"Spiritus Mundi" is Latin, meaning "spirit" or "soul of the world." According to the Norton Anthology of English Literature (see annotation below), the phrase refers to "the spirit or soul of the universe, with which all individual souls are connected through the 'Great Memory,' which Yeats held to be a universal subconscious in which the human race preserves its past memories. It is thus a source of symbolic images for the poet" (1881, footnote).
Thanks
Could I have your ideas on this poem dlowan?
Which bits?
Or, more reasonably, start with what you think, and I'll bounce off you.
I LOVE this poem.
Okay
When I read some stuff on a website (called wandering minstrels), a word, paganism was frequently noted. It seems that, "the rough beast" is not supposed to mean Jesus, or Christian church, but the pagan religion (symbolized as a sphinx in the poem) which was nearly wiped out after christianity was firmly established. I don't have any idea about this. And I don't know if it really has something to do with the poet, or the poem. And I want to know, whether my grasp on the religious implication of the poem is correct. (Since I am still very ignorant in this religious field)
Here is another one
Quote:Byzantium
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
-- William Butler Yeats
Very mythological, and very dandified piece. And also because I can feel this poem, analysis will not be needed.
But a little question on the last sentence:
"Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea."
Too many "that"s for me. I even cannot understand the structure. Which begets which?
Thank you JB
J-B wrote:Here is another one
Quote:Byzantium
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
-- William Butler Yeats
Very mythological, and very dandified piece. And also because I can feel this poem, analysis will not be needed.
But a little question on the last sentence:
"Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea."
Too many "that"s for me. I even cannot understand the structure. Which begets which?
Thank you JB
Those images do the begetting...and they beget fresh images.
(I'll be back later with the previous poem stuff.)
J-B wrote:Quote: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?
-- William Butler Yeats
Frankly speaking, this The Second Coming is my favourite poem so far. I first time heard it with a few lines in the movie Nixon. And First time I read it as a whole, as I probably said before, I was tucked into the bed--- And it cost me a great deal of sleep time.
This poem is, powerful.
In the first part, with a lost falcon, a collapsing world, a blood-dimmed tide, successfully and forcefully created a vision of Apocalypse.
Who will save us from this gloomy end?
Christ?
No, the second part quickly denied this suggestion. It's effect is even more chilling, by depicting the returning of Jesus Christ as a lonely, ghastly sphinx, a rough beast, "slouching", against a backdrop of a vast, spooky, desert.
The whole poem is just so frustrating, it's like saying "See, that's the end of all time, all living, and you shouldn't expect anyone, anything to save you, because they might be more evil."
But as I said, it is powerful as well.
This is my first time try to analyze, or simply say something on a poem. (I think I should do much more if I really want to analyze it. Oh maybe I just shouldn't analyze it?) Have I grasped the general feeling of this poem correctly?
BTW, what does Spiritus Mundi mean?
Thank you. JB
J-B wrote:Okay
When I read some stuff on a website (called wandering minstrels), a word, paganism was frequently noted. It seems that, "the rough beast" is not supposed to mean Jesus, or Christian church, but the pagan religion (symbolized as a sphinx in the poem) which was nearly wiped out after christianity was firmly established. I don't have any idea about this. And I don't know if it really has something to do with the poet, or the poem. And I want to know, whether my grasp on the religious implication of the poem is correct. (Since I am still very ignorant in this religious field)
I love the power of the poem, too. Before you have a look at what peopl ehave written about it, just tell me a bit about how you reacted, what you love about it? How did it cost you sleep?
The second coming is certainly not that of Jesus!
Ok....Yeats has a sort of personal mythology and language, and it may help to have some explanation of some of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)
What do you think of that?
Here is another person writing about Yeats, and this poem:
http://www.cordula.ws/authors/yeatswb.html
Here is someone's long essay:
http://danielhocutt.com/pdf_files/yeats.pdf
A different view:
http://vincent.vanscherpenseel.nl/school/get.php?id=269
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?
It's been interesting glancing at bits of the stuff I posted for you...since it is so long since I studied English literature, as opposed to just reading it (and I was damned undisciplined when I WAS studying it, too, so I will likely know less about what the critics say than the normal English lit. graduate!) that I had forgotten a lot about Yeats and his world view.
I will give you some rough idea about what I think...but this is an ignorant interpretation.
First thing is just how wonderful the poem is before you think about it at all!!! It has that absolute hold on you.....a rapture...gives you chills and a real sense of awe, and all sorts of preconscious or unconscious stirrings, doesn't it?
What I am amazed by is that it can do that to a non native speaker!!! Because so much of the resonance is in the mention of European/Midde east culture!!!
The falcon image is amazing.....it gives that sense of slow unloosing, slow increase of chaos. Falconry was a very aristocratic sport....even down to your rank determining the kind of bird you were allowed to fly...and the old process of training a falcon demanded enormous commitment and almost suffering from the falconer.......it was an almost mystic process....I think it may well represent for Yeats the mystical and disciplined subduing of the beast in humanity, a discipline which is unravelling...
"Mere" anarchy? Interesting word.....
The blood dimmed tide is loosed.....more imagery of natural forces breaking their containment, of the careful control of civilisation breaking down. Reminds me of now...but I suppose this is a fairly universal perception, no? Still, the trauma of WW I's meaningless slaughter must have been especially alive.
The best lack all conviction..worst are filled with passionate intensity...
Scarily like now....but I suppose Yeats is referring to his belief in the rise and fall of civilisation and order...
I'll be back.....gotta go.
Quote:I love the power of the poem, too. Before you have a look at what peopl ehave written about it, just tell me a bit about how you reacted, what you love about it? How did it cost you sleep?
Mostly because of two sentences, I think. The "falcon" one, and the "anarchy" one.
J-B wrote:Quote:I love the power of the poem, too. Before you have a look at what peopl ehave written about it, just tell me a bit about how you reacted, what you love about it? How did it cost you sleep?
Mostly because of two sentences, I think. The "falcon" one, and the "anarchy" one.
Oh? Do you know what got you about the falcon? and the mere anarchy?
Reading and enjoying.
Nothing much to contribute, however much I want to. Poetry was never my interest, never read it -- indeed, I actively avoided it. But in recent years I've discovered that it does have a power.
Regarding this poem "Second Coming" -- there is a lot of Egyptian imagery here. I will go look up it's history vis a vis the discovery of Tutankhamon's grave.
You know..I was thinking about that....and the sphinx and the hawk.....the hawk head god, of the air, I believe, Horus...
And the sphinx and it's fatal questioning, to which the answer is a man.
Ho·rus (hôr'əs, hōr'-)
n. Mythology.
The ancient Egyptian god of the sun, son of Osiris and Isis, represented as having the head of a hawk.
Encyclopedia
Horus (hôr'əs) , in Egyptian religion, sky god, god of light and goodness. One of the most important of the Egyptian deities, Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis. In a famous myth he avenged the murder of his father by defeating Set, the god of evil and darkness. As Horus the Elder he was represented as a falcon-headed solar deity, who was perhaps originally a king or high priest of predynastic Egypt. As Horus the Child, called Harpocrates by the Greeks and Romans, he was represented as a small boy with a finger held to his lips.
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sphinx (sfĭngks) , mythical beast of ancient Egypt, frequently symbolizing the pharaoh as an incarnation of the sun god Ra. The sphinx was represented in sculpture usually in a recumbent position with the head of a man and the body of a lion, although some were constructed with rams' heads and others with hawks' heads. Thousands of sphinxes were built in ancient Egypt; the most famous is the Great Sphinx at Giza, a colossal figure sculptured out of natural rock, near the pyramid of Khafre. It was considered by the ancients one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Sphinxes, however, were not peculiar to Egypt; represented in various shapes and forms, they were common throughout the ancient Middle East and Greece. In Greek mythology and art the Sphinx was a winged monster with the head and breasts of a woman and the body of a lion. In the legend of Oedipus she acts as a destructive agent of the gods, posing the riddle of the three ages of man: “What walks on four feet in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?” She killed all who failed to answer her question until Oedipus solved the riddle by saying, “Man crawls on all fours as a baby, walks upright in the prime of life, and uses a staff in old age.” The Sphinx then killed herself.
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Well, a cursory look shows that the poem was first published in 1920 and Tut's discovery was in 1922, so they don't overlap. However, the search for Tut and all things Egyptian was ongoing and the literati (of which Yeats was certainly) were quite interested in it. Decor and art of the period were influenced by it, so I dare say that it could be a factor in the imagery of this poem, but not central to it.
(Sorry ~ I'm often more interested in the socio-political milieus of artists. Just tell me to buzz off if you find this too extraneous.)
Quote:and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
Do you have any interpretation for this line? Ceremony of innocence? Could it be, on one level, baptism? (How christian was Yeats?)
Not sure...it is an obvious interpretation, especially in the context, and I assume that it is, at least, partly what Yeats means.
I suspect it may be more general, and also indicate all the day to day rituals and doings of ordinary people...but I might easily be wrong.
And now I have really understood the importance of reading something about the person before studying his or her works.
These days, besides poetry, I am also obssessed with some philosophy. And I find it extremely helpful of reading some pages regarding Nietzsche in Bertrand Russel's A History of Western Philosophy before I could study Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Besides, is reading Ovid's The Metamorphoses a right approach toward Greek Mythology?
J-B wrote:And now I have really understood the importance of reading something about the person before studying his or her works.
These days, besides poetry, I am also obssessed with some philosophy. And I find it extremely helpful of reading some pages regarding Nietzsche in Bertrand Russel's A History of Western Philosophy before I could study Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Besides, is reading Ovid's The Metamorphoses a right approach toward Greek Mythology?
Not having read Ovid, I cannot say.
There are many books retelling the myths...I am wondering if reading one of these, to get the groundwork in place, so to say, might be a good idea before tackling Ovid. However, Ovid would have been well known to many of the poets you are reading, so will be a great source for deeper understanding of their works.
The Ovid sounds like a great idea, though.
Do you have good access to sites on the web about the myths?
Can you access Google, for instance, to search for them?
The importance, or not, of knowing about the poet and the poem's context is one of the great debates in literary criticism. Personally, I am with you...but look how strongly you related to the poem without knowing these things.
I suggest, J-B, that you have a look at
the Wikipedia entry for Ovid's The Metamorphoses - there are some really good comments ... and even better links.
(BTW, there is a damned fact that Wiki is unaccessible to me here in China. But, surprise! I found an intermediate website called, Thefreedictionary.com which has a whole as well accessible copy of Wiki :wink: )
Like dlowan, I have never read Ovid -- but I do know that he is Roman. I think that a Greek source or a scholar of Greek sources would be a better way to learning about Greek mythology.
I'm not suggesting it's the best way, but I learned my Greek mythology by reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, with a copy of The New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology for reference. I forget many of the finer points now, years later, but it was a fairly solid beginning that maybe only lacked some ethnographic background. But you don't need ethnography to understand literature.
Quote:Shakespeare Sonnet LXXII
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From the vile world with vilest worms to dwell.
Nay if yo read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
1. Can you paraphrase the first sentence? The word "Than" complicates the matter for me.
2. Are two "worlds" of Line 3 and Line 4 the same world?
3. What is the purpose of the word "Nay" in the line 5?
4. "compounded with clay"? Means death?
5. So, is there any more biblical parable about "the wise world"? :wink:
Thank you.
JB
