The Second Coming

[grumbler]

IN AP Euro, we are finishing the interwar period, and I use as an example of the art of the period Yeats's "The Second Coming" (1920):

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? "

I pose the question: "Assume 'the falcon' is nationalism, who is the falconer, what is it that cannot hold, and what slouches towards Bethleham?"

Students can 'get" pretty quickly that the falconer is the conservatives that tried to employ nationalism before WW1 as a means of retaining support among the working class (who otherwise oposed everything the conservatives stood for) and that what fell apart were the empires (the "center" that could not hold was the concept of loyalty to the dynasty).  The rest of the first stanza applies well to the whole concept of the radicals getting more power in the wake of WW1. What is eerie about the second stanza is that it appears to predict Hitler, Stalin, and the whole "rough beast" movement that will be a "revelation."  This is 1920, and Stalin and Hitler are obscure types whom Yeats has not heard of.

This interpretation is not what Yeats had in mind, perhaps, but it sure makes for a fun lesson.  It is one I look forward to all year, and the new English teacher hates me for it because when he got to this poem the next day the kids all told HIM what it is about! 

Anybody have any thoughts about this other than the usual pooh-pooh comments?

[Neil]

G'Kar is the falconer.

[grumbler]

G'Kar is the falconer.

Londo is the falconer, and the Shadows are the falcon.

Yes, this works as well for B5 as for the interwar period. :kosh:

[The Minsky Moment]

Never considered the matter before.

But Spiritus Mundi reminded me of the Hegelian Weltgeist.  And isn't the lion a symbol of the British empire?  So now the imperial lion -- which embodied the historical world-spirit of the 19th century world -- is seem as merely the fallible creation of man (the head), and the romantic justifications of white man's burden are now plainly revealed as ideological excuses for the exercise of hegemonic authority - all that is left is the blank and pitiless gaze of a now exhausted will to power.  Its day of mastery done, but not yet supplanted, the bloated imperial lion crawls on while the "desert birds" of the envious smaller powers and restless colonial subjects circle impatiently, waiting greedily for its collapse.  And the new expression of the world spirit - not yet manifested, nonetheless can be foreseen to be a "rough beast" - perhaps a reference to the crass materialism of America or the raw levelling brutality of Communism. (i dont know anything about Yeats' views on these things).

[Razgovory]

Man we need Sav here.  Or Shelf.  I never studied much English literture (as oppose to American).  Was this writter before Wasteland  or after?

[citizen k]

But Spiritus Mundi reminded me of the Hegelian Weltgeist; (i dont know anything about Yeats' views on these things).

I think Yeats was an Occultist, if that sheds any light relevant to his views.

[PDH]

I just finished three lectures covering the First World War (I hate having just 15 weeks to do 1600 to as close to the present as possible), and much to my surprise several students in discussion last Friday came to me about the impact the lectures on the warfare, how the descriptions of things like Verdun, The Somme, and Paschendaele impacted them, and how reading Dulce et Decorum est actually meant something.  Perhaps grade grubbing, but this was from a range of students of differing abilities, and so it did me proud.

Not addressing the Yeats here, of course, but I could hear the pride in your description of the teaching and your students - know that I share some of that.  Good man, lion of Actium.

[grumbler]

Never considered the matter before.

But Spiritus Mundi reminded me of the Hegelian Weltgeist.  And isn't the lion a symbol of the British empire?  So now the imperial lion -- which embodied the historical world-spirit of the 19th century world -- is seem as merely the fallible creation of man (the head), and the romantic justifications of white man's burden are now plainly revealed as ideological excuses for the exercise of hegemonic authority - all that is left is the blank and pitiless gaze of a now exhausted will to power.  Its day of mastery done, but not yet supplanted, the bloated imperial lion crawls on while the "desert birds" of the envious smaller powers and restless colonial subjects circle impatiently, waiting greedily for its collapse.  And the new expression of the world spirit - not yet manifested, nonetheless can be foreseen to be a "rough beast" - perhaps a reference to the crass materialism of America or the raw levelling brutality of Communism. (i dont know anything about Yeats' views on these things).

I didn't take the "lion" to be so literal, but rather the bestial nature of that which has the "face of a man."  Agree that the "desert birds' are unsuccessful competitors, but see them more as the Anarchists, Sparticists, and other failed movements that never got out of the "desert" that resulted from the destruction (via the war) of the progressivism of the pre-WW1 era.

The "blank and pitiless gaze" would thus be the extreme nationalism of the dominant ethnic majorities in the "captive nations" (not Yeats's term) created after WW1.  You know, Magyars and Poles, and their ilk.

That the "rough beast" be the materialism of the US or the Stalinism of Russia seems a stretch for 1920.  No more of a stretch than Nazism, of course, but Nazism seems a better extrapolation of the tenor of the times than materialism.

Of course, as a teacher, I am more inclined to view anything as eerie prophecy than the average person, just because it makes the students pay attention for a bit.  The students loved this discussion as much as I did, because they got to apply all that dry stuff they read about..

[grumbler]

I just finished three lectures covering the First World War (I hate having just 15 weeks to do 1600 to as close to the present as possible), and much to my surprise several students in discussion last Friday came to me about the impact the lectures on the warfare, how the descriptions of things like Verdun, The Somme, and Paschendaele impacted them, and how reading Dulce et Decorum est actually meant something.  Perhaps grade grubbing, but this was from a range of students of differing abilities, and so it did me proud.

Not addressing the Yeats here, of course, but I could hear the pride in your description of the teaching and your students - know that I share some of that.  Good man, lion of Actium.

Ironically, I did a unit on WW1 based just on Tolkien's writings about the war (from letters, mostly) and the kids, having seen the movies and read the books, could really relate.  I used Rendezvous rather than Dulce et Decorum est because of the uncanny way in which Seeger predicts (and accepts, and even welcomes) his death, plus the useful fact that he was an American who threw himself into the war and died before the US became a combatant.  No one could accuse him of nationalism or mere patriotic fervor.

[PDH]

Ironically, I did a unit on WW1 based just on Tolkien's writings about the war (from letters, mostly) and the kids, having seen the movies and read the books, could really relate.  I used Rendezvous rather than Dulce et Decorum est because of the uncanny way in which Seeger predicts (and accepts, and even welcomes) his death, plus the useful fact that he was an American who threw himself into the war and died before the US became a combatant.  No one could accuse him of nationalism or mere patriotic fervor.

I had previously outlined the psychoanalytic movement, and I assigned sources that included Freud, and thus why I chose the Owen poem - the fact that he had undergone the Talking Cure tied him in with the students as well, not to mention the fact that he returned to war as the tragic figure.

Overall, I am far more satisfied with the students this semester than ever before - I have done this enough at a state university to know these semesters are few and far between...

[grumbler]

I had previously outlined the psychoanalytic movement, and I assigned sources that included Freud, and thus why I chose the Owen poem - the fact that he had undergone the Talking Cure tied him in with the students as well, not to mention the fact that he returned to war as the tragic figure.

Yep, Owen is worth doing, if you have the time. I confess that I consider him a bit of a slacker, only getting into the war towards the end. The idealists like Seeger were dead before Owen even signed up.  Seeger fought for the best of reasons (the belief that this was a war to save the civilization he loved), and Owen for the worst (fear that he would be ostracized if he didn't follow the herd).

[Iormlund]

This one is easy, the Shrike is slouching towards Bethlehem.

[Caliga]

Wow... I think we had a topic in which European History AP came up recently but I don't recall seeing you post in it grumbles.  Anyway, I had Euro AP and we never discussed poetry in it at all--it was strictly history textbooks and history books on the subject (e.g. "Modern Times" by Paul Johnson).

I do remember discussing Yeats in general and that poem in particular, but that was in English AP.

[grumbler]

Wow... I think we had a topic in which European History AP came up recently but I don't recall seeing you post in it grumbles.  Anyway, I had Euro AP and we never discussed poetry in it at all--it was strictly history textbooks and history books on the subject (e.g. "Modern Times" by Paul Johnson).

I do remember discussing Yeats in general and that poem in particular, but that was in English AP.

Pretty much every DBQ in AP Euro has a poem or painting as one of its documents, so knowing something about art as it reflects the sentiments of the time is quite valuable.  Plus, the APEH syllabus explicitly states that art will be studied insofar as it reflects on history.

Plus, I think that students remember even the facts better if they see them applied in different ways.  The Second Coming isn't necessarily about the consequences of WW1, but students get a lot of utility out of figuring out the connections as if it were.

[Martinus]

This is one of my favourite poems of all time - know it by heart.

As for the interpretation - the poem is a "matrix" of chaos. You can take its elements and apply it to various "chaotic" situations, from the origins of WW1 to the global financial crisis. It doesn't mean it was written with any of these things in mind - to think that way would be to bastardize great, symbolic and mystical art.