In Defense of Monday's Statement

On Monday I made the claim that Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming” is a little bit “trippy.” I didn’t get very far with this statement because people either didn’t see where I was coming from or they didn’t agree with me. Because of this, I’ve decided to expand/further explain my original statement.

First of all, I’ll make the disclaimer that, although parts of this poem remind me of “drug-induced” poetry, I don’t mean to claim Yeats was on anything. Also, none of the statements I make about drug-induced states are from personal experience. It’s all from stuff I’ve read. That being said, I’d just like to point out some places in which “The Second Coming” has similarities to drug-induced poetry. Below is a list of reasons why I believe this is so:

1. The first place I find similarities is in the gyre. As we talked about in class, the gyre is a symbol for the Christian Age of history running out and a new age replacing it. However, in drug-induced states, the person sometimes sees spinning, dizzying shapes. So, although Yeats makes the claim himself that the gyre stands for changes in history, I can’t help from noticing the similarities it has with what people sometimes see in drug-induced states.

2. In the second stanza Yeats makes reference to the “Spiritus Mundi.” In the foot note it is explained that this is a “‘general storehouse of images,’ or collective unconscious.” Here, again, I find similarities to drug-induced states. Sometimes the drugged individual will feel a connection to the universe or, to put it in other words, a “collective unconscious.” Clearly, whether he has achieved it through drugs or some other means, Yeats has found a connection with and understanding of the universe that others sometimes claim to find while under the influence of drugs.

3. The last connection I find is in Yeats’ description of the beast which “Slouches towards Bethlehem.” I realize that the description of this beast matches that of the sphinx or some of the prophecies made in Daniel; however, Yeats talks about this “shape with a lion body and the head of a man” as if he has seen it himself. It that way it lines up with the experiences of people under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. While under hallucinogens, these people often see strange people and creatures which are similar to Yeats’ beast with its “gaze blank” and “slow thighs.”

Maybe Yeats was on something or maybe he wasn’t. I did a brief search on the internet to see if there is any documentation of him experimenting with drugs and I couldn’t find anything, but if he was willing to experiment with telepathy, I wouldn’t put it past him to try out some illegal drugs. But, at any rate, my point is not to prove whether or not “The Second Coming” was inspired by a drug-induced state. Rather, I just wanted to explain where I was coming from on Monday in that the poem does have some similarities to drug-induced poetry.