Modernism_ Lecture 1

0:00and with introducing and discussing modernism modernism in fact is not the
name of a one single literary
0:15movement and it does not refer to a
0:30particular school of thought it is rather an imperiled term
0:45old-fashioned to suit the new age so
1:00they needed to find
1:15new ways even better ways to express
1:30themselves
1:45and reflect the changes and the challenges of the then contemporary life
therefore modernism is associated with innovation and novelty further it
empowered the notions
2:00of the artists and the writers the freedom from any limitations or restrictions
imposed by realism materialism established genres and traditional forms
2:15modernist art and literature were dominated by a strong sense of despair and
doubt modernist writers wrote as though they were tormented by a
2:30deep sense of loss they struggled with the feeling of frustration and
disappointment therefore the modernist art in writing look pessimistic gloomy
and dark as to doubt or skepticism it invaded
2:45every aspect of life the victorian age depended on the notions of on the
notions of certainty and harmony which the modernist rejected altogether
3:00and replaced with a spirit of the questioning and doubt modernists subjected
the beliefs and values of the past to investigation examination and testing before
they were
3:15pronounced as a true valid or useful likewise while the victorian age was
concerned with defending morality and promoting particular ethical codes for
modernism moral values were of little or no use and modernist prefer preferred to
3:30develop and empower aesthetics speaking of the past modernism
encouraged an anti-historicist approach to life and art because the truth is not
evolutionary and a
3:45progressive but something requiring analysis modernists were hostile to
historicism which the which is the belief that history shapes
4:00social and cultural events in the brief truths are not truths because they are
established so by the ancestors but should be proved as such by analysis while the
victorians searched for answers to the questions of their time in the past
4:15the modernist to prefer to search for answers in the immediate present or
even the future modernism emerged as a reaction to the demands of the new age
which was marked by radical changes on
4:30many and various levels to begin with industrialization which started in the
previous century took quite a different turn in the 20th century the urban society
wars technological changes
4:45and new philosophical as well as political ideas all made life more
complicated and difficult to understand politics in the 20th century was marked by
the rise
5:00of opposite polarities capitalism dominated the western world while
communism had strong hold on russia and eastern europe in addition modernists
gave modernism gave rise to
5:15extremist ideologies namely fascism in italy and nazism in germany which
culminated in two destructive wars the political instability sparked a bitter conflict
between the so-called democracies of the
5:30west and totalitarian politics of the east the simple people were the victims of
such hostilities and in either case people fell under constant
5:45administration and surveillance they were more often than not denied
freedom of expression and drop and robbed of their individualism in the victorian
society the class
6:00system was well defined and the upper class was leading life and dominating
politics in the 20th century more people from the lower classes were able to
acquire education
6:15and go up the social ladder as such the class system was rocked by the rise of
trade unions and the labor party working class people started to get involved in
politics and even shaped the contemporary political scene
6:30so many beliefs started to fall down and disappeared during the 20th century
and especially after the bloodshed of the wars and the destruction of the wars
notions of patriotism
6:45and duty along with the loyalty to king and country had to be revised and
reinterpreted making room for more personal and individualistic beliefs
7:00women in the victorian age were educated to be housewives and not work
outside their homes they did not have the right to vote and were not even
allowed to own a prop to own property after they were married the victorian
society was patriarchal
7:15which is a system that places man on top of the social pyramid in the 20th
century patriarchy was challenged as women wanted to work outside the homes
and the suffrage movement gained power women did not only acquire
7:30the right to vote but later even got involved in shaping political reality life in
the contemporary age became more complex and more difficult so modernist art
and writing must
7:45reflect must reflect the complexity and difficulty of the world it also
emphasized that culture had changed in response to the machine age where can a
class people felt threatened
8:00felt threatened by the use of machines in factories and other working places
which reduced the need for manpower as a result the 20th century witnessed a
rise in unemployment and more people
8:15became jobless or lost or lost their jobs poverty poverty doubled and crime
was on the rise to address the problems and the crises of modern human beings
art and literature resorted to mythology
8:30and symbolism to represent and criticize social spiritual or or personal
collapse this is why modernist art and literature
8:45were characterized by ops up security and ambiguity it's a paradox how
modernist writing relied on simple language common vocabulary and simple
syntactic structures to suppress complex and ambiguous themes
9:00modernism invested in the advanced ideas of remarkable thinkers
philosophers and scientists the western world was transformed and reinterpreted
by the
9:15ideas of karl marx charles darwin sigmund freud and albert einstein who
represented respectively the change that is happening to social
9:30individual and natural notions though marx and darwin both lived in the
victorian age their ideas gained power and popularity in the 20th century
9:45freud's research on psychonaut analysis provided insights into the human
psyche people as well were impressed by einstein's theories regarding time and
relativity the china of the century
10:00saw britain and many other european countries are strong empires
imperialism had exposed european sensibilities to alternative cultures ethics and
social structures the european cultures
10:15wrapped shoulders with the many foreign cultures of the colonies and were
influenced by them therefore modernist art and writing were coloured by foreign
and even exotic elements world war one and the year and the years immediately
before and after
10:30it brought upon the end of many institutions and beliefs it resulted as well in
the invention of new weapons such as submarines airplanes poison gas and
cannons which resulted in thousands of deaths and
10:45casualties in short the 20th century is a is a period of political instability
great changes and challenges and literature
11:00had to address the crises of the age and to reflect its subproblems thank you
for listening
 Modern English Poetry_ Lecture 2

0:00discussed modernism with you in its general sense as an innovative period

today i will be more specific and discuss modernism in relation to
0:1520th century english verse which emerged as a revolt that rejected and
replaced both victorianism
0:30modern poetry emerged around 1908 and it continued up to the 1960s of the
20th century the victorian age ended officially by
0:45the death of the queen victoria in january 22nd 1901 but victorianism
continued to shape and influence literary writing and including poetry for a few
years more critically speaking
1:00the period between the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th
century is described as both victorian during the 1890s poets basically composed
lyric verse
1:15influenced intellectually by the critic and novelist walter peter such writing to
trust unexquisite craftsmanship and a devotion to intense emotional and sensory
effects
1:30therefore post-victorian poetry is often described as sentimental cheerful
pompous and extravagantly romantic young poets were were urged to imitate the
great
1:45victorian poets and especially alfred loth tennyson poets were not
encouraged to be creative or inventive whether in the choice of the political
themes or vast forms the outcome is that the post-victorian poetry
2:00was generally imitative decorative weak and had no originality besides at the
turn of the century the poet c club the most esteemed literary institute in london
seemed to value poets such as alfred
2:15austin william watson and henry newbold whose poetry was conservative and
feeble the academic critics
2:30who led and managed the poetic club working on preserving conservative
tradition and they managed to do that up to the early part of the 20th century of
course that doesn't mean that the
2:45period doesn't have any great poets in fact there are few poets whose poetry
was original great and important such as rajet kipling hausmann thomas hardy in
addition to
3:00gerald manley hopkins they all embrace modernist features thomas hardy and
radiate kipling who had established their reputations during the previous century
were less confident about the future and sought to revive the traditional forms
3:15the ballard the narrative film the satire the fantasy the topographical poem
which in their review preserve traditional sentiments and perceptions
3:30now let's move to discuss the main factors that led to the appearance of
modernism and the first among them is the death of the last great victorian poets
charles swinburne who died in april and
3:45george meredith who died in may the same year 1909 their death ended
officially any attempts to revive victorian political tradition it left also a vacancy
which could not be filled by any of the political names of the
4:00time the younger generations of poets used such vacancy to their advantage
and promoted their new type of writings for instance wba's benefited greatly from
the death of the two last
4:15victorians and he himself humorously remarked that he was now the king of
the cats the second factor is symbolism french symbolism especially after after the
translation
4:30and publication of arthur simon's book the simplest movement in literature in
fact nobody can deny the great influence of symbolism
4:45on the poetry of t.s eliot and wb-8 among many other modern poets 3. the
revolution in art and music especially the expressionist exhibition and the
5:00performance of a russian ballet group in london which triggered a revolution
in change and readiness to embrace difference
5:15the new century had begun with the greater britain involved in the south
african war or the world war 1899 1902 then in 1914 the first world war broke
5:30and it seemed to some that the british empire was as doomed to destruction
both from within and from without as had been the roman empire in his poems
on the south african
5:45war or the board war thomas hardy questioned simply and sardonically the
human cost of empire building and established a tone and the style that many
british poets were to use in the course of the century
6:00while kipling who had done much to engender pride in empire began to speak
in his verse and shorter stories of the burden of empire and the tribulations it
would
6:15bring the last factor that influenced the appearance of modern english verse
is the arrival of american poets israel found who arrived in 1908 held a doolittle
and richard al-nichten who
6:30arrived in 1912 ts eliot in 1914 and amy lewell in 1914 to the extent that
some critics described the first half of the 20th century as
6:45basically influenced by americanism let's now discuss the main features of
modern english verse and the first feature is that modernist writings
7:00are innovative inventive progressive and almost futuristic modern english
poets were motivated by a desire to have a cleaner break with the conventions
7:15of the past modernist modern modernist poetry rejected romantic ideals of
the post-victorianism and preferred a more realistic heart core portrayal of reality
modern poets took courage to explore new styles new vocabulary new political
forms new
7:30themes and ensured they brought about a new diction modern english poetry
endorses nihilism pessimism skepticism and alienation it describes the world
7:45as though it is on the brink of cultural breakdown the most significant writing
of the period was inspired by neither hope nor apprehension but by bleak feelings
that the new century would win with
8:00witness the collapse of a whole civilization modern poetry was highly
intellectual in that it appeals to the mind therefore modern verse comes across as
obscure
8:15complicated and even obtruse it invents in ambiguity by suggest by
suggesting different and even opposite meanings modern poetry is also
cosmopolitan in that it speaks to old people all around the world
8:30poetry was coloured by foreign elements borrowed and imported from
remote or even exotic cultures including chinese and japanese modern english
verse invest in myths of the ancient world
8:45and mysticism without being oriented towards a particular religion instead it
endorses failed faithlessness poets use the myths and legends of the ancient
world as well as a christian mythology to serve symbolic ends
9:00modern english poetry was dominated by british and foreign influences welsh
irish tradition americanism a french symbolism and other european
9:15influences among the influential among the influential poets were irish such
as wbas and wealth such as dylan thomas americans israel pound and t.s eliot as
9:30to french symbolism no one can deny the shaping influence of arthur simons
is the simplest movement in literature modern english verse is oriented towards
politics and political schools of thoughts
9:45t.s eliot was a royalist w b hates was accused of harboring fascist sentiments
because of his dislike of the mobs israel pound was a staunch fascist and he later
joined the fascist propaganda in italy
10:00up to the end of the war where he was arrested court-martialed and sent to
a mental more hospital english poetry focuses on the problems worries and
struggles and sufferings of simple people the working classes the laborers and
10:15women therefore it was written in the language of the simple people and
capitalizes on modern human beings as they struggle with poverty unemployment
loss of identity in this
10:30technological age modern english verse is industrious is interested in
psychology and psychoanalysis under the inspiration of a freud and young it
breaks to booze whether social ethical or religious it challenges accepted norms
and aspires to
10:45create new ones more reflective of the age finally modern english poetry
introduces to the public the anti-hero and gives voice to flawed human beings
who are far from being perfect or ideal that's all for
11:00today thank you for listening
 Symbolism_ Lecture 3

0:00as i introduced modernism to the lecture before the last i mentioned that the
term does not refer to one single movement rather it refers to a collection of
movements whether literally or artistic in today's lecture i will discuss the
0:15first of these movements that influence modern english poetry namely
symbolism symbolism is in general the use of symbols to signify to signify ideas
and qualities by giving them
0:30symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense a symbol can be
a person an object a place or event even an action thus just more than its literal
meaning symbolism is an important literary device for creating complex
0:45narratives because it enables writers to convey important information
without having to state things directly this is why symbolism adds emotional
weight to a text and conceals themes that are too
1:00controversial to state openly in case the writer chooses not to be direct or
open symbols help readers visualize complex concepts and central themes and
attract their
1:15development symbols invite readers to interpret a text independently rather
than be directly told what the author means symbolism gives the poets and the
writers freedom to add double levels of meaning
1:30to their works a literal level that is self-evidence and a symbolic level whose
meaning is far more profound deeper than the literal symbolism
1:45therefore gives universality to the characters and the themes of a piece of
work symbolism in literature evokes interest in readers as they find an opportunity
to get an insight into the writer's mind on how
2:00the writers view the world and how they think of common objects and
actions having a broader implication so the reader is not simply a recipient of the
literary work of the poem or the literary work the reader is involved
2:15directly in the process of interpreting understanding and cracking open the
symbol used in a poem in poetry symbols can be categorized as conventional
traditional literary contextual private
2:30or personal so at least there are three sub-categories of uh symbols the first is
traditional conventional is generally recognized to represent a certain idea an
example is a white rose
2:45conventionally symbolizes innocence or purity a mountain conventionally
symbolizes hardship difficulty or majestic beauty a knight
3:00conventionally symbolizes darkness death grief and usually conventional
symbols are the ones that can be attributed to no particular person they are stock
symbols and have been in general
3:15use for centuries they date from ancient times even as the majority of readers
are familiar with the traditional symbols their use in poetry increases the charm
and pleasure of reading a poem without introducing any element of
3:30complexity or obscurity the second type of symbols is contextual or literary
and it is something that goes beyond a traditional or public meaning remember
the night conventionally
3:45symbolizes darkness gloom grief but contextually it symbolizes other
possibilities such as loneliness isolation fear or emptiness even estrangement
4:00while the conventional symbols are used in poetry to convey tone and
meaning contextual or literary symbols reflect the internal state of mind the
speaker of the speaker as revealed through the images the last type is the private
4:15or personal symbols and they are devised by the poet for the poet's own
purposes they express vague impressions passing through the mind of the poets
they convey the poet's sense of the mystery of life
4:30they express experiences which are often of a mystical nature as the readers
are not familiar with with with such symbols they create difficulty difficulties for
for them though at the same time they
4:45add to the charm and dignity of the language our example of a private or
personal symbol is the sunflower the sunflower is a poem by the romantic poet
william blake who lived between the 18th
5:00and 19th century the sunflower symbolizes the human being the sun
symbolizes life the flower the sunflower follows the sun wherever the sun goes it
doesn't have a choice the same applies to the human beings they also follow life
wherever life
5:15takes them they don't have any willpower to change that another uh private
symbol is the wasteland the wasteland is a very famous epic poem by t.s eliot and
yes elliot uses the
5:30wasteland as a symbol for moral and spiritual destruction ruin or corruption
okay um so far i have been discussing with you
5:45symbolism in general and the use of symbols now let me focus on the
simplest movement in literature which highly influenced modernism in this case
symbolism is a loosely organized literary and artistic movement that originated in
france in the 19th century and soon
6:00spread to painting and theater and influenced the european and american
literatures of the 20th century symbolism was a reaction and a revolt against
6:15another school of thought called naturalism led by emil zola a very famous
french novelist of the 19th century according to
6:30naturalism human life is a lab and the human beings are materials to be
experimented and tested in this lab the human beings are shaped by the by the
world around them by their
6:45uh by their circumstances of birth education poverty or wealth by culture
geography and so on and so forth so symbolism was a revolt against the scientific
determinism of
7:00naturalism it was it was also a revolt against another school of thought
realism uh which i'm going to talk about uh later uh charles baudelaire was the
was considered the father of symbolism
7:15and his sonic correspondences um was an important example of the
movement baudelaire based the symbolic mode of his poems especially on the
ancient belief in correspondences the doctrine that
7:30there exists inherent and systematic analogies between the human mind and
the spiritual worlds these are two pictures of baudelaire after baudelaire many
young poets
7:45followed in his footsteps such as paul verlaine stefan malami who later
became the leader of symbolism arthur rambo a favorite poet of mine and julia
fogg a very important
8:00influence on t.s eliot t.s eliot first read simon's book the simplest movement
in literature then he ordered the political works of joule laforge after that he left
the united states for europe and settled in
8:15london in 1914 the most significant work that introduces to the english
reader and explains french symbolism is arthur simon's book the simplest
8:30movement in literature published in 1899 arthur simons simons characterized
the movement as a reaction against the scientific determinism of naturalism i
have mentioned earlier
8:45and the objective and precise description of realism realism is another school
of thought and also it influenced literature as well as painting music and the likes
and according to realism literature and art should
9:00represent life as it is it should be an exact copy of reality literature literature
should mirror the world as it is uh in contrast symbolism wanted to spiritualize
literature literature was
9:15to be a reflection not merely a sign of a spiritual reality the features of
symbolism are many but i'm going to focus on the ones that influence modern
english verse and the first
9:30is that symbolism emphasize the primary importance of suggestion and
evocation in the expression of a private mood or reverie this feature that is the
power of suggestion is not something in you and it has been used by english
9:45poets long before symbolism for instance william blake whose sunflower i
have already mentioned another poet is shelley a romantic poet who lived in the
19th century
10:00used this the power offices association and the victorian poet and painter
dante gabriel rossetti so it is not something he knew the second feature is that the
simplest
10:15wish to liberate poetry from the descriptive or expository functions and they
wanted poetry to describe the immediate sensations of humans in our life and
experiences as well as communicate the underlying mystery of existence
10:30through a free and highly personal use of metaphors and images that
though lacking in a precise meaning would nevertheless convey the state of the
minds of the poet
10:45three the simplest exploited an order of private symbols in a poetry of rich
suggestiveness rather than explicit signification so they wanted their poetry to use
11:00invented or personal symbols rather than a traditional or conventional
symbols beside invented symbols um simplest writers borrowed their symbols
from religious
11:15and esoteric traditions so some of the samples were borrowed from the
bible from ancient civilization from buddhism from hinduism and etc symbols do
not have a fixed meaning they
11:30they shift and change their meanings depending on the context in which
they are used um remember when we talked about the night how it changes it its
meaning the same with the chain for instance a chain may stand for
11:45union but it also symbolizes imprisonment in certain context so the symbolic
meaning of an object or an action is understood by when where and how it is
used it also depends
12:00on who reads the work um of literature the sixth uh uh feature is that
symbolism can take different forms some of the works are symbolic in their
12:15settings in their characters or agents and their actions as well as in objects
they refer to remember ts elias the wasteland
12:30and another example is wba spazantium so uh there are at least three types
three subcategories involved here symbolism through physical objects um where
the physical objects are used to symbolize an
12:45idea concept uh as well as a way of pointing to of pointing the reader
towards some of the basic themes that a work is dealing with an example is the
sunflower plague sunflower explained earlier
13:00symbolism through events an example is larkin's church going an event can
be symbolic sometimes an action an event or a word spoken by someone may
have a symbolic value for example a smile is a symbol of
13:15friendship the act of smiling is a symbol of the feeling of affection that
person has towards somebody okay the long hair of uh of a character can
symbolize innocence
13:30where chopping of that long hair can symbolize the loss of innocence or the
mature and adult responsible its responsibilities that uh come with the uh with
with adulthood uh finally uh symbolism can be achieved
13:45through characters uh an example is elliott's prof rook um a character can
serve as a symbol of a particular virtue or vice or a particular ideology as i said as
an example of the human being another
14:00uh symbolic character is the unknown citizen in the famous poem by the
power w by w h odin entitled the unknown citizen
 W.B. Yeats_ Lecture 4

0:00good morning fourth-year students today i'll be discussing wba's political

achievement the interest his interest in symbolism and
0:15the major symbols that he used in his poetry william butler yates was born in
1865 and he died in 1939 he's one of the most important irish
0:30poets a nobel prize winner and a topple a top representative of modernism w
b h was born in dublin and he was educated between dublin and london
0:45he comes from an anglo-irish family whose face faith is a protestant and he
was living in the middle of a country um the majority of its citizens were catholic
where catholic nationalist and
1:00wbhs always felt divided between his um his background his family
background as an anglo-irish protestant family and his interest in the national
affair of the country his
1:15patriotism okay when we talk about wba's poetry usually we divide his
achievement into two stages uh the early and the later poetry of wba's the reason
why if you notice w b h was
1:30born in the victorian age and he lived during the victorian age for quite a good
part of his life he was 35 when the century turned so he was definitely
1:45influenced by the lyrical tradition the romantic lyrical tradition of the post-
victorian era this is why his early poetry is usually described as lyrical and it is
basically made up of love poems and
2:00critics now um look at wbh's early poetry and they describe it as over
decorative as weak language shadowy imprecise too
2:15lyrical too romantic and usually the early poetry is dismissed altogether then
we have the later poetry which is uh the poetry he wrote
2:30after he was introduced to modernism or while he was being uh
experimenting with the new ways of writing and this later poetry is described as
powerful masculine sharp intellectual
2:45rational energetic mystical and though yates has used the same themes he
used in the early poetry he recycled almost the same themes but he could uh
treat these themes with the great power great masculine energetic
3:00and mystical power so the poems we're going to study uh belong to the later
poetry okay there are many factors that led uh you know to the big transition in
his
3:15political achievement and the first of these factors is his disappointment in
love with the after mod gone married somebody else um mod gone was his
childhood a friend
3:30and they were very good friends all their lives and she was brilliant beautiful
educated and wbhs always thought he was going to marry her but uh ultimately
she turned him down and she married
3:45major sean mcbride you see his picture now so when this happened w b h
was very heartbroken and he felt great
4:00unhappiness and sadness to the point that he stopped writing poetry for five
years between 1904 and 1908 he wrote only three or four sonnets and these
sonnets were about his broken heart
4:15so uh but however these five dry years were very important in shaping his
future political self because um he could have a clean break with his past self due
4:30thanks to these five years of no writing at all when he met israel pound later it
was easier for him to change to make the transition to make a shift from the lyrical
poet to
4:45the spiritual mystical masculine poet he later became so this is his first uh
factor the second is his meeting with israel pound in 1908 israel pound was a very
talented poet he
5:00was a professor teaching at a university in pennsylvania but he decided to
leave for europe and he arrived in london in 1908 when he arrived he was readily
received
5:15by the circles of young poets he was not very much welcomed by the
conservative older poets but the young poets found in him in inspiration and
encouragement
5:30and he met wbh and they became very good difference despite the difference
in age w b h was in his forties israel pound one was in his twenties still they they
became very greater friends
5:45and w b h uh gave um some of his poems for the for israel to read before uh
publication and israel pound reviewed the poems and he took the lebert
6:00the liberty and changed uh modified the poems he blue penciled the poems
and then he sent them to publication without taking the permission of wbh
himself at first yates was very angry but later
6:15he um was convinced that all the changes uh israel pound made were to the
benefits of the poem they made his poetry stronger and sharper more intellectual
from that time on he always took the
6:30advice of uh israel pound and he was more than happy to you know to follow
the instruction instructions of ezra pound so the second influence is his meeting
6:45with ezra pound the third influence is his reading of a new edition of the
poetry of john don john don was one of the greatest poets of the 16th century
7:00and uh his poetry is well known for its being powerful um you know original
and he was also very well known for his use of metaphors and figures of a speech
and there was a new edition which was
7:15published i think in 1912 and yeah it's read that edition and he was greatly
influenced by john don and his and this influence showed very
7:30strongly in the poetry he wrote after the fourth factor is his involvement in
the irish theater late later called the abbey theater and he was a good friend with
the john sink one of the famous
7:45uh irish dramatists playwrights and together they um put they put together
many theatrical performances and this experience experiment with the uh with
the theater helped a lot in
8:00first of all uh teaching wbhs about the public taste what people liked and
what they did not like and also um made his uh
8:15literary tendencies more mature his literature ripened eventually due to to his
work on the theater also what is very important it uh sharpened
8:30he disliked his dislike of the mobs and this is why sometimes wbhs is accused
of being fascist because he he did not like the mobs um he felt you know great
disappointment
8:45in the mobs anyways his theatrical experience was very important in
developing and improving his political writings the fifth element that influenced
9:00his modernist tendencies is his interest in the mystical tradition wbats came
to read many books of mystical nature he was interested in folklore in
9:15theosophy spiritualism and neo-plutonism and these different resources
helped him to figure out his own system of symbols so
9:30his symbols which are sometimes you know mystical and spiritual are derived
from different uh resources including folklore including the irish culture irish
cultural heritage
9:45as well as theosophy faith religion mysticism and stuff like that in this regard i
should mention b h was highly influenced influenced by a woman you know her
name is
10:00madame plavatisky she is an oracle an occultist she was interested in fortune
telling in mysticism and because of her he was introduced to theosophy and he
was he even joined the dublin lodge of the theosophical society from his mystical
10:15readings he created his own symbols his own you know major symbols
which are sometimes of religious and
10:30mystical nature one of these symbols that are invented and personal and
quite private is the symbol of the jaya i'm going to show you two pictures of the
jaya
10:45yes uh in 1925 in his book a vision yates talk talked about his interest in
viewing history as made
11:00of of opposing cycles each cycle lasts for 2 000 years and he used these
diagrams or similar diagrams to explain to illustrate his views anyways the gyre uh
is used in his poetry to simplize
11:15mental elevation noble contemplation permanence of philosophy and art
and the gyre is a symbol that he is going to use in many of his poems later
including the poem we are going to study the second coming as you notice the
jaya
11:30is this psychological movement the of of many circles you know overlapping
with each other
11:45okay the second again invented a private symbol is byzantium these are
three pictures of the city byzantium is the old name of
12:00the city now known as istanbul in turkey and byzantium represents for uh for
wbhs the utopia the ideal city the perfect city of perfect and aging beauty an
12:15aging intellect it is a platonic paradig paradise where the soul is purified
again this city by the interim is going to appear in many of his poems and it always
symbolizes beauty
12:30everlasting intellect paradise happiness utopia and the likes the other
symbols that appear in wba's one of them is the sword and the sword
12:45represents manhood masculinity and it symbolizes love love war and and life
you know the sword is one of the weapons of the medieval times it is the weapon
used by the knights of
13:00the middle ages when they fight for justice they fight to defend the weak so
it is always a symbol of power of masculinity over nobility uh of knighthood and
wbhs use that
13:15simple uh to in his poetry a lot it is a traditional symbol though sometimes
wbhs would would use it as a literary or a contextual symbol the other symbol is
the moon
13:30and this is uh again um a contextual or a literary symbol and the moon in its
different stages represents the different stages of the human life so the moon is
equal to the human life just like the
13:45moon starts as a crescent as a thin crescent and then it grows until it
becomes a full moon and then it starts to uh weigh in and decrease until it
disappears the human life also
14:00goes through these different stages until from birth to death okay the other
important symbol that is used in wbh's poetry is the rose rose is a traditional
symbol
14:15and sometimes wbhs would use the rose to symbolize love eternal love
earthly love just like any traditional symbol
14:30and sometimes he uses the rose to be a contextual literary symbol to stand
for life and hope the other symbols the earth the water the air and fire and these
uh symbolic four represent also the different stages
14:45of life also the different ages of civilization finally there are two more
symbols i i need to explain to you the tree it stands for age sterility and the
15:00reality of life and the the bird which simplifies this speed lightness freedom
flight and quickness of intellect of intellect we're going to see all these symbols or
at least some of them in the poems we're
15:15going to study thank you for listening
 Sailing to Byzantium Part 1

0:00good morning fourth-year students today i'll be discussing with you say link to
byzantine a poem by wbh
0:15the poem was originally written in 1926 and it was chosen by w.b yates as the
opening poem for his uh collection of us the tower which was published three
years later that is in
0:301928 i remember when we talked about um wba's poetry and its symbolism
we said that byzantium is one of these major symbols used by the poet and it
represents
0:45the utopia the ideal city the the platonic paradise of timeless intellectual and
artistic achievement the poet wrote this poem at a very hard point in his life when
he's he's an old
1:00man and he started to feel the the the pain of being old and he thought that
byzantium is the place to refresh his powers and to restore some of his abilities he
hopes to be inspired by the city
1:15to uh rise something of a great value that will that would immortalize him
long after his death uh byzantium is the old name the ancient name for istanbul a
city in turkey when it was the capital of the uh
1:30byzantine empire of the fifth and the sixth centuries it was also uh named
constantinople after the um the roman emperor constantine
1:45the city is famous for its being surrounded by the sea so if you want to visit
byzantium especially in the old times you have to board the ship you have to sail
the seas and hence the title of the poem sailing
2:00to python team also istanbul or byzantium is very famous for its uh mosaics
multicolored mosaics decorating the ceiling and the walls of its
2:15churches mosques and the historical palaces and usually these mosaics are
inlaid with marble and gold and they depict religious figures like christ the saints
and and the
2:30likes the the journey to byzantium is a mental journey it is a visionary journey
um since the poet really never visited istanbul instead he visited ravenna a city in
northern italy and this city was
2:45also part of the byzantine empire and it is said that the city contains the you
know the finest of all byzantine mosaics so from his visit to ravenna
3:00he was inspired to write his his poem and to elaborate on the beauty of the
mosaics he saw in the city of ravina which must be also uh you know very inspiring
3:15uh which which also you know the mosaics in the city and the artistic
achievement of ravina is also a timeless and everlasting of course the poet was in
his 60s when
3:30he wrote the poems and he was already you know feeling the aches of old
age his body is failing him and he felt that he no longer belongs to the sensual
world the world over the body the world of
3:45earthly pleasures and he should focus on the spiritual world on the
metaphysical world or or the world of art or what he called the artifice of eternity
because while the physical world the sensual world is
4:00doomed to death everything that is born will grow old and will die it is not
everlasting it is not immortal the world of the spirit is immortal and everlasting
and timeless
4:15so he hopes to achieve something of a great value some something that is
intellectually able to defeat time and to win the battle against mortality
4:30okay uh he hopes to learn from byzantium and it's art he hopes to he hopes
that he would be a learner a student in the school of the byzantine art and to
learn something of a great value
4:45something that would make him able that would inspire him and make make
him able to write uh something that would immortalize his name long after his
death you see the poem in the front of
5:00you it is made over eight four stanzas and each stanza is made of eight lions
rhyming a b a b a b c c a very simple rhyme
5:15to assure the musicality of the poem and uh the entire poem is a prayer
raised or you know a prayer in which the speaker prays that um he could defeat
his aging body he could defeat time he could create something
5:30that would be immortal also the the mental divisionary journey to byzantine
provides the speaker with an outlet with an outlet it is a journey of escapism
5:45because he wants to escape reality and uh focus on the world of dreams and
the world of imagination the reason why because he's very frustrated with his
body and he feels uh that he no
6:00longer belong belongs to the sensual physical world and he must focus on the
spiritual world the first stanza uh you know reads like this that is no country for
old men the young in one another's arms birds
6:15and the trees those dying generations are their sound the salmon falls the
mackerel crowded seas fish flesh or fowl command all summer long whatever is
begotten born and dies
6:30caught in the sensual music all neglect monuments of an aging intellect there
that is no country for old men this is a reference to his native country ireland to
dublin the city of his birth
6:45he is now going to give us so many images of youth of youthfulness of you
know the sensual world what he calls the sensual wealth so young lovers linking
arms the birds
7:00coating each other on the trees those dying generations these are all doomed
to death whether the young people or the birds okay the salmon falls the
mackerel crowded sees these are references to the the world of the seed
7:15with kinds of fish which also reproduce in large numbers fish flesh or foul
alliteration you know to emphasize multitude to emphasize
7:30uh number in contrast to you know to quality command all summer long
summer is always associated with youth because spring is associated with birth
autumn is associated with old age and
7:45winter is associated with death whatever is begotten born and dies this is the
symbolism of life existence we are born we grow uh old and finally we die like all
other creatures this is the natural
8:00cause sensual music it is a symbol for the physical world the earthly life the
earthly pleasure okay neglect monuments of an aging intellect he criticizes the
8:15young culture which is more concerned with reproducing with enjoying you
know enjoying life and you know enjoying living they neglect this culture this
young culture
8:30would naturally neglect the great achievements of art in fact the poem opens
with a very strong statement that is no country for old men it is not only strong it
is also final because the poet
8:45does not want anybody to contradict this statement as if he refused to allow
any room for any counter argument he doesn't want anybody to argue against this
statement and this is why it is strong
9:00and even proverbial and universal that is no country for old men dublin or
ireland is no country for old men it is a very young country it is a very young
culture or the young
9:15culture now is occupying the uh center of the country the center of the entire
world in in his native country and he gives us many images that belongs to the this
young culture
9:30it is a culture in which young lovers uh are enjoying courtship reproduction
mating and reproduction and he uses also images from the animal kingdom birds
and salmon mackerel the fish and even fowls
9:45to emphasize that this is a culture of uh reproduction a culture of numbers a
culture of a quantity not a culture of equality this culture is forgetful of a very
important fact
10:00that everything is not everlasting everything will end one day and even now
though they are very focused on enjoying life
10:15and they are caught in the sensual world in the earthly pleasures but still
they are they are going one day to die they they will grow old and die and this is
why because they are forgetful of this fact they neglect the
10:30greatness of art but the speaker in the poem is an old man he knows now
what happens when uh time passes and the body grows old and he realizes that
the entire sensual world is
10:45worthless the physical world the earthly pleasures are all worthless
compared to the greatest achievements of art and this is why uh he describes his
country his native
11:00country as uh not welcoming to the old it is a young culture and it is more
concerned with uh with the with with the youth with youth with the the young
people not with an old man like himself
11:15he feels that this young culture does not pay attention to the old it does not
appreciate their wisdom and their experience and knowledge and it does not also
appreciate art
11:30so um and this is why it is a culture of numbers it is a culture of earthly
pleasures which are uh you know which are not uh everlasting it is these pleasures
are shifting and changing and one day they
11:45will end and therefore he gives us these images of animals mating and
reproducing the fish which reproduce in
12:00in large numbers the birds uh coating uh each other on the trees all these
samples uh signify quantity as opposed to quality
12:15okay again the speaker feels sad and depressed because uh his culture his
culture or the culture of the country he belongs to is more youthful and it is uh
promising to the young and uh welcoming to the young not
12:30to the old they this culture does not appreciate art or or talent it is a
consumerist culture a materialistic culture that is more focused on fulfilling
earthly pleasures
12:45and this culture pays no attention to the art and it pays no attention to the
wisdom as i said and knowledge and experience of the old of the old people
13:00um and this young uh culture or the younger generations live for the present
moment they do not think a lot about the future and naturally they do not think
of the past so they neglect the past and they neglect the future they are
13:15more focused on the present moment and they forget that life and history
repeats itself and the notion of the gyre here is very strong because they forget
that life repeats itself they forget that life has this
13:30psychological nature they are more focused on the present moment on the
immediate present they neglect the art of the past and they neglect a warning
about what is going to happen
13:45in the future so the poet the speaker is now an old man he feels that he he is
no longer in the center of the culture that he the young people occupied the the
now the young
14:00people are occupying the center of the civilization of the culture and they
are pushing the old people to the margins he feels rejected he feels uh
unappreciated and this is why he decided to move from
14:15his native country in a mental journey to the ancient city of uh byzantium in
order to be inspired to refresh his soul to feel to to feel hopeful again
14:30okay this is why the the city this ancient city of the dreams is only a vision
only uh something imaginary something mental that did not take a place in in
reality
14:45but as i said uh this visit this visit to the city to the ancient city of byzantium
is intended to refresh his soul and to give him hope
 Sailing to Byzantium Part 2

0:00in the second stanza which reads an aged man is but a poultry thing a
tartared coat upon a stick
0:15unless saul clap its hands and sing a louder thing for every tata in its mortal
dress nor is their singing school but steadying monuments of its own magnificence
and therefore i have sailed the seas and come to the holy city
0:30of byzantium in the second distance the poet uses a very cruel metaphor to
describe old people he says that an old man is only a worn out
0:45a tartared coat on a stick so the old man is as worn out as shabby and useful
as a scarecrow that only scares the birds okay and um this image as i said is very
cruel but
1:00because he's an old man he he we feel that he has the right to talk about old
age in this very cruel language poetry thing poetry means a worthless thing
1:15little thing tartared as i said a be a piece of a cloth that is filled with holes the
sole clap its hands and sick and sing a club its hands and sing clapping and singing
are symbolic of great
1:30achievement tata a hole or a rip in the body mortal address the body the
physical body the body is described as the mortal dress the soul is the you know
the essence of the human
1:45being and the body the physical body is only a dress a mortal dress singing
school a school that teaches great achievement it is no singing in the literal sense
of
2:00the word singing but singing here represents artistic achievements
monuments great achievements of arts magnificence beauty greatness
2:15okay so in this stanza the poet uses a very uh cruel metaphor as the central
image in the stanza the image or the metaphor over an old man as a scary crow
2:30that only scares the birds however even though the speaker feels uh rather
very sad and pessimistic even though he feels that old people or he himself as an
old man is worthless
2:45there is hope it is not completely without hope i and he is not completely
hopeless he says an old man can change his fate if he has goat the ability to create
something of a great
3:00importance and this is why he sails to byzantium in order to be inspired by
the great art of the city to write something of a great value of timeless value
3:15and his visit to the city is more like a pilgrimage as if he's a pilgrim visiting a
holy city and he calls byzantium holy but it is not only for religious purposes or for
religious reasons it is wholly
3:30because of artistic reasons so he feels himself like a pilgrim an artistic an
artistic pilgrim visiting the holy city of byzantium in order to be inspired
3:45and to have his mental abilities recharged and refreshed okay so he wants to
draw inspiration from the city and he wants to create something that would uh
immortalize his name long after his death and the soul here is personified the
4:00soul can sing and clap its sound so it is personified for the sake of symbolizing
artistic and political
4:15creativity in the third stanza the poet changes his stone a little bit and he is
more hopeful and more pessimistic this is why the third stanza
4:30feels like a prayer as if the poet is raising a prayer and he prays for whom for
the sages for the wise holy men he saw in the mosaics remember wb8 was very
impressed by the gold
4:45by the gold mosaics he saw on the walls of the churches in ravina and he
particularly he was impressed by the
5:00uh mosaics in which sages wise holy men are depicted and he mentions in
particular and describes to the reader a mosaic in which a number of sages a
5:15number of holy wise men uh are standing around god's holy fire okay and uh
standing around the fire the fire the holy fire they make some sort of agile
remember this cyclical
5:30image that the poet uh you know feels uh you know representative feels that
he feels that image is representative of the psychological circular nature of history
repetitive nature of history
5:45and he addresses these sages as his singing masters as the teachers who are
going to teach him how to create something of a great inspiration of great value
and because they were they were standing
6:00around the fire he asked them to consume his heart to consume to burn away
his heart because his heart is sick with desire
6:15but his heart has so many desires his heart is very ambitious but his body is
not allowing his heart to achieve its ambition because his body the dying animal
another very strong metaphor degrading metaphor in which the
6:30body is described as a dying animal earlier in this second distance b h
describes his body as a mortal address now he describes the body as a dying
6:45animal the body does not know uh the the what the heart wants what the
heart desires the body ignores the heart's desire the body cannot keep up with
the heart
7:00and this is why he asked these ages these holy you know men dancing around
god's holy fire to teach him how to create something of a great value and he is
ready to die he says it's all
7:15right for me to die if if my death would ensure that i would be able to create
something of a great value then let it be and remember yates has his own eccles
system his own
7:30mysticism and according to this mystical system fire has a meaning fire for
instance represents the fourth the fourth stage of existence
7:45the stage that prepares for rebirth okay and this is why um he asked the sages
dancing around the fire
8:00to consume his heart to burn him away in their fire in this holy fire to assure
that he would be reborn he would be uh born again that is the notion that he is
you know emphasizing remember this notion is part
8:15of his mysticism of his occult views okay and remember uh fire is part of the
rituals religious rituals in many secular or pagan religions
8:30hinduism for instance buddhism who both buddhist and hindu people burn
the the corpses the bodies of their dead people to ensure that they are going to
be reborn this is their belief they believe in another life and they
8:45feel that fire is the bridge that would take the human being from this world to
the next world so the speaker here in the poem
9:00doesn't hide his uh wish to be reborn as if he he he wear a phoenix you know
this mythical bird which rises from its ashes after it is banned so he again asked
these sages he prays that
9:15these sages would consume and burn away his heart his body to ensure that
he would be created again he wishes he was one of them he wishes that he could
be one of them
9:30one of those sages in the mosaics so he is ready to welcome death if the if his
death would give him a place in eternity would give him a place among those
sages
9:45dancing around the fire in the gold mosaics he was describing to us in the
final stanza which reads out of nature i shall never take my bodily form from
10:00any natural thing but such a form as grecian goldsmith's make of hammered
gold and gold enameling to keep a drowsy emperor awake or set up a golden bow
to sing to lords
10:15and ladies of byzantium of what is past or passing or to come here he gives
us many other images the first image is
10:30the image of the grecian goldsmiths greek goldsmiths those goldsmiths of
ancient greece who used to hammer gold and other expensive and precious
metals to create pieces of art to create jewelry like the ones you see
10:45in the picture and he remembers a particular piece of art a bird a golden bird
which is giving as a gift by uh grecian goldsmiths to one of the emperors of
byzantium
11:00probably there is this story this legend about an emperor who was kept
awake by a singing bird about those things very beautifully okay so here the poet
first of all in in
11:15this last stanza first of all he uh rejects the natural world he rejects the
natural world in favor of the supernatural world just like in the previous stanzas he
uh
11:30rejects mortality he rejects the physical world he rejects the sensual world
now he continues um by rejecting this time the natural world he says i don't want
to be any i don't want to be a part of the natural
11:45world i prefer some world that does not die that does not end he says i i
prefer to be to be a piece of work a piece of art a piece of jewellery like the ones
12:00created by the golden smiths of ancient greece to entertain their drowsy
emperor and uh this emperor obviously
12:15was so drowsy that he uh you know could not you know could not stay
awake for a long time so those aggression those uh greek goldsmith ancient greek
golden smith created
12:30a golden tree a tree of gold and silver and from the branches the boughs of
this golden tree there are hanging birds golding artificial golden birds and these
birds are singing
12:45to the emperor to keep the emperor awake so um this is why he says i don't
want to be par part of the natural world i prefer to be part of the artistic world let
me be one of these birds
13:00in the emperor in the palace of the byzantine emperor which sing so
beautifully and think of the great achievements of the people men and women of
the
13:15ancient city of uh uh byzantium okay so he at first he wants to be one of the
sages in the mosaic so he is ready to be uh one of these pictures one of these
figures
13:30in the and the mosaic the holy uh figures the holy wise figures in the
mosaics because in this case who he would be immortal he would be admired by
everybody and his uh name would be immortalized with you know
13:45would be passed from one generation to another second he says he is ready
to be one of the golden birds hanging from the golden um a tree in the in the
court of one of the uh byzantine
14:00emperors because then again he would be immortal and he would be an
everlasting piece of art and that bird would be singing of the glories and he would
that bird would be singing the
14:15praises of the ladies and the lords of the city of byzantium okay and he does
not want to to sing about to the present time only no he wants to think about
14:30the glories of the past you know of the great history of the city of byzantium
and its people and he wants to sing also the praises of the immediate present but
above all he wants to have a prophetic power
14:45he wants to think about the future he wants to be able to tell the future uh
he wants to be able he wants to be able to uh to tell about the what what will
happen next and in this case he will be
15:00immortal he will be eternal he will not be bound to the dying body so long
after his body dies his memory will continue forever and if you ask my opinion i
would say
15:15that this visionary this mental journey to byzantium inspired wbas to create
two of his greatest poems uh sailing to
15:30byzantium and another poem also entitled byzantium and these two poems
are anthologized almost in every anthology of 20th century verse so these two
poems
15:45ensured that his name would be remembered forever by every student of
poetry by every student of art and his name is always linked to the great city of
byzantium
 The Second Coming Part 1

0:00i'll sing with you the second coming another poem by wbhs and as the title
makes it clear it is based on the notion of the coming of a savior this notion seems
to be shared by almost
0:15all religions all around the world whether these religions are divine like like
the three abrahamic faiths or even secular like hinduism and buddhism uh
0:30judaism christianity and islam each has its own version of the messiah
redeemer and savior somebody who will be sent by god to save humanity and
establish peace and justice in the bible and in particular in the book of revelation
there are many
0:45prophecies regarding the coming of a messiah and these prophecies usually
are linked with the with the apocalypse which is the big vile the big and violent
event that marks the end of the world
1:00so right before the world ends dramatically and violently god will will be
sending a messiah a savior to bring salvation and to save humanity this poem
1:15the second coming is one of wba's most anthologized poems and it was
written in 1919 right after the end of the first world war this war world war one
1:30came with a great shock to humanity because of the amount of destruction
the atrocities committed the death tolls and the casualties and this is why people
called it the great war and they thought it it would it would be the end of all wars
1:45people thought that humanity must have learned its lesson and human
beings would not dare to start a similar war or a war on a large scale like the first
world war
2:00and w b h seems to think otherwise he feels that uh the um that there would
be another war and that humanity would you know would start a war on a a large
scale and there are many reasons for his pessimistic
2:15view regarding uh you know the situation uh one of these reasons are
relevant to the political instability of the time for for example in 1916 and in
ireland the homeland of the poet uh a revolution took place a rebellion
2:30an uprising um when the irish nationalists revolted against the british
occupation of ireland and the british forces suppressed
2:45the rising with the great deal of violence and bloodshed wbhs felt very
disappointed with the british policies in ireland and he wrote his famous
3:00poem eastern 1916 to commemorate the uprising sing the praise the praises
of the heroes and criticized the british you know occupation british troops for
their
3:15violent uh uh and of the revolution in easter rising in the poem eastern 1916
also the poet mixes the political and religious imagery because easter is relevant
to the rise of
3:30jesus christ from the grave according to christianity and it also um easter is is
relevant to the rising the uprising of the irish people against the british occupation
a year after
3:45the irish uprising the russian revolution took place in 1917 and it ended the
long rule of this house the russian russian revolution also was
4:00accompanied by chaos and violence so wba it's felt like christianity is on the
decline and it is going to fall apart and this is why he thought that the that the
notion of the second coming
4:15is worthy uh discussing and and visiting with a twist because wbh's twist
twists the notion of the second coming and instead of the second coming of jesus
christ like a christian
4:30christian people help um you know prophesied the coming of an antichrist a
monastery abused to destroy humanity further this is the poem as you see it and
it is
4:45a regular in shape and is divided into two unequal verses there is hardly any
recognizable rhyme scheme and the second verse is is longer than the
5:00first verse because it gives many visions of a very dark and gloomy future over
which a grotesque beast rules not unknown jesus christ the regularity and the
rough form of the
5:15poem reflect the chaos and the violence in the in you know in reality if we
start with the first stanza
5:30turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer
things fall apart the center cannot hold mere anarchy is loosed upon the world the
blood-dim tide is loosed and everywhere the
5:45ceremony of innocence is drowned the best lack all conviction while the
worst are full of passionate intensity the poem begins with the image of the gia
one of wba's most favorite symbols and
6:00um the gyre symbolizes the psychological nature of history the repetitive
nature of life so the history the history moves in circles and whatever happened in
the past is
6:15going to happen again this is the psychological nature of of the world which
wb8 describes at the very beginning of the first stanza so there is a gyre and this
jaya
6:30is turning uh and it is widening it is turning and widening and the uh turning is
very quite fast um okay and then
6:45uh very quickly he moves to tell us in the second line about a falcon and
falcone and this is another image used by the poet and falconry is a sport usually
7:00birds are trained to capture animals to capture game uh this sport is quite uh
you know favored by the upper classes and nobility and the poet uses uses the
7:15falcon falconer relation to uh symbolize the relationship between god and
people between jesus and the church and between body and mind according to to
the poem the relationship between the falcon and
7:30falcone is broken there is no communication between the falcon and falcana
and the in this case the relationship between god and people is a broken there is
miscommunication
7:45and the communication between jesus and his church is also um is not going
smoothly so uh on or the body and the mind are at odds with each other so this is
a time of great contradiction
8:00a time of opposition things are not going uh smoothly also as he describes
towards the world as a turning jaya he talks about a center the center of
8:15the of the gyre that is going to break because it can't hold any longer the
speed and the violence with which the gyre is turning and widening so uh the
world is spiraling down and because the communication between the
8:30falcon and falconer is uh broken and there is no there is no communication
there there is no um connection between the two so the world is going in
8:45into chaos the bird if the bird represents uh humanity or people or whatever
then the bird is flying aimlessly without any guidance because it cannot hear what
the falconer is uh telling it
9:00so it is a very pessimistic picture of chaos confusion which he later
emphasizes this image he emphasizes uh in the next line when he talks about
9:15anarchy uh as if there were an a wave of anarchy and this wave of anarchy is
engulfing the entire world and anarchy is chaos but also it symbolizes a trauma
9:30and uh psychological disorder in short he wbh is telling us that the world is
going mad it is the world is in in the frenzy anarchy psychopathology is loosened
upon the world
9:45as if the waves of the sea uh were covering land when the tide is high but
what kind of tide he is telling us about it is a blood dimmed tide so the world is
engulfed by
10:00uh you know by blood and when we think of the well of the first world war
and when we think of the bloodshed and the massacres and the blood baths this
image is you know this image fits very beautifully into the picture
10:15and it also reminds us of another biblical reference the reference to the river
nile in egypt when it its water were turned into blood
10:30um after after god punished the egyptians and the pharaoh for not believing
moses and for treating uh the messenger of of god uh badly so again wbh
10:45talk talks about trauma and chaos and madness and he also talks about
[Music] the these things as as if they were punishments sent by god to punish
11:00humanity for their evil and wicked doings okay in the middle of this chaos
naturally innocence dies innocence is murdered and evil is the crowned on top of
the world so it is
11:15um a situation in which uh virtual goodness justice innocence in general in
general are uh defeated while the criminalities in wise and evil win the battle not
only this the worst
11:30uh the worst people or the wicked whatever you call them are strong
enough to push the good people into the margin into the margins so the center of
the world is occupied by the
11:45waste while the best people are pushed to the margins are pushed away
from the center as the poet divides the world into the best and the west he also
criticizes the best he does not
12:00only criticize the worst for the evil and wicked doings they engage in but also
he criticized the best for not being passionate enough for not having the intensity
to fight
12:15and to defeat evil so um the evil could not have won the battle if the um if
the best people if the best put a stop to it if
12:30the best tried their best to put a stop to it so this answer ends with a
defeatist note in which the best are defeated by the worst because the the worst
have the
12:45passion and they have the intensity and this is how they manage to
dominate the world and control everything in it
 The Second Coming Part 2

0:00i'll continue with you discussing the poem the second coming and today i'll be
focusing on the second verse which reads surely some revelation is attanned
0:15surely the second coming is at hand second coming hardly are those words
out when a vast image out of a spiritus one day troubles my sight somewhere in
sounds of the desert a shape with lying body and the head of
0:30a man a gaze of blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its sloth eyes while all
about it real shadows of the indignant desert words the darkness drops again but
now i know
0:45that twenty centuries of a stone asleep where vexed to nightmare by a
rocking cradle and water of beast its our come round at last
1:00slouches towards bethlehem to be born in the first two lines the poet
attempts to revive hope by using the adverb surely twice to emphasize certainty
uh he tells us our revelation is at hand as well as
1:15the second coming is also at hand uh revelation here has two references it
refers to the book of revelation in the bible in in which the prophecies about the
end of the world the apocalypse and the second coming are
1:30listed and revelation is one of wba's symbols which he uses to represent
sensory awareness so awareness is at hand as well as
1:45the prophecies listed in the book of revelation are also born in mind the
second coming also has double meanings and it establishes references with the
the second coming of
2:00jesus christ the return of jesus christ which is mentioned in the in the book of
revelation and the second coming uh is symbolic also of of rebirth and
2:15healing according to wba's own system of mysticism so um the two meanings
are present um however while the reader is curious about the second coming
asking
2:30the reader would the readers would be asking themselves whether the poet
is talking about the return of jesus christ very soon these hopes are dashed away
and the readers would discover that this is they are given a false hope and it is
2:45not the second coming that the poem is talking about the poet twists the
notion of the second coming instead of the return of jesus christ from the from
death
3:00the poet talks about the return of something or the coming of something
[Music] hideous something dangerous something a frightening and from the
spiritus mundi another uh
3:15you know uh the spirit of mandy spiritus mandy represents the primitive
world it is one of wva's symbols and from the world from this this world uh
nothing good is going to be
3:30[Music] returning it is not the return of jesus christ the savior but as i said
something dangerous something and friendly and the world is described as a vast
a vast desert a very big wide desert
3:45with sand hill stretching um you know in it from behind these sand hills a
monaster will will be coming out will emerge that monster will be walking slowly
with its body which is
4:00the body of an of of the line of an animal and the head of a man and the lying
body is again one of wba's symbols and it is symbolic of the primal power and the
brain
4:15so the monster looks very much like this phoenix in giza egypt but it is not this
phoenix it is something hideous something more dangerous something um more
like an antichrist so instead of the
4:30return of the cro of the christ of the savior w b h in this poem talks about the
emergence of a monster of an
4:45antichrist this creature which looks like this phoenix is hideous and horrifying
it was a very careless and cruel look it does not have compassion um
5:00it is as burning hot as a scorching as the desert sun and wbh tells us that this
monster is half animal half a human being so um in in this way the poet
emphasizes the fact that
5:15humanity also is responsible for the birth of this monastery so um the
humanity human beings who um you know who committed atrocities of
bloodshed and
5:30sins and horrible and horrifying things are responsible for the creation of this
pitiless uh cruel accrual monaster which which is walking slowly causing
destruction and death
5:45in its wake okay and he tells us that as this beast walks you know and
advances destruction and death is left behind destruction and death are left
behind
6:00therefore the desert was the the desert birds which uh symbolize the
inhabitants of the world all the creatures of the world and these birds are
indignant
6:15are annoyed are disturbed by the movement of the of the beast and they fly
in circles above the beast and only their shadows fall on the um on the on the
desert on the sand
6:30around the beast and to complete the epoc a very apocalyptic picture the
poet tells us that the world would you know uh drop into darkness as if the sun
and the moon
6:45are eclipsed and the world uh you know is it drowned in in darkness is
wrapped in darkness and the atmosphere is completely apocalyptic and it is an a
nightmare of darkness and fear that the poet
7:00describes so um as this beast advances as it moves slowly forward the world
is is dropping into darkness and the atmosphere is completely
7:15frightening and nightmarish of course the poet mentions that for 20 centuries
for 2 000 years people enjoyed a time of peace and um and why is that because
evil was
7:30asleep and it's a stony tomb all these 2 000 years as the humanity was given a
reprieve from evil for a while and though the cradle is usually associated with the
birth of jesus
7:45christ usually the church of nativity in bethlehem is described as the location
of the birth of the christ so even though the cradle is very much
8:00connected with the birth of the christ but in fact wbh doesn't talk about the
birth of jesus jesus christ doesn't um talk about the birth of anything of of value or
anything that would bring peace or
8:15justice to the world he talks about the birth of of a monster okay so 20
centuries after the death of jesus christ on the cross because remember the
christian people believe
8:30that christ was crucified and the um and he was uh you know buried in a
grave in in the church of the holy sepulchre
8:45wbas as i said he reverses the situation so it is not the rise of jesus christ from
from his grave from his tomb the church of the holy sepulchre as they believed
9:00he talks about the emergence of an antichrist that would destroy the world
would bring ruin and destruction to the world it is not jesus christ it's not the birth
of the messiah or the
9:15savior whose appearance was emergence is supposed to bring peace and
peace and justice and prosperity to the world
9:30of course the poet here uses all these images and and symbols to criticize the
horrifying reality of our in in charitable world the world is marked by cruelty
9:45by lack of compassion by hatred the wars um and particularly the first world
war left behind a great deal of death and massacres so as if these horrible things
these evil doings of the human beings
10:00uh vexed this beast made him wake up from its stone asleep as if the beast
was asleep for uh two thousand years but because of uh sins because of vice
because of the evil of the human beings
10:15this beast is uh vexed to wake up and cause destruction so uh wbhs expect a
very big change of of an evil nation nature to take a place uh and he expects or he
prophesies
10:30that the world would be stormed by even more violence and more
wickedness and as i said the bethlehem is associated with the with the birth of
10:45jesus christ it is associated with the rise of the christ resurrection of jesus
christ but here uh wbats expect that um a beast is marching towards uh towards
bethlehem to be born there to control the world
11:00from there so again as i said he reverses and twists the notion of the second
coming the notion of the rebirth of jesus christ to emphasize that danger is
impending that the world is
11:15threatened by a huge wave of danger and death okay on the symbolic level if
we talk about symbols um wbas tells us that
11:30one episode of violence has ended but more episodes of violence will be
happening very soon and once violence starts once it is unleashed there is no way
to stop it it will not stop before it destroys everything and the cost is going to be
11:45very high and it happened indeed when the second war world war broke in
1939 hitler and nazism gained power and they led the world to destructions
12:00to destruction and the horrors of the second world war were unheard of the
concentration comes as you see in the pictures the gas chambers
12:15the bombing of civilians and of cities the massacres were simply horrible and
the world indeed plunged into utter darkness so even though the beast or the
antichrist wbh
12:30talks about is not realized per se as it is the evil doings the horrifying actions
wbhs describes in the poem were soon to happen when the the second world war
uh broke so
12:45the poem is very symbolic and it is uh really a criticism leveled against all the
humanity for the cruelty the hatred the violence the the lack of kindness the lack
of compassion uh as if there were there was
13:00a a giant or um there was a beast asleep but the the amount of evil the
amount of destruction and violence
13:15human beings are able to to cause made that beast wake up and destroy
whatever left of the world