The Second Coming

Blank verse is a form of poetry that follows a metrical pattern but doesn’t have a rhyme scheme. “The Second Coming” is considered blank verse because it loosely follows iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter traditionally consists of 10 syllables per line that follow a pattern, beginning with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. While Yeats alternates stresses in “The Second Coming,” he sometimes uses more than 10 syllables, such as in Line 13, which has 13 syllables.

Symploce is a device in which the same word or phrase appears at the beginning of two lines and another word or phrase appears at the end of two lines. Yeats uses this device in the couplet that begins the second stanza: “Surely some revelation is at hand; / Surely the second coming is at hand” (Lines 9-10). Yeats uses the device to make it seem as though his speaker is coming to a conclusion.

Consonance is a literary device that repeats two similar-sounding consonants. Yeats uses this device frequently in “The Second Coming,” most notably in the heavy “n” sound in the words “turning,” “widening,” “falcon,” “cannot,” and “falconer” of Lines 1 and 2.