Hi!
I haven't really seen any Mod B - Yeats specific posts (unless I've overlooked something which is possible) so I guess I'm posing all my Yeats questions here. Any help would be appreciated.
1) does anyone have any general advice/resources on yeats, especially bc my school hasn't really said anything about using perspectives (or not) and as such I have no idea whether to include them, what i'm meant to say about them, etc...
2) if someone could explain Yeat's gyres to me that'd be great because i've read a bunch of sites/docs/texts on it, and I'm beginning to feel Yeats may have just been high when he came up with it because I have no idea how it works...
ANY HELP APPRECIATED THANKS! 
Hey there! I studied (and loved) Yeats.
Okay, question one:
I have put my own notes in the notes section for every poem except the Second Coming (because I tragically lost the file for that one) and so please feel free to download them! In terms of critics, academics, etc, in Module B it is not compulsory but it often can strengthen a response when used well. So sometimes I would google, "Yeats scholars" or "Yeats university" or "Yeats academic" or use Google Scholar in order to find more articles that were relevant. Sometimes I'd find quotes that were about his entire oeuvre, but sometimes I'd just find quotes specific to a text and about the way the text is formed or received, and then I would only use the quote if it provided an interesting link to my own perspective or reading.
2. In the simplest way I can possibly explain this: imagine concentric circles in your mind, and then recognise that each circle is a new phase of life. This can be personal phases of life, but Yeats sees it often in a generational/humanity way. So each gyre that passes, each concentric circle, is a new wave of humanity. A wave of doom? A wave of enlightenment? etc. But when we look at the Second Coming, I imagine a gyre as a bit more of a tornado/spiral kind of thing, because the falcon cannot hear the falconer amongst the chaos of the tornado, as the new stage of life/humanity/existence is entered - in this particular one, I interpret the falcon and the falconer to be the people can no longer "hear" God. We are moving into a secular state of anarchy it appears. This obviously contrasts with the religious connotations of the "second coming" and other biblical allusions throughout. But there's also a mention of the Sphinx! So this is linking to another gyre, another stage of life, where paganism was expressed. So simple: a gyre is a new wave of human experience. This is the way Yeats understands history, the way he looks back on the waves of existence and in the Second Coming, the way they collide.
Post back for clarification!
Edit: Was typing the same time as Emily - dammit!
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Topic: MOD B - YEATS POETRY (Read 3408 times)