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English 7 Online
OpenStudy (superhelp101):

could somebody help me understand this poem, please? :)

OpenStudy (superhelp101):

Turing 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

OpenStudy (anonymous):

There's much more to this poem. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

OpenStudy (superhelp101):

yes ik but the 4 lines are the only ones i have to worry about

OpenStudy (anonymous):

"The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot from its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing. In the fourth line, the poem abruptly shifts into a description of "anarchy" and an orgy of violence in which "the ceremony of innocence is drowned." The speaker laments that only bad people seem to have any enthusiasm nowadays." Source: http://www.shmoop.com/second-coming/summary.html

OpenStudy (superhelp101):

yeah, yeah, alright thanks :)

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