CATCH UP FROM LAST WEEK
Yeats’ “The Second Coming”
• This poem relies heavily on Christian imagery.
• Many poems in English rely on Christian imagery or other Western
Judeo-Christian mythic imagery.
• If you aren’t familiar with these references, a quick Google can be very
enlightening.
• The dominant idea/reference in this poem is of the second
coming of Christ, a time that is supposed to usher in the end
of the world and a new era of peace for the faithful in heaven.
• This poem, however, radically upsets those expectations.
• Any guesses as to what historical event might have influenced
the bleak outlook of this poem?
References in Literature and Pop Culture to Yeats “The Second Coming”
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Chinua Achebe's watershed English-language novel Things Fall Apart takes its title from the poem. The fourth album by hiphop band, The Roots, Things Fall Apart is inspired by the Chinua Achebe novel.[4]
DC Comics' series Batman: The Widening Gyre, written by Kevin Smith, and illustrated by Walter Flanagan, was titled after
the opening line of this poem and draws heavily on Yeats' themes and symbolism.
Joan Didion's non-fiction collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem takes its title from this poem. This adaptation of a line in
the poem has become an idiom, using the phrase "Slouching Toward..." to indicate lumbering movement towards an end, such
as the title Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork
Clive Barker's novel Weaveworld quotes the poem and features imagery from it.
Stephen King's novel The Stand quotes the poem and heavily references the poem throughout the book. Many plot points
parallel lines from the poem.
Woody Allen's 2008 collection of comedy writings "Mere Anarchy" takes its title from the poem.
Ethan James' album What Rough Beast and its title track are based on Yeats's poem.
Night Ride Home, Joni Mitchell's 1991 album, contains a song based on the poem – "Slouching towards Bethlehem".
The Bright Eyes titular track, Four Winds, draws inspiration from Yeats's poem. This is most obviously seen in the
appropriation of the poem's closing in the following refrain:"And it's the Sum of Man slouching towards Bethlehem."
Several episodes of the TV series Andromeda, depicting a universe in chaos following a great war, are named after phrases
from this poem ("Its Hour Come Round at Last", "In the Widening Gyre", and "Pitiless as the Sun").
Season 6, episode 21 of The West Wing is titled "Things Fall Apart" Season 4/Episode 4 of Angel, is titled "Slouching Toward
Bethlehem"
In the HBO TV series The Sopranos, the episode "The Second Coming" is titled after the poem and features it prominently.
Also, in the episode "Cold Cuts," Dr. Melfi quotes the poem to Tony Soprano in a therapy session. Furthermore, the poem is
quoted in the series finale "Made in America".
Season 3, episode 5 of Sons of Anarchy is titled "Turning and Turning" and episode 7 is titled "Widening Gyre".
In Season 2, episode 2 Revelations (Babylon 5), Gkar recites part of The Second Coming during the closing segment.
Season 3, episode 1 of Heroes is titled "The Second Coming". The storyline has some parallels to the poem, which is also
quoted in its entirety as a voiceover during the last minutes of the episode.
Sludge metal band The Body used the opening lines of the poem as part of the lyrics to their song Even the Saints Knew their
Hour of Failure and Loss.[5]
Isn’t it Ironic?
• Irony occurs when "a discrepancy exists
between two levels of meaning and experience."
– Dramatic irony: The reader knows something the
characters don’t.
– Situational Irony: The outcome of a situation
drastically upsets readers’ expectations.
– Verbal Irony: Saying one thing and meaning another.
(Sarcasm is an example of this.)
• The section on irony is on p. 499 of your
textbook.
Love in Literature
Examples from Poetry
Love as a Theme in Literature
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Not always about “happy” love
Sometimes tragic, sometimes about the LOSS of love
Sometimes about sex rather than love
Sometimes about admiration, flirtation, or regret
Sometimes more about the IDEA of love than love itself
Sometimes about the complexities of love, and therefore
can be difficult to interpret
• Often contain lots of imagery, and often nature imagery
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote “How Do I Love Thee” in 1850, and it remains on
of the most well-known and often quoted love poems in English.
• She and her husband, poet Robert Browning, had what seems to be a bit of a reallife love story.
• She was a fragile and sick woman who was forced to live at home with an
extremely controlling father, but wrote beautiful poetry.
• He was the famous poet who fell in love with her poems and wrote passionate,
scandalous letters to her, eventually convincing her to run away with him.
• They married and spent the rest of their lives travelling in Europe and writing
poetry. They had their ups and downs, but by all accounts a very happy and
successful relationship.
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (p. 693) and
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” p. (699)
• Both of these poems are pastoral poems. This
means that they idealize and romanticize life in
the country as pure, carefree, and idyllic
(peaceful).
• “The Nymph’s Reply” was written in direct
response to the first poem. Poets who were
familiar with each others’ work would often
respond to one another in this way.
Pastoral Paintings
Questions for “Passionate Shepherd”
and “The Nymph’s Reply”
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
• How does the shepherd depict the life that he is offering his
beloved?
• What does he do to try to convince her to come be with him?
• Does this romanticized view of nature detract from the poem as a
"love poem," or add to it?
“The Nymph’s Reply”
• How does the nymph answer the shepherd's offer? Why?
• How does the speaker in this poem put "her" own twist on the
ideas in "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"?
• Do you see any similarities between this poem and "Shall I Compare
Thee“ or any other poems you read for homework?
“Tonight I Can Write" p. 695
By Pablo Neruda
We move forward in history several hundred years
here, but many of the themes, if not the treatment
of those themes, remain the same.
• What differences/similarities between this poem
and the other do you notice?
• How does the attitude toward love in this poem
compare to the others we read for today?
• Look at specific lines in them poems as you make
your comparisons.
• See also “What My Lips Have Kissed” p. 638 by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Essay 1 Extension!
• I am giving everyone an extension on Essay 1.
• Original due date was this Thursday, March 12.
• NEW due date gives you the weekend to work on
your essay and improve it.
• Essay 1 is now due on Tuesday, March 17.
How to Submit to TurnItIn.com
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• If you already have an account from another class, skip to step 5
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