'The Second Coming' And 'On Being Asked For A War Poem' Written By W. B. Yeats : Brief Critical Evaluation Through The Lens Of Indian Criticism Schools

INTRODUCTION : This blog is a response to the Thinking Activity given by my professor Dr Dilip Barad Sir. In this blog I will be discussing the two famous war-related poems written by W. B. Yeats, namely, 'The Second Coming,' and 'On Being Asked for a War Poem' through the lens of Indian Literary Criticism in general and by the means of Rasa Theory by Bharatmuni, Dhvani Theory (Suggestion in Literature) by Aanandvardhana, and Vakrokti Theory in particular.

RASA THEORY : In the sixth chapter of his famous dramaturgic treatise 'Natyashstra,' Bharatmuni introduces the definition of Rasa as to how it is generated in the Chitta (Psyche) of spectators along with the actors' :

'तत्र विभावानुभावव्यभिचारीसंयोगाद्रस्निष्पत्ती'

(Rasa is generated by the convergence of Vibhava (The Actors,) Anubhava (Catalystic Atmosphere,) and Vyabhichari or Sanchari Bhava (Transitory Emotions.))

DHVANI THEORY : Aacharya Aanandvardhana propagates that beyond the literal(Abhidha) and methphorical (Lakshana) meanings, there lies a suggestive (Vyanjana) meaning of the word, sentence, or phrase used by a writer or a poet which he calls Vyanjana (Suggestion.) He comes up with the theory of Dhvani (Suggestion) in his eminent dictum 'Dhvanyaloka.' He divides the power of the words into three major types : (1) अभिधा (Literal or Direct Meaning) (2) लक्षणा (Indicative Meaning) and (3) व्यंजना (Suggestive Meaning.) The suggestive meaning is the best of the three and by the use of which a poet can produce an excellent poetry he states. He regards Dhvani as the soul of a poetry :

'काव्यस्यात्मा ध्वनि:।'

VAKROKTI THEORY : 'Vakroktijivitam' is the famous treatise by Aacharya Kuntaka wherin he expounds the theory of Vakrokti (The Excellency of Crookedness in Literary Work.) He gives his famous definition of Vakrokti in the first chapter of the treatise :

'वक्रोक्तिरेव वैदग्ध्यभङ्गीभणितिरुच्यते'

(Meaning : Something that is told with artistic crookedness, only that can be beautiful and having aesthetic pleasure within.)

Further he asserts the quality of an excellent poetry achieved through the employment of Vakrokti into it :

'शब्दार्थौ सहितौ वक्रकविव्यापारशालिनि ।

बन्धे व्यवस्थितौ काव्यं तद्विदाह्लादकारिणि ।।'

(Meaning : A poetry which possesses the Vakrokti in Shabda (Words) and Artha (Meaning) which is the outcome of poet's toil for choosing appropriate language and thus creates the perfectly formed poetry, becomes delightful only for those who have ability to perceive Vakrokti in the work of art or poetry.)

Along the line he gives six different types of Vakrata observed in the creative work of literature :

(1) वर्णविन्यासवक्रता

(2) पदपूर्वार्धवक्रता

(3) पदपरार्धवक्रता

(4) वाक्यवक्रता

(5) प्रकरणवक्रता

(6) प्रबंधवक्रता

For detailed-reading, click here.

(1) The Second Coming :

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity."

Illustration of ‘The Second Coming’ by Anthony Ventura

'The Second Coming' is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to allegorically describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. It is considered a major work of modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections, including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.

The poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence in January 1919, that followed the Easter Rising in April 1916, at a time before the British Government decided to send in the Black and Tans to Ireland. Yeats used the phrase "the second birth" instead of "the Second Coming" in his first drafts.

The poem is also connected to the 1918–1919 flu pandemic: In the weeks preceding Yeats's writing of the poem, his pregnant wife Georgie Hyde-Lees caught the virus and was very close to death. The highest death rates of the pandemic were among pregnant women—in some areas, they had up to a 70 percent death rate. While his wife was convalescing, he wrote "The Second Coming".

(Source : Wikipedia)

What types of Rasa (Emotions) are felt while reading the poem?

The Rasa or emotions one shall experience (if he/she is a bit inclined to the taste of aesthetic values and implications) are more than one emotion or Bhava such as Bibhatsa Rasa (Disgust) leading to its afffect Jugupsa (Disgust), Bhayanaka Rasa (Terror) leading to its affect Bhaya (Terror) in readers sensitive psyche. So, let us examine as to how these Rasa are generated and through which part of the poem one can get the experience aforementioned :

- Bibhatsa Rasa (Disgust) : Bibhatsa Rasa (Disgust) is seen and its affect Jugupsa (Disgust) is felt by going through the follwing lines from the poem :

'The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;'

Herein the lines we find an indirect reference to the 1918-'19 flu pandemic for in the aforementioned influenza, a person affected had to experience incessant nosebleeding of pus and blood combined which was excruciatingly unbearable; the wife of the poet has had suffered from the flu and that may have prompted him to take this in as reference within the poem.

- Bhayanaka Rasa (Terror) : The feeling of terror is infused in the following lines from the poem :

'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;'

It the aforementioned stanza, one will get the gist of imagism and thus is forced to assume a picture of the scenario depicted through the words by the poet, which is of a bizarre creature which has the face of man and a body of a lion and who is slouching slowly towards the place, namely, Bethlehem to be born or whatnot, remains the question raised by the poet.

(2) On Being Asked for a War Poem :

"A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth

We have no gift to set a statesman right;"

'On being asked for a War Poem' is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on February 6, 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Park on August 20, 1915. The poem was prefaced with a note stating: "It is the only thing I have written of the war or will write, so I hope it may not seem unfitting." The poem was first published in Edith Wharton's The Book of the Homeless in 1916 as "A Reason for Keeping Silent". When it was later reprinted in The Wild Swans at Coole, the title was changed to "On being asked for a War Poem".

When Henry James asked Yeats to submit a poem for publication in Wharton's collection which was intended to raise money for Belgium refugees, Yeats intended for the poem to state his political position on the "European War". The poem's original title, "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations," appears, in the words of Jim Haughey, to have a "toysome evasiveness" regarding the politics surrounding the war. Peter McDonald suggests that the changes in the poem's title reflects Yeats's changing political positions from the beginning of the war until its end in 1919 when Yeats publishes The Wild Swans at Coole. Although there are minute variations in the wording of the version published in The Book of the Homeless and the one found in The Wild Swans at Coole, the poem's overall form remained the same even as the title changed. In the first two lines of the poem, Yeats states that it is better for a "poet to keep his mouth shut" than to enter into debates about wars and politics, feeling that a poet should speak only about traditional lyric subjects and leave the war to soldiers and politicians.

(Source : Wikipedia)

What types of Dhvani (Suggestive Meanings) are observed in the poem?

First thing that startles the reader is that despite being the short poem, it meticulously employs fine use of Verbal Irony in the very beginning lines of the poem :

'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;'

(Image : Virjee Bathvar)

Reading the initial lines, we get the use verbal irony by the poet; one thing we must keep in mind while reading the poem is that the poem is written as a response to the request, and as a response, if the poet wants to give a piece of advice that poets should remain silent in these times, then why has he written a poem in saying so? The answer is that the poet is indirectly telling to those sedate poets who have stopped writing against war going on at that time to write something that can resolve the war permeated through from the missiles to the human mind. Here comes the reference to the Lakshana Dhvani (Indicative Meaning) wherin a reader is supposed to derive what is not seen and said in the poem by the poet.

CONCLUSION : After evaluating both the poems through the sieve of Indian Literary Criticism, we can firmly say that be it East or West or any other part of the glob, feelings and expressions seem different only on the surface but are somewhere or the other correspond to one another on the root level; this is the beauty of poetics, human emotions, and the work of art!

Thank you!