堆龙的天空

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Images in Yeats’ The Second Coming The Second Coming is generally accepted as one of Yeats’ best lyrics. In this poem, Yeats used many impressive images. In this essay, I will analysis how Yeats systematically connected the images together based on the main symbol, which is the wane and return of “center”, to express his concern to the society step by step. The first stanza of this poem is an excellent example of symbolic coherence. In this stanza the accumulating images are combined together in the way that one image moves under another’s influence to make an overpowering cumulative impact on the wane of the center. In the first two lines, the poet imagined a falconer losing control of his bird, which flies in ever widening circles around him until at last it cannot hear the falconer. Ordinarily, the falconer is a center and the falcon flies around the falconer within the influence of the falconer. But now the gyre is widening, and the falconer is flying gradually far away from the center. This image can be thought to be a symbol of the center has gradually waned and then vanished. The image “center” comes out in the third line. In the first two lines, the image of center has been implied: the falcon is flying around and far away from the falcon which is the ever center influence of the falcon. The relationship of the falcon and the falconer can be regarded ad an indication that “Things fall apart” and “the center can not hold”. If the center cannot hold and lost its influence, all of things fall apart, resulting in anarchy. At first glance, the remaining lines of the first stanza might have not any relationship with the symbol of center. They seem to be the descriptions of the state of anarchy, but the symbolic meaning of the centre, whose influence is waning, is still active under the surface. In the fifth and sixth lines, war is described as “the blood-dimmed tide” which drowns “the ceremony of innocence”. Thousands of people died and their blood collected to be a river. But here, Yeats used “tide”. “Tide” means the periodic rise and fall of the sea, which lead us to image that we stay at a land surrounding by the sea. The image of center appears in our mind. In addition, a tide is water encroaching the land and the land is going to be engulfed by the violent waves, so “the ceremony of innocence is drowned”. This image is particularly wrenching because in traditional western society, “the ceremony of innocence” means the baptism of infants. It also corresponds to the images above which symbolize the waning influence of centre. Seven and eight lines contrast “the best” to “the worst”. “The best” are usually regarded as the moral center, while “the worst” are the moral extreme. But now, the best are lack belief and they become indifference, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Perceptually, intensity increases towards the center, and the center will collapse. In short, the first stanza describes a society which is out of control by systematically elaborating a series of images which are closely combined together based on the symbol “centre”. The stanza’s power becomes stranger because of the cumulative impact: the centre lost the capacity, lost its moral balance and at last it will lose minimal strength to preserve the order. The second stanza of the poem makes a new departure. Then Yeats created another collection of images which symbolize the returning of the centre. “Surely the second coming is at hand.” Christians believe that Christ will return to this earth some day, and regain over an age of peace after a great war between Good and Evil. The first stanza tells us that order has collapse, the world now is in a state of the decay, and it will be ending while another is approaching. Where the people see the image is “some where in sands of the desert.” The desert lies at the fringes of the populated land, where live nomads, hooks, gamblers and bandits. “The desert” is far from not only the geographical center but also the moral center. Then the poet created an image “a shape with lion body and the head of a man” moving with “blank and pitiless gaze as the sun”, which makes us think of an image of the Sphinx, a pagan force from the far past. Actually, the poet made a prefect connection between the image and the symbol “center”. Generally, essence is center. This creature’s physical center is that of a lion. In other words, this is a creature possessing of a lion’s ferocity without a human heart. Its gaze is “blank and pitiless as the sun”. Eyes are windows of to the soul, the essence and the center. So the creature’s soul is reflection of the desert sun: harsh, and burning pitiless on a barren land. And when the beast with the heart of lion and the soul of the desert sun is “moving its slow thighs”, it becomes a center for “all about it reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.” In the first stanza, the falcon circles around the falconer but now the birds circle around the Sphinx. This image symbolizes a new center’s coming. Considering the contrasts between the two images: the center is not a man but a beast; a flock of indignant birds take place of a obedient falcon. When the falcon flies away from the falconer and the old world nearly collapse, a new society order operates on very different principles. In this new society order, the center controls not by authority but only by virtue of size, strength and ferocity. This image, “Indigent desert birds”, tells us that they might overthrow the center if they could. But now they must follow the centre moving from the desert, the fringe to the centre to take up the central role formerly occupied by Christ and become the new center of the world. As we move to the end of the poem, we know that the Sphinx has been waiting at the desert throughout the Christian era, and now it is awakened. It is moving towards the center. In the tradition of western culture, Bethlehem, the place where Christ was born represents the center of the world. In the first stanza, “things fall apart” and “the centre cannot hold”, but now, the centre is returning. However, we may have to face the nightmare that horrific society and moral order replace the willing obedience of Christian society. In this poem, a cluster of systematically connected images directly or indirectly help to construct the main symbol of this poem: the collapse and return of the centre, so that they have an strong cumulative impact on expressing Yeats’ concern that goodness, beauty and truth are missing from the new society order and tyranny and the peace of desolation become the center of the world. References Paul D. Deane. “Metaphors of center and periphery in Yeats’ The Second Coming.” Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 627-642 Luo Liang gong. A Survey of English Poetry. Wuhan: The Press of Wuhan University, 2002