Today was the day for finals in my classes, and one of the popular essay questions (well, maybe not popular, but more often chosen) on my 12th grade Brit Lit final was about The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats. If you’re unfamiliar with the poem, it’s pretty good, and it will help to read it (or read it again) before reading the remainder of this post. I’ll wait.
Finished? Ok. One of the essays that I got was explaining what this poem was all about. I shall quote verbatim:
“The author states that Jesus would return to earth as a ‘spiritus mundi’ somewhere in the sands of the desert with the head of a man and the body of a lion.”
This rather amused me. I’m not sure whether it would amuse or horrify poor Willie Butler Yeats, but I suspect the latter.