Page 201 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit
P. 201
“The Second Coming”
by William Butler Yeats, pages 81-82
Vocabulary
gyre – spiral
anarchy – disorder
indignant – angry
vexed – to puzzle, annoy
1. What is the purpose of the poem’s first stanza?
2. What is the significance of the poem's mention of the Sphinx myth?
3. In the second stanza, the speaker describes his image of the Second Coming. Historically,
what is meant by the Second Coming? What does the speaker imagine it will be like?
4. Explain the allusion found in the phrase “vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.”
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