St. Edmund Preparatory High School Summer Assignment IB English II ‐ Summer Assignment Commentary Read and analyze the following poem, “The Second Coming”, by W.B. Yeats, using the steps for poetry analysis we went over in IB English I. Determine a central theme presented in the poem, and then write a 3‐4 paragraph commentary in which you address the theme. The commentary is due on the first day of school. (Typed, MLA Formatting) Some questions to guide your analysis: ‐What does the title indicate? Notes about the organization of commentary Begin with a few sentences about the poem (include title/author, what the poem is about). Then, explain a theme in the poem (an idea about life or the world that the author is trying to communicate) and generalize about the way in which the author communicates that theme. The rest of your commentary should be organized according to the “say mean matter repeat” model we discussed in class [Say (quote), Mean (device/effect), Matter (relationship to theme)]. Finally, conclude with a restatement of thesis (theme). YOU MAY NOT DO RESEARCH . The analysis must be entirely your own. Plagiarism will result in (at minimum) a zero grade, and may jeopardize your ability to continue in the program THE SECOND COMING W.B. Yeats 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 Coming1 is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi2 Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; 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 Wind 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 Bethlehem3 to be born? 1
Second Coming – primarily a Christian concept regarding a future return of Jesus to Earth after his "first coming"
and ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago
2
Spiritus Mundi – Latin, literally “world spirit”
3
Bethlehem –the birthplace of the Jesus