Student Question

What historical event might "anarchy is loosed upon the world" in "The Second Coming" refer to?

Quick answer:

In "The Second Coming," when the poet writes that "anarchy is loosed upon the world," he is referring to several historical and personal events, including World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Irish War of Independence, the Spanish flu pandemic, and the near death of Yeats's pregnant wife from the flu.

Expert Answers

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The poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats is certainly a poem that reflects the era in which it was written. In Yeats's viewpoint, things had become so chaotic, violent, and confusing that they had reached apocalyptic intensity. In other words, what he saw happening all around were like signs that presaged the end of the world, or at least drastic changes in the world.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, anarchy is "absence of government; a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority." When Yeats writes that "anarchy is loosed upon the world," he is referring not just to one specific event, but rather an accumulation of historic and personal events. All of these together have loosed "the blood-dimmed tide," caused the center (of reasoning or organization or understanding) to fall apart, drowned innocence, and caused conviction to waver.

Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" in 1919, just after World War I had ended. The world had never seen such a bloody global conflict before, in which the death total came to approximately 70 million. Another major event that shook the world around this time was the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Closer to home, the Irish War of Independence against the British was beginning. Yeats, as an Irish writer, would certainly have been emotionally invested in this. Additionally, the world was in the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic, which caused the death of 20 to 50 million people. Shortly before Yeats wrote the poem, his pregnant wife almost died from the flu.

We see, then, that all of these historic and personal events together caused Yeats to feel that governments were no longer able to control what was happening and that "anarchy is loosed upon the world."

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