx?
As soon as Yeats introduces the idea of a Second Coming as salvation, he uses his most powerful symbol — the Sphinx — to offer his prediction of the future of the world and of humanity. As soon as he alludes to Christ, a “vast image” of a pagan religion appears to wander toward Bethlehem.
What does the center Cannot hold mean?
That “the center cannot hold” is an ironic reference to both the imminent collapse of the African tribal system, threatened by the rise of imperialist bureaucracies, and the imminent disintegration of the British Empire.
What is the meaning of the Second Coming?
• SECOND COMING (noun) The noun SECOND COMING has 1 sense: 1. ( Christian theology ) the reappearance of Jesus as judge for the Last Judgment. Familiarity information: SECOND COMING used as a noun is very rare.
What is Yeats’s poem “The Gyres” about?
Put simply, “The Gyres” is about an old man on the verge of death, as he reflects on his existence and the destruction of civilization around him. However, the poem is a bit more complicated than that. Yeats frequently wrestled with the themes of generational differences between the old and the young.
What is the theme of the poem the Second Coming?
Some themes of the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats are apocalypse, disintegration, transition into a new universe or reality, the mystery of the integration of the old world with the new and the replacement of Christianity with a new mystical spiritualism.
