Yeats

Today, in honor of William Butler Yeats (born on this day in 1865), we explore the lasting influence of his most ubiquitous poem, “The Second Coming.”

Written in 1919, the poem is considered a towering achievement of Modernist poetry. Yeats drew on Christian apocalyptic imagery to capture the violent chaos of the political turmoil in Europe at the time, and to warn of further dangers on the horizon.

William Butler Yeats in Dublin in 1923. The New York Times Photo Archives

So often have the poem’s phrases been incorporated into other works of art and literature that The Paris Review has called it “the most thoroughly pillaged piece of literature in English.”

There is, of course, Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart,” and Joan Didion’s short story collection “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” but lines from the poem have proliferated in many more book titles, speeches, folk albums, CD-ROM games and tweets, as well.

An episode of “The Sopranos” called “The Second Coming” features the poem, as does a Batman comic book series called “The Widening Gyre.”

There was an uptick in references to the poem in 2016, as writers and pundits grasped for language to describe the series of dramatic political shifts in Europe and the U.S.