Modernism and the Poet in the Emergency Room: Yeats at the Brink
This blog is written as a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir (Department of English, MKBU). A Critical Analysis of W.B. Yeats's Modernist Vision and Its Contemporary Relevance.
Here are the links to the reference materials for this task:
[Dr. Dilip Barad Sir's Blog - Yeats Poems]
[ResearchGate - W.B. Yeats's Poems Analysis]
Here is Mindmap of My Blog: Click Here
Here is Infograph of My Blog:
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The Emergency Room of History: A Triage of the Soul
Navigating through jagged landscape of 20th-century literature, I find that the metaphor of the "Emergency Room" is not merely illustrative it is essential. If the Victorian era was a curated garden of stable hierarchies and progress-oriented teleology, the dawn of Modernism was a multi-car collision on a dark, uncharted highway. The poets of this era T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and most pivotally, W.B. Yeats were thrust into the role of triage surgeons, forced to operate on a civilization that was bleeding out from the wounds of the Great War, the Irish Revolution, and a global pandemic.
Modernism emerged as a visceral response to an ontological emergency. The traditional forms of the 19th century the neat sonnet, the reliable narrator, the belief in a benevolent arc of history flatlined. When we speak of the "Poet in the Emergency Room," we are discussing the artist’s desperate search for a lexicon of trauma. Yeats, standing at this historical threshold, represents a fascinating synthesis: he was a mystic of the "Old World" forced to perform emergency surgery on the "New World" of chaos and fragmentation.
AboutWilliam Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) — The Voice of Irish Modernism
W. B. Yeats stands as one of the most complex voices of Modernism, a poet who responded to war and violence not through direct reportage but through philosophical distance and symbolic vision. His attitudes toward war are best understood through a comparative reading of On Being Asked for a War Poem and The Second Coming, which together reveal his distinctive poetic ethics.
In On Being Asked for a War Poem, Yeats explicitly rejects the expectation that a poet should offer political guidance or patriotic encouragement during wartime. Written during World War I, the poem asserts that poetry has “no gift to set a statesman right.” Yeats positions the poet not as a public moralist but as a private artist whose duty lies in celebrating “love” and “beauty.” This stance reflects his belief that poetry loses its integrity when it becomes propaganda. His silence here is deliberate: a refusal to simplify the moral complexity of war or to exploit suffering for rhetorical effect.
By contrast, The Second Coming confronts violence and historical crisis head-on, but in a radically different mode. Instead of addressing a specific war, Yeats transforms the chaos of the post-war world into a mythic and apocalyptic vision. Images such as the “widening gyre,” “mere anarchy,” and the monstrous figure “slouching towards Bethlehem” express a profound sense of civilizational breakdown. Here, Yeats does not comment on war as an event; he interprets it as a symptom of a larger historical and spiritual collapse.
Taken together, these poems reveal Yeats’s paradoxical relationship with war. In On Being Asked for a War Poem, he refuses direct engagement, protecting poetry from political misuse. In The Second Coming, he confronts the consequences of war indirectly, using symbolism and prophecy to articulate a deeper truth about modern history. Thus, Yeats remains neither a soldier-poet nor an escapist aesthete; instead, he emerges as a Modernist thinker who transforms political crisis into enduring symbolic form, preserving poetry’s autonomy while still capturing the terror and uncertainty of his age.
Section 1: Detailed Analysis Of Poems
I. The Anatomy of a World in Shock: "The Second Coming"
- Chaos and Anarchy: The opening imagery the "widening gyre" and the "falcon [that] cannot hear the falconer" is presented as a metaphor for a world spinning out of control .
- Civilizational Collapse: Lines like "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold" reflect the disintegration of European civilization and the lack of sanity among world leaders during the period of the Russian and Irish revolutions .
- The Sphinx/Beast: Instead of a peaceful return of Christ, Yeats describes a "vast image out of spiritus mundi" (a collective universal memory) . This "rough beast" with a lion’s body and a man’s head represents a terrifying new era rather than a traditional savior .
- Bethlehem: The reference to the beast "slouching towards Bethlehem" subverts the birthplace of Jesus to suggest the birth of a monstrous, apocalyptic age .
- Personal Connection: The lecturer points out that while Yeats was writing this poem in 1919, his pregnant wife, Georgie, was nearly dying of the Spanish Flu, which had a 70% mortality rate for pregnant women at the time .
- Feverish Imagery: The "blood-dimmed tide" is re-interpreted through the physical symptoms of the flu (bleeding from the nose/mouth) and the feeling of "drowning" in fluid-filled lungs.
- The Invisible Beast: The "beast" is analyzed as a potential metaphor for the invisible, pitiless virus that brings about an apocalyptic state of mind.
- Apocalypse: The lecture defines "apocalyptic imagery" as a prophecy of total destruction .
- The Best vs. The Worst: The lecturer draws a parallel to modern times, noting that "the best lack all conviction" (those following safety protocols) while "the worst are full of passionate intensity" (those ignoring risks).
- Spiritus Mundi: Defined as a "world spirit" or "collective unconscious" from which poets derive their haunting inspirations .
"The Second Coming" (1919) stands as the definitive medical report on a civilization in systemic failure. It captures the precise moment when the "vitals" of Western society began to fail, and the heartbeat of tradition ceased to be audible.
The Centrifugal Disintegration of Order
The poem opens with a terrifying loss of kinetic control. Yeats utilizes the "gyre" his esoteric symbol of historical cycles to describe a world that has spiraled beyond its gravitational anchor. When he writes that the "falcon cannot hear the falconer," he is diagnosing a fatal severance. The falcon (humanity’s intellect and agency) has drifted so far from the falconer (the source of tradition, spirit, and divine authority) that the lines of communication are severed. In the ER of history, this is the moment of neurological disconnect; the body no longer responds to the brain.
This leads inevitably to the most quoted diagnosis in Modernist history: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." This is more than a statement of disorder; it is a structural observation of the collapse of the "center" the shared moral and social truths that keep a civilization cohesive. Yeats suggests that the internal pressures of modernity have reached a breaking point where "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
The Blood-Dimmed Tide and the Paralysis of the Just
In a state of emergency, the boundaries between the internal and external are often breached. Yeats observes that the "blood-tide" is no longer contained within the veins of the social contract but has become a deluge. By asserting that "the ceremony of innocence is drowned," Yeats laments the destruction of the rituals marriage, baptism, civic law that render life meaningful. These ceremonies are the "sterile field" of the surgeon, now contaminated by raw, unmediated violence.
Perhaps the most haunting symptom Yeats identifies is a psychological inversion of power: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." This describes a state of ethical paralysis. The intellectuals and "good" men are crippled by a Hamlet-like indecision, while the demagogues and destroyers those fueled by the "passionate intensity" of totalitarianism seize the operating theater.
The Revelation of the Rough Beast: A Post-Christian Prognosis
The second movement of the poem shifts from diagnosis to a terrifying prognosis. Yeats looks into the Spiritus Mundi the collective storehouse of images and sees not the return of a savior, but the arrival of a predator. He describes "A shape with lion body and the head of a man / A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun." This is the "New Patient" in the emergency room: a post-human entity characterized by an impersonal, mechanistic cruelty.
The poem concludes with an interrogative that leaves the reader in a state of permanent suspense: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" By juxtaposing the "rough beast" with "Bethlehem," Yeats subverts the Christian promise of redemption. The emergency has not produced a cure; it has birthed a nightmare that is "slouching" toward the very heart of the sacred.
II. The Surgeon’s Refusal: "On being asked for a War Poem"
The lecture on "On Being Asked for a War Poem" provides a dual analysis of W.B. Yeats’s 1915 poem, looking at both the internal language of the text and the external history that shaped it.
1. The Irony of Silence
The core of the lecture focuses on the poem's central argument: that in times of war, a "poet's mouth be silent." The lecturer points out the deep irony that Yeats is using a poem to declare his refusal to write poetry about the war. This "refusal as ascent" acts as a way for the poet to maintain his artistic integrity while being pressured by the state to provide propaganda.
2. The Conflict: Poet vs. Statesman
The analysis highlights the line "we have no gift to set a statesman right."
- Truth vs. Politics: The lecturer explains that during a war, politicians (statesmen) provide a specific kind of "rightful" truth centered on nationalism and sacrifice.
- The Poet’s Domain: Yeats suggests that a poet’s "truth" is different and potentially unheard during the "madness" of war. Therefore, Yeats argues the poet should stay in the realm of the personal—writing for the "young girl" (representing youth/unripeness) or the "old man" (representing wisdom and the end of life).
3. Political and Historical Context
A major part of the analysis involves Yeats’s identity as an Irish Nationalist:
- Anti-Colonial Stance: Because Ireland was under British rule in 1915, Yeats felt no patriotic duty toward the British war effort. He viewed the World War as an "expensive outbreak of insolence and stupidity."
- Resistance to Propaganda: The lecturer explains that Yeats’s Irish blood "boiled" at the idea of being used by British "statesmen" to wave the flag. His refusal to write a traditional war poem was a political act of decolonization.
4. Literary and Philosophical Connections
The lecturer places the poem in a broader literary conversation:
- Against Shelley: The analysis contrasts Yeats’s stance with P.B. Shelley’s famous claim that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." While Shelley believed poets should influence law and society, Yeats argues here that poets should not "meddle" in the affairs of politicians.
- Link to Auden: The lecture connects Yeats’s attitude to W.H. Auden’s later observation that "poetry makes nothing happen," suggesting that art cannot (and perhaps should not) attempt to solve political or military conflicts.
If "The Second Coming" is the poet diagnosing a global hemorrhage, "On being asked for a War Poem" (1915) is the poet’s refusal to allow his art to be used as a political instrument. In this brief but potent work, Yeats establishes the ethical boundaries of the "Modernist Surgeon."
The Strategic Withdrawal of the Lyric Voice
During the height of World War I, poets were frequently conscripted by the state to provide "patriotic" versesliterary bandages to mask the gore of the trenches. Yeats’s response is a radical act of artistic autonomy. He declares, "I think it better that in times like these / A poet's mouth be silent." This silence is not an admission of defeat; it is a recognition of the limits of language. In the deafening roar of the "emergency," the poet’s lyric voice is too delicate to "fix" the carnage. Silence becomes a form of resistance against the cheapening of tragedy through propaganda.
The Rejection of Political Meddling
Yeats draws a sharp distinction between the "statesman" the administrator of the emergency and the "poet" the witness to the human condition. He admits with a paradoxical pride that "we have no gift to set a statesman right." Here, the "ER Surgeon" recognizes that while he can observe the trauma, he cannot (and should not) attempt to manage the geopolitical forces that caused the accident. To "meddle" in the state’s affairs is to compromise the clarity required for art.
Internal Triage: The Preservation of Beauty
Yeats suggests that the poet’s true responsibility in an emergency is not to the "bloody" present, but to the "pleasant" past. He argues that the one who truly serves is the one "who can please / A young girl in the indolence of her youth, / Or an old man upon a winter’s night." In the medical metaphor, this is the act of preserving the "vital organs" of culture joy, beauty, and human connection while the war rages outside. Yeats chooses to sit with the "dying" and the "living" to offer the comfort of aesthetic perfection rather than attempting to rewrite the hospital’s policy.
III. The Clinical Schism: Modernist Conflict and Resolution
The tension between these two poems highlights a fundamental conflict in the Modernist psyche: the choice between representing the trauma or retreating from it.
Representational Trauma vs. Aesthetic Autonomy
In "The Second Coming," Yeats uses his "medical tools" imagery, meter, and symbolism to lay bare the wound. He forces the reader to look at the "moving sands" and the "indignant desert birds." This is the poet as a realist of the subconscious. Conversely, in "On being asked for a War Poem," he argues that the wound is too deep for representation. By choosing silence, he protects the "patient" (the poem) from being infected by the "statesman's" ideology.
The Post-War Complications
As we look deeper into Yeats's later work, we see the long-term effects of these "emergency surgeries." The "rough beast" he predicted in 1919 arguably arrived in the form of the mid-century dictatorships. The "silence" he advocated for in 1915 eventually evolved into a complex, often elitist, detachment. For the postgraduate researcher, this raises a vital question: Does the poet have a moral obligation to operate, or is their highest calling to keep the "operating theater" of art free from the filth of the world?
IV. Synthesis: Triage, Transcendence, and the Modernist Legacy
The juxtaposition of these two poems reveals the complex, often contradictory role of the Modernist poet. In "The Second Coming," we see the poet as a prophetic witness, screaming "Code Blue" as the systemic structures of the West collapse. In "On being asked for a War Poem," we see the poet as a protective guardian, refusing to let the chaos of the emergency room invade the sacred space of the lyric.
One poem is an act of radical engagement with the horror of history; the other is an act of radical detachment in the name of aesthetic integrity. Together, they define the Modernist condition: the realization that the world is "falling apart," coupled with the stubborn belief that art must remain independent of the very chaos it describes.
we must recognize that Yeats’s "Emergency Room" has never truly closed. We still live in an era where the "centre cannot hold," where "passionate intensity" often replaces reasoned conviction, and where the state still asks the artist for "war poems" to justify its blood-tides. Yeats’s legacy is his dual mandate: to diagnose the beast with unflinching clarity, while guarding the "ceremony of innocence" that makes the struggle for survival worthwhile.
Section 2: Hindi Podcast Reflection - Modernist Despair in an Indian Context
Analysis: The Interplay of War, Politics, and Pandemic in W.B. Yeats' Poetry
This analysis explores the themes presented in the podcast "The Second Coming and On Being Asked for a War Poem," focusing on how William Butler Yeats responded to the dual crises of the early 20th century: World War I and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.
1. "On Being Asked for a War Poem": The Ethics of Silence
In 1915, during the height of the First World War, prominent literary figures Henry James and Edith Wharton requested a patriotic poem from Yeats for a charity book supporting refugees. Yeats’ response was an eight-line poem that effectively functioned as a refusal.
Key Analytical Points:
The Poet’s Role vs. The Politician’s Duty: Yeats argued that in times of war, a poet should remain silent. He distinguished between the politician’s "right" (often rooted in nationalism) and the poet’s "truth" (which is more complex and humanistic).
Silence as Resistance: For Yeats, an Irishman living under British rule, writing a British patriotic poem was a political impossibility. His refusal to take a side was a deliberate act of maintaining neutrality in a world demanding binary allegiances.
The Irony of the Act: Yeats wrote a poem to explain why he wouldn't write a poem, using verse to criticize the expectation that art should serve the state's propaganda machine.
2. "The Second Coming": A Traditional Political Reading
Written in 1919, "The Second Coming" is often viewed as the definitive poem of the 20th century’s "age of anxiety." The traditional interpretation focuses on the political and spiritual disintegration of Europe following World War I.
Traditional Imagery:
The Gyre: Yeats’ philosophical concept of 2000-year historical cycles. He believed the era of Christianity was ending, making way for a darker, more irrational age.
The Centrifugal Force: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." This reflects the collapse of old empires, the Russian Revolution, and the chaos of the Irish War of Independence.
The Beast: The "rough beast" slouching toward Bethlehem subverts the Christian expectation of a savior, representing instead a terrifying, inhuman future.
3. The "Viral Modernism" Perspective: The Spanish Flu
A major highlight of the video is the analysis based on Elizabeth Outka’s research, which suggests that "The Second Coming" is as much about the 1918 Spanish Flu as it is about war.
Personal Context:
While Yeats was writing the poem, his pregnant wife, Georgie, was fighting for her life against the Spanish Flu. The mortality rate for pregnant women at the time was as high as 70%. This personal proximity to death deeply colored the poem's imagery.
Re-interpreting the Imagery:
The Blood-Dimmed Tide: Traditionally seen as a metaphor for the carnage of war, Outka suggests a clinical reality. A primary symptom of the 1918 flu was massive hemorrhaging from the nose and mouth; patients literally "drowned" in their own blood.
The Drowning of Innocence: The phrase "ceremony of innocence is drowned" may refer to the specific danger to mother and unborn child, as well as the literal drowning sensation caused by fluid filling the lungs.
The Faceless Beast: Unlike war, where the enemy has a face and a uniform, a virus is invisible and indifferent. The "blank and pitiless" gaze of the beast reflects the nature of a biological threat that kills without ideology or mercy.
4. Conclusion: A Synthesis of Horrors
The video concludes that these two interpretations the political and the biological do not contradict each other; rather, they coexist. The personal trauma of the pandemic provided the "raw emotional fuel" for the poem’s broader apocalyptic vision.
Yeats moved from the calculated silence of 1915 to a primal scream in 1919. By stripping specific historical names (like Marie Antoinette) from his early drafts, he transformed the poem into a universal warning about faceless, unstoppable forces that continue to resonate in our modern era of global health crises and political instability.
Section 3: The Yeats Study
Yeats and the Chaos of History: Disintegration and the Apolitical Muse
William Butler Yeats remains one of the most complex figures in modern literature, standing at the intersection of Romantic mysticism and the harsh realities of the 20th century. Two of his most discussed works The Second Coming and On Being Asked for a War Poem—offer a profound look at how a poet responds to a world in transition. While one captures the visceral terror of a collapsing civilization, the other suggests a strategic withdrawal from the political fray.
1. Imagery of Disintegration in "The Second Coming"
Written in 1919, in the wake of World War I and the Irish Easter Rising, The Second Coming is a masterclass in using imagery to convey "disintegration" the literal and spiritual falling apart of the world order. Yeats employs several layers of symbolism to illustrate this collapse.
The Gyre and the Loss of Control
The poem opens with the famous image of the "widening gyre." In Yeats’s mystical system, history moves in 2,000-year conical spirals.
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer;"
This imagery suggests a breakdown of communication and authority. The falcon, representing humanity or civilization, has flown so far from its center (the falconer) that it can no longer be controlled. This creates an immediate sense of centrifugal force, where things are literally flying apart.
The Blood-Dimmed Tide
Yeats shifts from the air to the earth, using liquid imagery to suggest an overwhelming, unstoppable force.
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed..."
The "blood-dimmed tide" is a powerful image of the carnage of war. Unlike a clear tide, this one is choked with the debris of humanity. By stating the "centre cannot hold," Yeats evokes a structural failure—like a building collapsing because its foundation has rotted.
The "Spiritus Mundi" and the Beast
The second half of the poem introduces the most terrifying image of disintegration: the "rough beast." This is not the Christian savior, but a "shape with lion body and the head of a man," moving through the desert. Its "gaze blank and pitiless as the sun" suggests a shift from human-centric morality to a cold, ancient, and inhuman force. The disintegration here is of our very definition of divinity and progress.
2. Should Poetry Be Apolitical? Analyzing "On Being Asked for a War Poem"
In his brief poem On Being Asked for a War Poem (1915), Yeats famously argues that the poet should keep silent during times of political upheaval.
"I think it better that in times like these / A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth / We have no gift to set a statesman right;"
The Argument for Apolitical Poetry
Yeats’s assertion rests on the idea that the poet’s true domain is "the young / In one another's arms," or the "pleasing" aspects of life. He suggests that:
- Limited Efficacy: Poets are not "statesmen." Their art cannot solve logistical or geopolitical conflicts.
- Preservation of Art: By entering the political arena, poetry risks becoming propaganda, losing its timeless, aesthetic quality.
- Dignity of the Muse: Yeats believed that a poet’s task is to provide a "moment's stay against confusion" rather than adding to the noise of war.
The Counter-Argument: Why Poetry Must Be Political
While Yeats’s desire to protect art is understandable, many modern critics and poets (like Wilfred Owen or Seamus Heaney) would disagree with his stance for several reasons:
- The Poet as Witness: Poetry has a moral obligation to bear witness. If the "blood-dimmed tide" is loosed, the poet who remains silent may be seen as complicit. As Wilfred Owen wrote, "The Poetry is in the pity," and that pity requires engaging with the suffering of war.
- Challenging the Hegemony: Statesmen often control the narrative of war. Poetry provides a "counter-history" a human perspective that statistics and news reports miss.
- The Inevitability of Politics: Politics is not just about voting; it is about power, identity, and survival. To remain "apolitical" is often a privilege of those not directly under fire.
3. Creative Activity: A Modernist Reflection
Drawing on Yeats’s themes of cyclical history and the breakdown of order, the following poem reflects on a contemporary global crisis the digital fragmentation and environmental decay of the 21st century.
The Silicon Gyre
Scrawling and scrolling in the flickering light,
The user cannot find the source;
Servers groan beneath the weight of spite,
And binary tides take their course.
The algorithm breaks; the core cannot contain
The surge of data-mirage and manufactured pain;
Mere static is loosed upon the wires,
The logic-dimmed screen is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of truth is drowned in fires.
The best lack connection, while the worst
Are full of viral intensity and thirst.
Surely some update is at hand;
Surely the System reboot is near.
System reboot! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image from the Cloud
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the cooling sands
A server farm with lithium heart and cobalt hands,
A gaze cold and automated as a drone,
Is moving its slow fans, while all about it
Reel shadows of the data-ghosts we own.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty decades of progress-sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a humming deep,
And what cold engine, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards the city to broadcast?
Explanation of the Poem
"The Silicon Gyre" serves as a modern pastiche of Yeats’s The Second Coming, transposing early 20th-century anxieties into the digital age.
The Digital Gyre: Just as Yeats used the falcon and falconer to show a loss of control, this poem uses the "user" and the "source." In the age of misinformation and complex algorithms, humanity has lost its "connection" to objective truth, spiraling into echo chambers.
Binary Tides vs. Blood-Dimmed Tides: Yeats’s imagery of physical carnage is replaced here by "binary tides" and "static." This represents a different kind of disintegration: the breakdown of logic and the "drowning" of truth in the sheer volume of digital noise
The New "Rough Beast": The "shape with lion body" is reimagined as a "server farm." This represents the physical infrastructure of our virtual world hidden in "cooling sands" (deserts) and powered by "lithium" and "cobalt" (often mined under harsh conditions). It is a "cold engine," an automated, pitiless force that governs modern life without human empathy.
The "Broadcast" as Revelation: Yeats’s beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born; this beast "slouches towards the city to broadcast." The revelation isn't a physical presence but a total saturation of our consciousness by technology, suggesting that our "progress" has merely awakened a new, inhuman nightmare
4. Analytical Comparison: Yeats vs. The Soldier Poets
To fully understand the weight of Yeats’s apolitical stance, we must compare it with the "Soldier Poets" like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, who wrote from the trenches of World War I.
Aesthetic Distance vs. Visceral Reality
Yeats’s approach is defined by aesthetic distance. He views war as a distraction from the "proper" subjects of poetry love and beauty. In contrast, Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est presents the "visceral reality" of war. While Yeats remains silent to avoid being a "statesman," Owen speaks to expose the "old Lie" told by statesmen.
The Purpose of Poetry
For Yeats, poetry is a refuge: "We have no gift to set a statesman right." However, for Siegfried Sassoon, poetry is a weapon of protest. In poems like Suicide in the Trenches, Sassoon attacks the "smug-faced crowds" who cheer for war, using verse to force a confrontation with the psychological trauma of combat.
Pity and Truth
Yeats prioritizes the pleasing over the painful. Owen, however, famously stated in his preface: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity." Where Yeats sees political silence as a way to preserve the dignity of the muse, Owen and Sassoon see silence as a betrayal of the truth.
Conclusion: Silence or Testimony-Two Ethics of Poetry
The contrast between W. B. Yeats and the Soldier Poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon reveals not a simple opposition between right and wrong, but two fundamentally different ethical visions of poetry.
Yeats’s refusal to write direct war poetry emerges from his Modernist belief in aesthetic autonomy. For him, poetry must remain detached from immediate political demands, preserving its symbolic power, musicality, and spiritual dignity. His silence is not indifference but a deliberate resistance to propaganda and moral simplification. By maintaining distance, Yeats seeks to protect poetry from becoming a tool of the state or the crowd.
In contrast, Owen and Sassoon redefine poetry as moral witness. Writing from lived experience, they collapse the gap between art and suffering. For them, silence in the face of mass death is not neutrality but complicity. Their poetry rejects aesthetic distance in favor of urgency, exposure, and protest turning verse into a means of ethical confrontation.
Ultimately, this comparison shows that Modernist poetry does not speak with a single voice. Yeats embodies poetry as contemplation and preservation, while Owen and Sassoon embody poetry as testimony and resistance. Together, they map the full moral terrain of twentieth-century literature demonstrating that poetry can either guard the sanctity of art or risk itself in the name of truth. The power of modern poetry lies precisely in this tension, where silence and speech each claim their own difficult integrity.
Here is My Presentation Upon Blog:
References:
- Barad, Dilip. "W.B. Yeats Poems." Dilip Barad | Teacher Blog, May 2021. [Blog Post]
- Barad, Dilip. W.B. Yeats's Poems: The Second Coming - On Being Asked for a War Poem. ResearchGate, 2024. [ResearchGate]
- Bauska, Barry. “Yeats: A Case for Resurrection.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, 1979, pp. 52–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/25512451. Accessed 27 Dec. 2025.
- Brooker, Jewel Spears. “‘The Second Coming’ and ‘The Waste Land’: Capstones of the Western Civilization Course.” College Literature, vol. 13, no. 3, 1986, pp. 240–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25111707. Accessed 27 Dec. 2025.
- Deane, Seamus. “‘The Second Coming’: Coming Second; Coming in a Second.” Irish University Review, vol. 22, no. 1, 1992, pp. 92–100. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25484467. Accessed 27 Dec. 2025.
- Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poetry Foundation, 1920. [Poetry Foundation - Full Text]
- Wheeler, Richard P. “Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’: What Rough Beast?” American Imago, vol. 31, no. 3, 1974, pp. 233–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26303059. Accessed 27 Dec. 2025.
- Wikipedia. "W.B. Yeats." [Wikipedia Profile]
- Wikipedia. "The Second Coming (poem)." [Wikipedia Overview]
- Wikipedia. "Modernism." [Wikipedia Overview]
- Yeats, W.B. "The Second Coming." Poetry Foundation, 1919. [Poetry Foundation - Full Text]
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