ISSN:2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR :8.017(2023); IC VALUE:5.16; ISI VALUE:2.

286
Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal : VOLUME:12, ISSUE:2(2), February: 2023
Online Copy of Article Publication Available (2023 Issues)
Scopus Review ID: A2B96D3ACF3FEA2A
Cover Page Article Received: 2nd February 2023
Publication Date:10th March 2023
DOI: http://ijmer.in.doi./2023/12.02.28 Publisher: Sucharitha Publication, India
www.ijmer.in Digital Certificate of Publication: www.ijmer.in/pdf/e-CertificateofPublication-IJMER.pdf

WAR: ENVIRONMENT AND VIOLENCE IN THE LIGHT OF W. B. YEATS’ THE SECOND COMING AND
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINETEEN

Mrs. Karishma Jangeed

Assistant Professor, Department of English
Sophia Girls’ College (Autonomous)
Ajmer, Rajasthan, India

ABSTRACT
As we all know, that the time period of the early 19th century was a period of huge distress taking birth from social and political
inequality and international dispute, leading to war. It was for the first time, that the entire world was forcibly indulged in war to satisfy
the ego of a few powerful people. War does not contribute to the development or progress of any nation but on the contrary, forces the
nation to recede. It has an adverse effect on not only the flora and fauna of a place but also destroys the cultural heritage and human
resource belonging to that place. It is unfortunate, that people who are having no experience or knowledge about the detrimental effects
of war, are the ones who advocate for it and their orders are executed by poor people and soldiers who end up losing their life either
because of the life taking environment to which they are subjected or due to the violence which is caused because of war. This research
paper aims at illustrating this disastrous environment and violence caused by war in the light of W.B Yeats’s poems namely, The Second
Coming and Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen.

Keywords: Violence, War, Detrimental Effect, Environment.

Introduction
William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. He was born in Dublin. His father
was a lawyer and a well-known portrait painter. Yeats educated in Dublin, but he spent his summers in the west of Ireland in the family’s
summer house at Connaught. During his youth he was a part of the fin de siècle’ in London; at the same time, he was an active member
in the society and attempted an Irish Literary revival. He had a versatile personality: as a Lyric, a mythologist, a mystic, and a romantic.
He was a poet with political ideology, prophetic vision and occult philosophy, with experience in experiments in Dramaturgy. He was
the national poet of Republic Ireland. His contemporaries were Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw. He spent the greater
part of his life in England and therefore he was well known by both Irish and English Poets similar to T.S Eliot who was both an
American and English Poet. Yeats and Eliot were both interested and influenced by Indian Philosophy as well as Hinduism. Yeats
moved away from poetry to philosophy as he began as an Optimist but gradually became disillusioned and pessimistic. Yeats was
attracted towards occult sciences of India by Mohini Chatterjee and the Indian Monk Purohit Swami.

Literary Career
Yeats maintained his cultural roots, featuring Irish Legends and heroes in many of his poems and plays. His first volume of
verse appeared in 1887. In his early literary career dramatic production outweighed his poetry both in bulk and in import. He founded
Irish Theatre together with Lady Gregory which became Abbey Theatre where he served as its chief playwright until the movement was
joined by John Synge. His plays were full of Irish legends and they also reflected his fascination with Spiritualism and Mysticism. His
best known plays are The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Hand of Herat’s Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlinam (1902), The King’s
Threshold (1904) and Deirdre (1907).

After 1910, Yeats’ dramatic art took a turn towards highly poetical and esoteric style. Being a convinced patriot, Yeats deplored
the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist Movement and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He was one among the few
writers whose greatest works were written after Nobel Prize. He received the Prize for his dramatic works but his importance today rests
on his lyric achievement. His Poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921),
The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and other Poems (1933) and Last Poems and plays (1940) made him one of the outstanding and
most influential 20th century poets writing in English. Even Auden praised Yeats by crediting him of ‘having written some of the most
beautiful poetry’ of modern times.

Themes in Yeats Poetry

Recurring themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal
of beauty and ceremony in contrast with the hubbub of modern life. Yeats used symbols from ordinary life and from familiar traditions
and much of his poetry in the 1890s continued to reflect these.

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 ISSN:2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR :8.017(2023); IC VALUE:5.16; ISI VALUE:2.286
Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal : VOLUME:12, ISSUE:2(2), February: 2023
Online Copy of Article Publication Available (2023 Issues)
Scopus Review ID: A2B96D3ACF3FEA2A
Cover Page Article Received: 2nd February 2023
Publication Date:10th March 2023
DOI: http://ijmer.in.doi./2023/12.02.28 Publisher: Sucharitha Publication, India
www.ijmer.in Digital Certificate of Publication: www.ijmer.in/pdf/e-CertificateofPublication-IJMER.pdf

War, Violence and Environment in Yeats’s Second Coming

The Second Coming by W.B Yeats was first published in the American magazine, The Dial in November 1920. It is a poem
which begins as Poet is seeing a vision. Poet’s mind was filled with gloom in consequence of the wide-spread murder and bloodshed in
Ireland in the course of the Easter Rebellion of 1916, the Irish Civil war that followed the great war of 1914-19 and various other events
in Europe added to the gloom of poet. “The Title of the poem suggests a new manifestation of God to man. The Christian Era draws to
its close; now that its ‘great year’ of two thousand years is ending. We do not know what shape of things will be but it must be terror-
filled for us by virtue of the simple fact that it will entail so revolutionary change. Already, we have seen the break-down of the old
assumption in the great war and in civil wars and the rise of mob tyrannies: the dark forces of the pre -Christian age will come into their
own again”.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

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

Poem contains the much-known philosophy of History by Yeats. According to Yeats belief History runs in Cycle. The poem
opens with disturbing image where a Gyre or circling cone swiftly round a fixed centre. Its circumference gets wider and wider and
ultimately even the centre fails to control its movements, “Things fall apart: the centre could not hold.” He uses falcon as symbol of
Intellect, i.e., science, technology and rationalism are too much present in the modern men that it is leading men and modern world
towards end or destruction. As a result, there is violence and bloodshed on all sides. “The blood-dimmed tide” displays blind passion
and contemplates the great.

In The Second Coming, there is reference of Anarchy which hints towards ‘some revelation at hand’ or a premonition of a new
civilization. No sooner does the idea flash across the poet’s mind then he sees the image of some bizarre form coming out of Spiritus
Mundi- the spirit of the world- may be the animating force of the world-a kind of store house of images in Yeats’s philosophy. Some
grotesque form has the body in the shape of lion and the head of a human being (like ‘Narsingh’ incarnation in Indian Mythology). It is
seen as vague terror, monstrous shape, coming out of some distant desert and advancing slowly or slouching with clumsy and ungainly
movement towards Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. At once the terrific image appears before the poet’s eye. The form is so
frightful and formidable that the birds fly before it in utter fear. The monster has cruel eyes, fixed upon the sun as if it were the symbol
of the pitiless and relentless destiny. And the poets vision ends with the following lines-

The 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.

Yeats also feel that the birth of a new ‘Avatar’ or superhuman or anti-Christ is about to take place as promised in the Bible.
Because each stony sleep creates its specific nightmare and in the rocking cradle, looks on the birth of its death. It represents a thoughtless
and merciless violence, and its birth is the death of the existing civilization.

The poem is a masterpiece of artistic maturity, marked by the careful selection of precise details and images, of exact words
with their reverberations and a solemn rhythm to create terrifying atmosphere of the Apocalypse, appropriate to the vision of violent
destruction and equally monstrous re-birth.

Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen

Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen, which was described by Yeats as ‘not philosophical but simple and passionate, a lamentation
over lost peace and lost-hope’ appeared both in England and in Ireland in 1921 in literary journals. After that, it waited for The Tower
volume of 1928. The poem is thematically connected to The Second Coming, It talks about the fury of the British mercenary soldiers,
The Blacks and Tans who wanted to destroy all artistic treasure and values of life.

The poem is full of ideas and is divided into six sections with no connectivity and it displays the fragmentation of society and
thought process of men in the modern world. The poem is inspired by Lady Gregory’s account of Cruelties and tortures perpetrated
upon people in different parts of Ireland by the hired mercenaries of the British, called Blacks and Tans. The Easter rising of 1916 was
put down with an iron hand by the rulers and there was violence and bloodshed on a large scale. The brutal and barbaric deeds committed

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 ISSN:2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR :8.017(2023); IC VALUE:5.16; ISI VALUE:2.286
Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal : VOLUME:12, ISSUE:2(2), February: 2023
Online Copy of Article Publication Available (2023 Issues)
Scopus Review ID: A2B96D3ACF3FEA2A
Cover Page Article Received: 2nd February 2023
Publication Date:10th March 2023
DOI: http://ijmer.in.doi./2023/12.02.28 Publisher: Sucharitha Publication, India
www.ijmer.in Digital Certificate of Publication: www.ijmer.in/pdf/e-CertificateofPublication-IJMER.pdf

by hired butchers shocked the sensitive poets. Those atrocious happenings along with the horrors of the first World War, made Yeats
feel that the present cycle of civilization was coming to an end. The poem is a voice raised by a poet shaking with moral indignation.
The poem is a lament. The course of history runs in cycles and our own civilization must meet its doom.

Section I of the poem begins with a lament on the part of the poet for the decay and destruction of the masterpieces of Greek art like
the ancient figures made out of imperishable olive wood, and the famous sculpture pieces of Phidias, which in, the poet’s opinion have
proved as transient and temporary as grasshoppers and bees of the summer season. The entire section with six stanzas is a reference to
the universal law of destruction, peculiar to the operation of time, and phase of the moon, reinforced by the violence of human
civilization.
Section II begins with the reference of the ingenious dance technique of the famous American dancer Loie Fuller and her Chinese
Troupe. Then the Platonic Year -That space of time which, according to ancient astronomers, elapses before all the stars and
constellations return to their former positions. Here, the poet means dance of History. In Yeats’s view we are all dancers in the dance of
History or the measure of Platonic year.
Section III talks about some moralists or mythological poets, old philosophers and mythologists who have compared the solitary soul
to a swan which soars up through the gusty atmosphere. There is a Pythagorean Fable that the souls of all good poets passed into swans,
hence the swan of Avon used for Shakespeare.
Section IV We who seven ….. tooth- In this section the past is compared to the present and the fiasco that is described, ‘Seven years
earlier, before the Irish rebellion, they talked of truth and honour, but now they have become cunning, cruel and brutal like weasel. This
moral degeneration is the worst of tragedies that can overtake humanity’.
Section V Come let us mock……. traffic in mockery- In this section of the poem the poet ridicules or mocks the great persons who
toiled hard to leave behind some monuments, but all their efforts are of no avail before levelling wind.
Section VI Violence upon the roads… all are blind- Last section of the poem is a fast-moving scene of violent images and forces of
nihilism move towards climax. It presents to readers a graphic picture of the terrors and tortures inflicted on Ireland and also upon the
world as a whole. Violence is rampant on all sides. Violence here refers to anarchic violence and the reference of Herodias’ daughters
symbolizes a situation in which evil gathers head. Yeats was acquainted with Symons’ poem ‘The dance of the daughters of Herodias’.

Conclusion
It is a noted fact that since times immemorial, continuous efforts have been made to establish power over others by a few
ambitious men. But Yeats rightly says in his poem that everything in this world is mortal. Then why do human beings want to
immortalize themselves by hurting the poor and innocent. Even in the contemporary world, a little conflict leads to a big dispute which
ultimately leads to war. The sad reality is that those who are in favor of war are more than those who are against it. People don’t
understand that war does not lead to the development or progress of any nation, it rather devastates and destroys everything that comes
in its way. This research paper is an endeavor to teach people to be humane, cooperative, sympathetic and affectionate towards each
other and be true human beings.

References
1. Yeats, William Butler, 1865-1939. "William Butler Yeats: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center." Manuscript Collection MS-04619. Chelsea Dinsmore, 2002,
https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/pdf/00248.pdf. 14 February, 2023.
2. "William Butler Yeats: A TRULY AN IRISH REPRESENTATIVE POET." Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative
Research (JETIR), vol. Volume 6, no. Issue 6, 2019, pp. 780-784, https://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1906U05.pdf. Accessed.
3. Yeats, William Butler. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming. Accessed 14
February 2023.

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