W.B. Yeats & Modernism: A 2025 Analysis of The Second Coming And On Being Asked for a War Poem
Here are the links to the reference materials for this task:
A Postgraduate's Journey Through Modernism
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) — The Voice of Irish Modernism
As a postgraduate student of English Literature, one often finds that the boundaries between the library and the living world begin to blur. This semester, under the guidance of Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's online modules, I have found myself increasingly haunted by the echoes of the early twentieth century. We are currently navigating the turbulent waters of Modernism through the lens of William Butler Yeats.
Specifically, we are examining his seminal works, "The Second Coming" and "On Being Asked for a War Poem." While the user prompt initially mentioned Auden, the academic focus of our current curriculum and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's lectures centers on Yeats's apocalyptic visions and his controversial stance on poetic duty.
This blog post is a "learning out loud" exercise. It is an attempt to synthesize high-level literary theory with the grit of contemporary reality, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the rise of Artificial Intelligence. By moving through Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's analysis, exploring cross-cultural reflections from Hindi podcasts, and engaging with ResearchGate materials, I hope to uncover why these poems feel less like history and more like a morning news bulletin.
Introduction: Modernism and the Poet in the Emergency Room
World War I Trenches — The Crucible of Modernist Consciousness
Modernism was not merely a literary movement. It was a psychological and ontological collapse. Following the carnage of World War I, the "Old World" died. The Victorian certainties of progress, religious stability, and imperial righteousness were replaced by a fragmented, alienated reality. In this era of crisis, the role of the poet shifted dramatically.
The poet became a diagnostician in a culture that was bleeding out. However, there was a great debate about the nature of this diagnosis. Should the poet be a witness in the trenches, or should they be a philosopher watching the cosmic clock? Yeats chose the latter. His work is defined by Modernist Detachment, a belief that the poet must remain above the "mere noise" of transient political squabbles to observe the deeper, cyclical patterns of human existence.
For a student in 2025, this detachment is both fascinating and frustrating. As we watch live-streamed footage of the Russia-Ukraine war or contemplate the existential threat of AI, we ask the same question: What is the poet's responsibility? Do we write "War Poems" to stir the heart, or do we analyze the "Gyres" of history to understand why the world is breaking?
📊 THE MODERNIST CRISIS (1914-1945)
World War I
17 Million Deaths
The "Old World" Collapses
Great Depression
1929-1939
Economic Certainty Shattered
Modernist Response
Fragmentation & Alienation
New Literary Forms Emerge
Section 1: Detailed Analysis Of Poems
In Task 1, we dive into the core of our syllabus. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's online classes provide a rigorous framework for understanding Yeats's complex cosmology. Yeats was not just a poet; he was an occultist, and his poetry is built on a private system of symbols that he believed explained the rise and fall of civilizations.
Dr. Dilip Barad Sir - Introduction to W.B. Yeats and His Vision
I. The Architecture of "The Second Coming"
Yeats's Gyre — The Interlocking Cones of Historical Cycles
"The Second Coming," written in 1919, is perhaps the most famous articulation of Modernist anxiety. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's lectures help us decode the two primary concepts that drive the poem: the Gyre and Spiritus Mundi.
The Gyre is Yeats's symbol for historical cycles. He imagined history as two interlocked cones or spirals. As one expands, the other contracts. According to Yeats, a civilization lasts approximately 2000 years. The Christian era, which began with the birth of Christ, was reaching its widest point of expansion and was therefore destined to collapse into chaos, making way for a new, "antithetical" era.
"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..."
— W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
When Yeats writes these lines, he is using a metaphor from falconry to describe a world that has lost its governing principle. The "falconer" represents reason, tradition, or God, while the "falcon" is humanity, spiraling out of control.
Comprehensive Analysis of 'The Second Coming' by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir
The poem then moves into the terrifying vision of Spiritus Mundi, or the "Spirit of the World." This is a collective reservoir of images and memories shared by all of humanity. From this psychic wasteland, Yeats sees a "rough beast" emerging. This is not the Christ child of Bethlehem, but a sphinx-like creature with a "gaze blank and pitiless as the sun." It is the harbinger of a new age of irrationality and power.
🔮 KEY SYMBOLS IN "THE SECOND COMING"
The Gyre
Historical cycles — 2000-year civilizations rising and falling
Falcon & Falconer
Humanity losing connection with divine/rational order
Blood-Dimmed Tide
Violence overwhelming civilization's fragile structures
Rough Beast
Sphinx-like harbinger of a new antithetical age
II. The Satire of "On Being Asked for a War Poem"
The second poem in our module, "On Being Asked for a War Poem," presents a very different side of Yeats. During World War I, the novelist Henry James asked Yeats to contribute a poem to a war charity book. Yeats's response was a short, six-line poem that serves as a masterclass in Satire and aesthetic withdrawal.
"I think it better that in times like these
A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right;
He has had enough of meddling who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter's night."
— W.B. Yeats, "On Being Asked for a War Poem"
At first glance, this seems like humility. However, as Dr. Dilip Barad Sir notes, it is actually a profound assertion of the poet's superiority. Yeats is suggesting that the "noise" of war and the decisions of "statesmen" are beneath the dignity of high art. By remaining silent, the poet protects the "ceremony of innocence" from being corrupted by propaganda. This is the pinnacle of Modernist Detachment: the refusal to let art be used as a tool for the state.
Exploring the Concept of the Gyres in Yeats's Vision
Dr. Dilip Barad Sir on the Ethics of 'On Being Asked for a War Poem'
Section 2: Hindi Podcast Reflection - Modernist Despair in an Indian Context
The Partition of India (1947) — When "The Centre Cannot Hold" Became Lived Reality
For Task 2, I spent time listening to a Hindi podcast that discusses Yeats's poems within the context of Indian history and politics. This was a revelatory experience. We often think of "English" Modernism as a localized European reaction to the Somme or the Irish Easter Rising. However, hearing these themes discussed in Hindi translates that "English" despair into a global vernacular.
The podcast highlighted how the phrase "the centre cannot hold" resonates deeply in the Indian psyche. For a nation that has survived the trauma of Partition and continues to navigate complex communal and political tensions, the "blood-dimmed tide" is not a metaphor from a distant land. It is a lived historical memory.
One of the most insightful points made in the podcast was the translation of Spiritus Mundi. In an Indian context, this can be linked to the concept of the collective unconscious or even the cyclical nature of time in Hindu philosophy (Kali-yuga). The "rough beast" slouching towards Bethlehem becomes a symbol for any period of radical, frightening transition where the old moral orders fail.
🌍 CROSS-CULTURAL CONNECTIONS: Yeats in Indian Context
The podcast also critiqued Yeats's detachment. In the Indian tradition, the poet often serves as the "conscience of the nation" (like Rabindranath Tagore or Sarojini Naidu). Yeats's refusal to write a war poem was viewed through the lens of political privilege. Can an Indian poet afford to be silent when the "blood-dimmed tide" is at their own doorstep? This tension between the Western Modernist ideal of "art for art's sake" and the post-colonial necessity of political engagement is a central theme of my postgraduate reflections.
Hindi Podcast on Yeats and the Context of History
Section 3: The Yeats Study
Using the ResearchGate materials provided for Task 3, I have conducted a deeper analytical exercise into the imagery and legacy of these poems.
(i) Imagery of Disintegration in "The Second Coming"
The ResearchGate paper emphasizes that Yeats's power lies in his ability to make abstract historical collapse feel sensory and visceral. The imagery of disintegration follows a specific trajectory:
The Loss of Control: The poem begins with the "widening gyre." This is a geometric image of expansion until the structure can no longer support itself. The falcon and falconer represent the severance of the umbilical cord between human instinct and divine or social order.
The Liquidation of Order: "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed." Water imagery usually suggests life, but here, the water is contaminated. The use of the word "loosed" suggests that a dam has broken. Civilized society is portrayed as a fragile structure overwhelmed by an unstoppable force of violence.
The Death of Ritual: "The ceremony of innocence is drowned." For Yeats, "ceremony" and "custom" were the only things that kept the beast at bay. The fact that innocence is not just killed but "drowned" reinforces the sense of a world being submerged by chaos.
The Paralysis of the Good: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." This is the ultimate image of social disintegration. It describes a vacuum of leadership where morality becomes a source of weakness and fanaticism becomes the only source of energy.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
— W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
(ii) Creative Activity: A Modern-Day Reimagining of the "Rough Beast"
If Yeats were alive today, looking at the "Spiritus Mundi" of 2025, what would he see slouching toward us?
THE SECOND COMING 2.0
A Digital Age Reimagining
The server farms are humming, the data gyre widens;
The user cannot hear the programmer.
Truth dissolves in a deepfake haze;
The mere anarchy is loosed upon the feed,
The blood-dimmed comments section is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of shared reality is drowned;
The moderates doomscroll, lacking all conviction, while the trolls
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Great Reset is at hand.
The Great Reset! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of the dark web
Troubles my sight: somewhere in a Silicon desert
A shape with a body of silicon and the head of a meme,
A gaze blank and pitiless as an optimized ad,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant polarized birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of messy human thought
Were vexed to nightmare by a chilling line of code,
And what rough chatbot, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards the cloud to be born?
— A 2025 Reimagining of Yeats's Vision
As a student living through the digital revolution, I believe the "Rough Beast" of our era is Generative Artificial Intelligence.
In my reimagining, the "Spiritus Mundi" is no longer a desert of sand, but a desert of data. The "Rough Beast" is an entity made of code, fed on the entirety of human knowledge, yet possessing "a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun" because it lacks human consciousness.
🤖 THE DIGITAL "ROUGH BEAST" — A 2025 Reimagining
⏳ Yeats's Vision (1919)
- Spiritus Mundi = Desert of Sand
- Rough Beast = Sphinx-like creature
- Widening Gyre = Historical cycles
- Blood-dimmed tide = WWI violence
🔮 Digital Reimagining (2025)
- Spiritus Mundi = Desert of Data
- Rough Beast = Generative AI
- Widening Gyre = Algorithmic echo chambers
- Blood-dimmed tide = Misinformation flood
- The "widening gyre" is the algorithmic feedback loop that pushes us into polarized echo chambers until "the centre cannot hold."
- The "blood-dimmed tide" is the flood of misinformation and deepfakes that drowns the "ceremony of truth."
- We are currently in that terrifying moment of transition where the old ways of thinking, working, and creating are collapsing, and we do not yet know the face of the beast that will replace them.
(iii) Analytical Exercise: Comparing Yeats's "Silence" with Wilfred Owen's "Pity of War"
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) — The Voice from the Trenches
This is perhaps the most famous divide in Modernist poetry. On one side, we have Yeats's "On Being Asked for a War Poem," and on the other, the trench poetry of Wilfred Owen, specifically his concept of the Pity of War.
Yeats's Stance (The Distant Observer): Yeats argues for silence. He believes that the poet's duty is to the eternal, not the temporal. By refusing to write a war poem, he maintains a position of Modernist Detachment. He views war as a symptom of a historical cycle, not a subject for emotional outburst.
Owen's Stance (The Witness): Wilfred Owen, who died in the trenches, famously stated that "The Poetry is in the pity." His work, like "Dulce et Decorum Est," is designed to provoke a visceral reaction. He wants the reader to feel the "Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!" and to see the "blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs."
⚔️ THE GREAT DIVIDE: Yeats vs. Owen
W.B. YEATS
The Distant Observer
- Silence as artistic integrity
- Focus on eternal cycles
- Art above politics
- Modernist Detachment
"A poet's mouth be silent..."
WILFRED OWEN
The Trench Witness
- Poetry as testimony
- Focus on immediate suffering
- Art as moral weapon
- Visceral engagement
"The Poetry is in the pity."
The Comparison: The ResearchGate material suggests that these two poets represent the two poles of Modernist response to crisis. Owen uses the "War Poem" as a weapon of truth, stripping away the romantic illusions of "statesmen." Yeats uses the "Silence" as a shield for art, refusing to let the poet's voice be reduced to a political slogan.
As students, we must ask: Is Yeats's detachment a form of cowardice, or is it a radical act of artistic independence? In the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, do we need poets who describe the physical agony of the soldiers (like Owen), or do we need poets who can explain the historical "gyres" that led to the conflict (like Yeats)?
Conclusion: The Enduring Power of Modernist Voices
Thoor Ballylee — Yeats's Tower in Ireland, Symbol of His Poetic Vision
To conclude this deep-dive, it is clear that Yeats's Modernist voice remains essential because he refused to offer easy answers. His work is "perfect" in its ability to capture the exact moment of a world in transition.
Whether we are discussing the geopolitical shifts in Eastern Europe or the existential dread of a world governed by AI, Yeats's terminology provides the framework we need. We are all living in the "widening gyre." We are all witnessing the "blood-dimmed tide."
The enduring power of these poems lies in their refusal to be "useful" in a traditional sense. Yeats did not write a war poem to help win a war; he wrote an apocalyptic poem to help us survive the aftermath. As I close my laptop and step away from Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's lecture, I am reminded that the "rough beast" is always slouching somewhere. Our job, as students and thinkers, is to keep our eyes open, even when the gaze we meet is "blank and pitiless."
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
— W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
📚 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS STUDY
Yeats's Vision
Cyclical history through Gyres; civilizations rise and fall in 2000-year patterns
Modernist Detachment
The poet stands above temporal politics to observe eternal truths
Global Relevance
Yeats's imagery resonates from Partition to AI — the "rough beast" is always slouching
Works Cited
- Barad, Dilip. "W.B. Yeats Poems." Dilip Barad | Teacher Blog, May 2021. [Blog Post]
- Barad, Dilip. W.B. Yeats's Poems: The Second Coming - On Being Asked for a War Poem. ResearchGate, 2024. [ResearchGate]
- Yeats, W.B. "The Second Coming." Poetry Foundation, 1919. [Poetry Foundation - Full Text]
- Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poetry Foundation, 1920. [Poetry Foundation - Full Text]
- Wikipedia. "W.B. Yeats." [Wikipedia Profile]
- Wikipedia. "The Second Coming (poem)." [Wikipedia Overview]
- Wikipedia. "Modernism." [Wikipedia Overview]
Thank You!
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