The Second Coming

Materie:	Altro
Categoria:	Inglese
Download:	137
Data:	03.10.2006
Numero di pagine:	1
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

-The second coming- Yeats

The second coming was a poem written by William Butter Yeats. In this text we can read all of the fears of the author. There are a lot of historical links: the chaotically dark imagery of the second coming can be explained by the conflict between Irish and English and by horrors occurred during the first world war. Yeats’ idea of history is based on what he calls the gyre. It is composed of two cones, rotating in opposite directions. The apex of each cone is at the centre of the other’s widest arch. For Yeats, every moment in time moves trough this opposite spirals. We can understand his view of history could be influenced by the cyclical theory of an Italian philosopher, Vico.
He think that each dominant historical phase contains its antithesis. However the second coming is represented by a mythological shape: a human body and a lion head that can be interpreted as an allegory of the central power (in the Ancient Egypt, for example). Some have connected it with the figure of Stalin or Hitler in fact, although other authors believe in other religious comings, he is waiting for an AntiChrist, a destroyer of all the world. When all is destroyed, all authorities don’t work.