Prophetic and Catastrophic Voices in “The Second Coming” and “The Waste Land”

Abstract

Eliot and Yeats were widely considered two of the most influential Modernists. They demonstrate the crisis of modern society in their poetry. This paper examines how poets’ voices in their particular works transform private feelings into prophetic proclamations regarding approaching the human condition. The Merits of Yeats and Eliot are linked as they wrote poetry that has been described both as prophetic and catastrophic in the same historical period. The purpose of this paper is to survey their perception of the impending days, comparing “The Second Coming” and “The Waste Land”. Both poems present a rebirth process, but each one focuses on different goals and subjects. They yearned for the more humane, cultured and promising times of the past, as the prevailing contemporary chaotic-world endangered peace, happiness, and solidarity. Both poets were concerned about the disorderly and fragmented social condition of their time–which is still relevant as mankind is undergoing a time of turmoil, anarchy and chaos. It is a narrative research that follows descriptive-cum analytical method and the relevant textual references are given as evidence to support the argument of this study.