Nixon (1905) Yeats poem - The Second Coming

Nixon visits Helms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0t-pLLD2k

Poem 8,34 to 9.51

Also in this video clip

William Butler Yeats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3daV5pu741o




William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming " Poem animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7G7pEWTxcQ


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 Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the 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?


1920

A gyre is any manner of particularly large-scale wind, swirling vortex and ocean current.

The term realpolitik is often used pejoratively to imply politics that are coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian.

spinx: A sphinx is a zoomorphic mythological figure which is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx

Spritus Mundi



Mundane Spirit

Spirit of the Age



The "spiritus mundi" (literally "spirit of the world") is a reference to Yeats' belief that each human mind is linked to a single vast intelligence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)

"They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.

_________________________________________________________


“They sow the wind

and reap the whirlwind.

The stalk has no head;

it will produce no flour.

Were it to yield grain,

foreigners would swallow it up.



Israel is swallowed up;

now she is among the nations

like a worthless thing.



For they have gone up to Assyria

like a wild donkey wandering alone.

Ephraim has sold herself to lovers.



Although they have sold themselves among the nations,

I will now gather them together.

They will begin to waste away

under the oppression of the mighty king.



________________________________________________________


The justification for the bombing of Dresden


Bible
New International Version (©1984)


"They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind".



http://niv.scripturetext.com/hosea/8.htm

I have been going off on a tangent a little with my latest contribution to antimoon.com

Nixon (1905) Yeats poem - The Second Coming

Unfortunatley I made a typing mistake with the title. It should have been 'Nixon (1995), the year this film came out.

I have been looking up a whole series of words that I can't spell: Armageddon, Apocalypse, end of time, Zionism, etc.

I do not really believe in any of this stuff. But the proverb from the Old Testament makes interesting reading.


http://niv.scripturetext.com/hosea/8.htm


Israel to Reap the Whirlwind


1 “Put the trumpet to your lips!

An eagle is over the house of the Lord

because the people have broken my covenant

and rebelled against my law.


What Yeats and the Director of Nixon (1995) are doing, is putting together a mish mash (hodgepodge) (smorgasbord) of 'end of the world' ideas. A lot of this stuff is quite dangerous in its way.

Why?

1 Because it is irrational

2 It encourages fatalism.

3. Because it is based in religon

"the centre cannot hold" seems one of the most interesting aspects of the poem in conjunction with Nixon. Nixon was a strong federalist, believing in a strong centralized governing body. The Abrahamic religions in their myths and understandings have for the last couple of centuries been understood as also strongly centralized, focusing on one godhead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAM0BKEwG8U

I imagine what they are alluding to in this is the idea of absolute authority. When the center does not hold, the world goes into chaos . . . supposedly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3daV5pu741o

Yeats is the sort of poet who is likely to be widely studied in English classes. Someone writing, directing, and contributing to a film about Nixon is likely to have heard this poem and thought it appropriate. The poem has then been worked into the film to give it an extra dimension. Mixing Old Testament prophesy about the 'end times' and 'chaos' with the collapse of Nixon's administration.


"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;"


Talk about 'losing control of events', the image is of bird that has been lost in high winds.


"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."


This is a description of an Administration that has lost its way. The people at the top no longer believe in what they are doing, while the enemies of the State are having a field day.

Although the poem is being applied to Nixon it was written when there had been a collapse of British authority in Ireland and a growth of Irish nationalism.

The use of religious imagery is present because Irish nationalism was allied to Catholicism and British rule supported Anglicanism and the Protestant cause. The chaos resulted in the separation of the six counties from the rest of Ireland, civil war in Eire and 'the troubles' in the north.


"Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand."



Protestant thought contains a belief in the end of the world, the second coming, preceded by a period of chaos.

Nixon's downfall was unparalleled. There must have been a feeling that something was happening.

Is the President a crook?

Frost/Nixon Interview J110

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yQ6ASsEoiw&NR=1




Tony Blair seized opportunity to escape from the pettiness of British politics to the bright lights of the world stage and America. It is such a shame that are politicians have feet of clay!

This is the sort of thing that a spell checker does not pick up.


It is such a shame that are politicians have feet of clay!

It is such a shame that our politicians have feet of clay!



Although it, (the spell checker), did think that something was wrong.

It's a pleasure to read your posts Robin.