"The Second Coming" by W. B.Yeats thinking activity

Hello readers, today we will discuss W. B.Yeats' poem "The Second Coming" which is given in the form of a task  thinking activity by our professor Dilip Baradsir. This blog is a response for that.

Analysis of "The Second Coming” as a Pandemic Poem

Original Poem:

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 intensityI.
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? 

In my opinion, there are many meanings in this poem.  There are many meanings in this poem like the mood prevailing in politics, the plight due to diseases, the hope of someone coming, the possibility of something happening again, etc.  If we look at the discussion of diseases, this poem represents the flu that came in 1917. People suffering from diseases were dying in front of Wh's eyes. His own pregnant wife got this disease.  So all the illusions about this disease arose in his mind.  From it he wrote the poem The Second Coming. I believe that he composed this poem after seeing the First World War and the people who died in it.  Now all hopes are gone and waiting for someone to come so title is The Second Coming.

We can say that Yeats's poem was published in November 1920. And over the century since, perhaps no poem has been more invoked for vexing times, to convey, in Yeats's own incomparable words, that:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

Many diseases are already gone in this world. Within every century, one disease comes to the world.  And in which a lot of people die and the question of the epidemic arises. Even today there is the question of the epidemic of corona which has killed many people and still many people are affected by corona.  In the next century, in the 20th century, a virus called the flu spread.  Which led to many deaths.  Since such diseases occur in every century, the line of this poem turns in turning, that is, it shows the pandemic time again and again.  The time and its diseases are as follows.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Whenever diseases come within a century.  Then it becomes very difficult to control.  Medical practitioners work to control diseases in pandemic times.  Often these diseases get under control, but often these diseases do not get out of control.  At that time crisis problems arise.  Corona virus is a big problem nowadays.  Because it is not under control yet.  So this line can be deduced that the person or thing that controls in the hands of the person controlling may be out of control.  Diseases such as those in pandemic times may also be involved.

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 intensityI.

Whenever the pandemic time has come, people have died.  Not even a few survived but the death toll is high.  If there is a war, a lot of people die in it and a lot of things are damaged.  The blood of the soldiers fighting the war is flowing.  In the same way, even within diseases, people die in large numbers.  Whose contact is connected to these lines.

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.

Death is depicted in these lines.  When someone is about to die in the desert, vultures or other carnivorous birds fly over it, which is a sign of death.  So a sign that people are dying even in pandemic times is shown inside these lines.

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?

Even in pandemic times people fail despite many attempts.  They cannot save themselves.  When medical treatment s put under their own arms.  No medicine works.  Then the last option from them, hope is God.  And they now believe in living and living in the trust of God and persuading themselves.  Even in the present times people are now relying on God.  Will God find a way?  Now God will come to save us.  Such beliefs are held by God in pandemic times.

So within this poem W. B. Yeats says what kind of situations do we face in pandemic times?  And from every pandemic time individuals die, chaos has spread.  A fear arises in people and a hope, faith in God arises in them.  While often such pams can be out of control of one-time diseases.  And it damages human relationships, economic wealth, the human mind a lot.

Thanks.