Contrasting Yeats’ Second Coming and Shelley's Ozymandias

647 Words2 Pages

Contrasting Yeats’ Second Coming and Shelley's Ozymandias

William Butler Yeats specialized in the early Modernists style of literature. Coming just out of the Late Victorian age, Yeats used strong literary and historic elements in literary form to evoke his symbolic message in "The Second Coming." Through the use of his theme of the "new Apocalypse," (lecture notes on Early 20th Century Modernism) he imagined the world was coming into a state of unsurity from the post-WWI Modernist experience. The war left people in a state of chaos, and although the war was meant to bring people a sense of hope for no more wars in the future, it did far more damage then good, especially in people's minds. The time in the Modernist era was reflected in the equally chaotic, and choppy word structure in Yeats' poem. In "The Second Coming" conditions are illustrated as being chaotic, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" (Yeats, Longman p. 2329: ll. 3-4), confused in a way. Those words he uses, "fall apart," "cannot hold," and "anarchy" are ...

Show More
Related

  • 1984 And The Second Coming

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The blood-dimmed tied is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned". As many currently see our society today, Yeats was in fear of what the future had in store, and felt it necessary to warn society of their abominable behavior. All of the good in the society has been taken over and overwhelmed by the horrible actions. No longer do ceremonies, or acts of kindness, take place, which Yeats believes is a direct effect of the loss of youth and innocence. "That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle". This quote from "The Second Coming" informs the society that if they do not begin to correct their transgressions against one another as a whole they will awake the anti-Christ. The anti-Christ will come to claim his Jesus and correct the predicament that they have gotten themselves in to.

    Read More

  • Trial By Jury Research Paper

    1743 Words  | 4 Pages

    Trial by Jury was first introduced during the reign of King Henry II as a mechanism to uncover the King’s rights, but it wasn’t until King Henry III that the jury was molded into a body of witnesses to call on their knowledge. Presently, our jury system is a body of witnesses that determine the guilt or innocence grounded upon a presentation of facts and evidence. The current structure of trial by jury is not sufficiently democratic. Jury panels are not selected democratically, but instead are chosen through a process call “voir dire” where attorneys and the judge ask a series of questions to establish the “impartiality” of the potential juror. This aspect of jury selection rejects the democratic notion that everyone is equally qualified to rule. The unanimity of the verdict is another key component of trial by juries that is not appropriately democratic because it forces people to fall under the coercion of others. This feature discards the fundamentals of democratic rule, which is a majority rule. These aspects of trial by jury do not ensure the effectiveness of a trial and actually hinder the possibility for a fair verdict. With the increasing number of trials all over the United States, reform of these components are necessary to guarantee the just and democratic ruling of trials.

    Read More

  • Jury Case Study

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trials by jury are adopted by most countries that use an adversarial legal system under the common law; that is when an impartial judge evaluates evidence gathered by two opposing parties independent of the juridical power as opposed to the civil law’s inquisitorial system where the court itself is involved in the investigation (Block, Parker, Vyborna & Dusek, 2000). The countries using the adversarial system, among which are the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or USA, only use jury in high-profile criminal cases such as those involving murder, rape, manslaughter or false imprisonment (“When are juries used in criminal and civil cases?”). This makes up approximately 2% of all criminal trials (Lloyd-Bostock, as cited in Howitt, 2002) from

    Read More

  • Designer Babies

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of eugenics was originally advocated by scientific and religious leaders at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was considered utopian and was driven by rhetoric of social reform. At this time, this form of eugenics was not connected to genetic testing but rather used methods such as sterilization, immigration restriction, family planning promotion schemes, and anti-miscegenation laws (Paul, 1995). In the United States, such methods were mostly directed towards immigration and focused on racial issues, whereas in the United Kingdom, class-oriented eugenicists were driven by the fear that if the “lower classes” outbred their social superiors, this would lead to evolutionary regression (Mazumdar, 1992).

    Read More

  • Juxtaposition In Ozymandias

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    Question 1: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous sonnet “Ozymandias” creates a very clear image in my mind of what type of man pharaoh Ozymandias was. I believe that pharaoh Ozymandias was an extremely unique and powerful leader, looking at lines 4-5 the speaker mentions the disintegrated statues facial expressions which the speaker noticed first even though the statue was shattered. The speaker could clearly see “..frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” which in my opinion suggests that the king looked down on other people, thought that he was better by curling up his lip. His “frown” indicates that he intimidated people to ensure that everybody was aware of the great king and his power. “Cold command” in line 5 suggests that Ozymandias was everything but a warm loving Pharaoh

    Read More

  • Realism In Gustav Flaubert's A Simple Heart

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, according to my Christian beliefs, God sent his son, Jesus, to Earth to die and pay for the sins of all people, and one day Jesus will return to Earth to take all Christian believers to Heaven; I believe that Yeats named his poem “The Second Coming” because it portrays his prediction that Jesus’, “Second Coming is at hand” (524). Yeats dedicates the entire first stanza of his poem to telling the reader the problems that he sees with politics and violence/terror, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed” (524). The second stanza of the poem basically says that “surely” Jesus will return soon and he describes a beast-like character that could possibly be representing Satan, God’s demon opponent in the Book of

    Read More

  • Authority in Ozymandias and The Second Coming

    398 Words  | 1 Pages

    Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" portrays the past power of authority symbolized by the once great world power of Egypt.  William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" portrays the past power religion once had over the world, gradually lost ever since the end of Shelley's era of Romanticism.  "Ozymandias" was written in a time when human rule coupled with religious guidance, but was slowly easing away from that old tradition as they entered the highly progressive era of the Victorians.  In his poem, Shelley was comparing the formally powerful Egyptian pharaoh's "antique" and prideful form of rule with the unsuccessful future the "traveller" met in the desert with the ruins of the king's "shattered visage" (Longman, Shelley, p. 1710, l. 1 & 4).  In a sense, Shelley was also saying that human rulership was just as easily able to fail as the once great and powerful world rule of Egypt once did, for ages.  Yeats also is alluding to this idea, but imposing his view on another type of rule once great for hundreds of years of its rulership, that of Christianity or religion in general.  In "The Second Coming" he envisions the "falcon" of humanity drifting away and ignoring "the falconer," Christian religions (Longman, Yeats, p. 2329, l. 2).  "The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart" says Yeats, depicting how human reliance on religion has become cold and disinterested in its lead anymore due to human progress of science, thus their loss of reliance and trustworthiness of religion's claims.

    Read More

  • The Statue Of Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    Percy Bysshe Shelley died before seeing how influential and glorified his work would become. Shelley lived during the late 18th and early 19th century, during the industrial revolution. Seeing the evolving world, Shelley wrote for nothing more than to deliver urgent messages concerning humanity, humanity’s future, and who the powers at be should be. Shelley didn’t see the glory he deserved during his lifetime because his radical views of anti-tyranny were expressed in his poetry, driving them to underground distribution, but after his death he inspired countless other literary artists including including Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and Upton Sinclair and became regarded as a major romantic poet. Shelley exchanged his ideas with a group of visionary

    Read More

  • Millennial Themes in The Prelude and Mont Blanc

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    The unity of God, man, and nature is of course a common theme in Wordsworth's poetry, having been given equally memorable treatments in Tintern Abbey and elsewhere, but it was the seemingly paradoxical sentiment of this passage from The Prelude that made such a strong impression on me. As John Beer points out in his article "Romantic Apocalypses," "Although traditionally the apocalypse and the millennium have gone together, recently, the first, with its sense of doom, has been more prominent" (109). To a reader who has lived through the passing of both a new century and a new millennium, the phrase "Characters of the great Apocalypse" tends to evoke feelings of eschatological anxiety, and to suggest the fragility and transience of the landscape Wordsworth is attempting to describe. It is easy to forget that Wordsworth used the term in its original sense of "simply 'revelation,' the name given to the English version in the New Testament" (Beer 109); and that in its evocations o...

    Read More

  • To Fear, Or Not To Fear: How Yeats and Hardy Envision God

    2010 Words  | 5 Pages

    Within both Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” and W. B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”, the actions of God are extremely prevalent, though the timing of His intervention varies greatly. Though, both poems were published within a five year period (1914 and 1919 respectively), they convey significantly different perspectives on the actions of God, in relation to our actions as human beings. These poems were written less than a decade apart, but are separated by one significant event that changed the world: the First World War. Though, God plays a prevalent role within both works. His intervention occurs at different times. Yeats demonstrates a God that reacts to man’s actions, whereas Hardy’s God is omniscient, developing a correction to man’s perception of accomplishment before the Titanic is ever constructed. Hardy’s writing came just after the sinking of the Titanic, and he demonstrates that man had outstepped his bounds. In sinking the ‘unsinkable’ ship, according to the speaker, God is correcting the misadventure of man. Yeats’ poem was written shortly after World War I, and the speaker foresees an apocalypse due to the sin of man as a whole. Both authors portray the perceived actions of God, though the speaker within “The Convergence of the Twain” appears to be more accepting and less fearful. Throughout “The Second Coming”, the speaker demonstrates their fear of God’s inevitable reaction to World War I. Both poems share the imagery of water, though its significance varies between poems. The speaker’s acceptance of God’s will within Hardy’s poem represents a devout religiosity that is unwavering throughout this writing, and Yeats’ depiction focuses on fear of the coming future.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of The Criminal Justice System In Twelve Angry Men

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    “South Africa ditched juries amid fears of racial prejudice among jurors and a reluctance on the part of many people to serve” (Fuchs), which most likely brings up the problem we have here in the U.S. Law professor Peter Van Koppen provides a perfect example of a common situation and compares it to our criminal justice system which sums up my stance on the ruling out of jury trials in the U.S., “Van Koppen pointed out that you wouldn 't want a panel of lay people acting as doctors. So, why would you want regular people deciding the fate of defendants? The work done by a jury isn’t that different from the work of a scientist like a doctor, he wrote. ““A scientist must make inferences about states of affairs that cannot be observed directly, inferring from the evidence that can be observed. And that is precisely what a jury must do: make a decision about the guilt of the defendant based on the evidence presented at trial. That is a scientific enterprise that surpasses the intellectual aptitude of most laypersons who are called to jury duty””

    Read More

  • An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    In William Butler Yeats' poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," he focuses on man's inner nature.  He touches on the many jumbled thoughts that must race through one's mind at the point when they realize that their death is inevitable.  In this poem, these thoughts include the airman's believed destination after leaving Earth, his feelings about his enemies and his supporters, his memories of home, his personal reasons for being in the war and, finally, his view of how he has spent his life.  Through telling the airman's possible final thoughts, Yeats shows that there is a great deal more to war than the political disputes between two opposing forces and that it causes men to question everything they have ever known and believed.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    In his poem “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley depicts an incongruous scene in which a colossal stone relic lays in ruins among a vast, empty landscape. Though on the surface, the piece has a simple meaning, the ironies and tensions hidden in the lyrics and meter are often overlooked (Martin 65). In his peculiar sonnet, Shelley uses the image of an ancient Egyptian sculpture to make a statement about the relationship between an artist, their subject, and the effects of time on both.

    Read More

  • William Butler Yeats The Second Coming

    1745 Words  | 4 Pages

    “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. -Psalm 91: 1-6 ” (Jesus) The Second Coming, written by William Butler Yeats, addresses the concept of the gyre and portrays an approach to a new world order. Yeats expresses his belief of the soon coming end of the

    Read More

  • Comparison of the Use of Nature by Shelley and Wordsworth

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both Shelley, in "Ode to the West Wind," and Wordsworth, in "Intimations of Immortality," are very similar in their use of nature to describe the life and death of the human spirit. As they both describe nature these two poets use the comparison of how the Earth and all its life is the same as our own human life. I feel that Shelley uses the seasons as a way of portraying the human life during reincarnation. Wordsworth seems to concentrate more on the stages that a person goes through during life. Shelley compares himself to such things as clouds, leaves, and waves. He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images like meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being what ever a person needs to move on, and with out those objects can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.

    Read More

More about Contrasting Yeats’ Second Coming and Shelley's Ozymandias

Open Document