Tag Archives: "Second Coming"

The Second Coming of Trumpism?

By Robin Bates | Published: September 29, 2021

Yeats’s “Second Coming” pretty much describes the current GOP, with Trump auditioning to be the rough beast.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Second Coming", authoritarianism, Donald Trump, Trumpism, W. B. Yeats | Comments closed

If Jesus Were to Return

By Robin Bates | Published: November 20, 2020

I suspect that certain Christians would vote for Trump over Jesus if the latter were to return. That’s the point made by this Scott Bates poem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Second Coming", Joe Biden, rightwing Catholics, Scott Bates, white evangelicals, William Barr | Comments closed

The Case for Memorizing Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: August 19, 2020

To bolster yourself against this age of anxiety, memorize robust poetry. Other poetry works as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Second Coming", "Soldier Rest", "Building of the Ship", "My Candle Burns at Both Ends", "Props assist the House", "Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth", Arthur Clough, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, If, John Keats, Memorizing poetry, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed

The Dreadful Sound of Trump (not that one)

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2019

Wednesday On Monday I hosted what proved to be a lovely luncheon (an onion tart, ratatouille, and a trifle) for Vanderbilt University Librarian Valerie Hotchkiss, who was in Sewanee to discuss a presentation I will be giving at the university on the card game Speculation. Jane Austen fans will recognize it as the game played […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Cock-Crowing", "Second Coming", "On the Cards and Dice", Cards, D. H. Lawrence, games, Henry Vaughan, Jane Austen, Jesus, Man Who Died, Mansfield Park, Resurrection, Sir Walter Raleigh | Comments closed

Do Endings Reveal Meaning of Life?

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2019

Monday My wife Julia alerted me to an intriguing although somewhat frustrating article in Atlantic about the end of time. Drawing on Frank Kermode’s 1967 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Megan Garber wrestles with an issue recently raised by The Washington Post: how do we live with constant reminders […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Dover Beach", "Second Coming", Alexander Pope, endings, Frank Kermode, King Lear, Matthew Arnold, modernism, post-apocalyptic fiction, Samuel Beckett, Sense of an Ending, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare, world weary ennui | Comments closed

Trump as Yeats’s Rough Beast

By Robin Bates | Published: December 20, 2015

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar accuses Donald Trump of being the actual terrorist and compares him to Yeats’s “rough beast” in “The Second Coming.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Second Coming", American Muslims, Donald Trump, intolerance, Islam, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, politics, Terrorism, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed

Political Commentary’s Most Cited Poem

By Robin Bates | Published: August 18, 2015

The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne has called Yeats’s “The Second Coming” the most cited poem in political commentary. Yeats may set up a false dichotomy between “passionate intensity” and “lack of conviction,” however.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Second Coming", Donald Trump, extremists, moderates, political extremism, political moderation, political poems, politics, W. B. Yeats | Comments closed

Viagra and the Drums of War

By Robin Bates | Published: July 2, 2014

Scott Bates’ “Viagra” offers up an explanation as to why America’s war hawks won’t go away, even after they bungled so badly.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Second Coming", "Viagra", Dick Cheney, Invasion of Iraq, Iraq, John McCain, Scott Bates, war fervor, William Butler Years | Comments closed

The End of the World As We Know It?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 21, 2012

A number of poets have written poems about the apocalypse. But it’s always figurative, never literal.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hellas", "Second Coming", "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse", Alexander Pope, Apocalyptic literature, Between the Acts, Dunciad, Matthew Arnold, Mayan Apocalypse, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed