Things Fall Apart and
The Second Coming
Achebe’s use of Yeat’s
poetry and the connection
between the two.
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 intensity.
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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?
William Butler Yeats
• Irish poet and playwright–A member of the
Ascendency (upper class).
• Very politically oriented. Was Irish senator
for two terms. Intended to be lawyer, but
switched to arts and won a Nobel Prize for
his literature (1st Irishman to do so)
• Protestant, very anti-Catholic (part of the
Ascendency)
• Wrote poem in 1920 (some say 1919, some
say 1921… it doesn’t matter), in response
to the horrors of ??? (what’s happening at
this time?
• During this time, Ireland was finally granted
their independence.
• This is a poem with obvious Christian
overtones, but also illustrates political
overtones and innuendos.
Things to consider:
• Gyre: spiral
• Falcon/falconer= slave/master
– But there is a unique and very close
relationship between the two.
• Spiritus Mundi= collective spirit
of humanity
• The description in stanza 2 is of a
sphinx = protector of religious
and spiritual knowledge and
mysteries.
– Originally it was a woman’s head in
Greek mythology, but the Egyptians
changed it to a man’s head.
• Bethlehem= where Jesus was
born
• Stanza 1: Conditions of the
modern world:
• Stanza 2: description of a
great beast. Prediction of the
end of the world.
• Stanza 3: questioning what is
happening and what is to
come.
Directions:
• Annotate the poem to
understand the meaning Yeat’s is
expressing. (Together as a class)
• Relate the poem to Things Fall
Apart by Chinua Achebe. Write a
1-2 page response that explains
why Achebe is using this poem
and why he uses this title.
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 intensity.
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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?