W B Yeats Poems

 William Butler Yeats's Poems

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, writing this blog as thinking activity for the great literary figure William Butler Yeats's poems. The Poems are "The Second Coming" and "On Being Asked for a War Poem". The questions are like,

1) Pandemic Reading of 'The Second Coming'.

2) Reread the poem 'War' poem by replacing the word 'war; with 'pandemic'. Does it make any sense?

3) Critical analysis of any other poem written by W B Yeats.

4) Apply concepts of Indian Poetics and re-read both the poems.

1).Pandemic reading of 'The Second Coming' :

The poem starts like “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer”. It seems like there was the gyre of fluish war while 1919 when poem got published. Also it is showing the political violence in Ireland. When we look at his biography then, his wife, George, who was pregnant and caught virus, almost near to death. At that time around seventy percent pregnant women were died. One can see this incident and can say that only at that time Yeats’s wrote this poem. Because it is more hallucinated when one looses loved one, and then he or she writing the emotions and feelings that one may feel by their works.

 If we are able to find the pessimism of pandemic in those texts. Generally, it is hard to see. “blood-dimmed tide”, Here we can imagine that this is the most infected imaginary of the poem to prove the pandemic reading. Just floods of blood, in the flu was bleeding from the nose, mouth, ears. Such a horrible visionary one can get by this line. “Ceremony of innocence being drowned”, when it’s his wife and unborn baby who were in the process of drowning like that. “ things are falling apart; the centre cannot hold” talks about the situation of emergency in the time of pandemic or the flu. 

If we want to make another reading of the poem we can do through the apocalypse vision. It leads towards the ‘ultimate destruction’ as main theme in the poem. In both the works one cannot find easily the tone of the pandemics. In The Waste Land, there are so many images portrayed by Thomas Stearns Eliot which can be studied by another perspectives rather than the pandemic one. Like myths, allusions, real images, religion centric elements. Though it could happen in the way we have seen. In The Second Coming , which is written by William Butler Yeats. There is also we could find the light of pandemic which has thrown by the poet’s own mind. So these are the symbols of the pandemic to look into both the poems through pandemic lens.

2) Reread the poem 'War' poem by replacing the word 'war; with 'pandemic'. Does it make any sense?

Yes, If we look at any war poem and try to read that poem by replacing 'war' with 'pandemic'. 

We can see the war poems communicating the shattered minds and bodies of his fellow patients and portrays the agony and torture that soldiers take with them after the war. Wars always have agony and also pandemic cannot get existence without agony. If we talk about torture, there we can go to the politic view about it that whenever pandemic happens the situation is similar to war for politicians.

3) Critical analysis of any other poem written by W B Yeats.

Here we will see the poem 'Death' by William Butler Yeats and it's critical analysis.

Nor dread nor hope attend

A dying animal;

A man awaits his end

Dreading and hoping all;

Many times he died,

Many times rose again,

A great man in his pride

Confronting murderous men

Casts derision upon

Supersession of breath;

He knows death to the bone –

Man has created death.

This poem is not that most famous poem of Yeats’s. it is shortest poem of his all poems. ‘Death’ was written in 1929 and included in Yeats’s 1933 volume The Winding Stair and Other Poems. Here is ‘death’, followed by a few words by way of analysis.

Yeats examine the human attitude to death. And also compare the human awareness of death and animal’s awareness of death. That humans are aware that they will die one day and animals are having lack of awareness that they will die one day too. Poet is saying that animals don’t have fear of death and also not having the hope of after life. These things humans are always having.

The lines , “Many times he died, Many times rose again”. By this lines might poet wants to say that, In human life so many times we died when we fail to live, when we feel dead, when we feel useless and so many other ways, But we always get another chance to move on or get good lives.  

Further, the poet jump to “A Great Man”. Where he tried to talk about the idea that when we breathe our last breath on this earth, do we replace any kind of existence with another? What happens to us when we die?  Yeats also said that death is the man maid concept “ Man has created death”- here he is saying that animals also die like men are dying. But animal’s lives are not having these questions that what happens when it shuffles off this mortal coil, what may await after the last breath.  

4) Apply concepts of Indian Poetics and re-read both the poems.

Let’s have a look upon both the poems with the concepts of Indian Poetics. In the ‘ The Second Coming’ poem first in this study.  “The Second Coming” of the God is the idea that all the religions are believing in this idea of second coming and it is the Theory of Vakrokti. Also here we can find ‘Vyanjana’ when poet says that “Falconer is not able to control falcon”- the falcon is kind of bird, this is direct meaning that bird is not being controlled. But we should go with other meaning that the situation is not in the control. If we go with Rasa theory then we can find ‘ Karunya’ ( compassion, mercy), ‘Bibhatasam’(disgust), ‘Bhayanakam’( horror, terror). The poem has ‘Auchitya’ in a proper way.

When we go with the another poem is “On Being Asked for a War Poem”. We can see the very use of irony in whole poem. The poem has Rasa like ‘Adbhutam’(wonder, amazement).’Auchitya’ is also found in the poem. Poet has used Vakrokti in very intelligent way in all the lines of poem.

THANK YOU !