W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”: Event, Text, and Avant-Textes

Abstract

Abstract:The way in which "The Second Coming" detaches itself from its own immediate context is what enables it to embrace new contexts, new events. "The Second Coming"'s power simply stems from its status as a literary text. But critics are unsure whether the poem's forcefulness is intrinsic or borrowed from a religious tradition with which it affiliates itself. What seems to mark off "The Second Coming" as a singular literary event is the degree to which it interweaves literary, political, and apocalyptical discourses, to the point where it is hard to distinguish them from one another. This is what makes this poem a singular event in itself.