Although the world has evolved in many ways since Yeats existed, his poetry remains significant in the modern age. Simply by scrolling through social media, flipping through TV channels or listening to the radio, we are constantly reminded that we live in a chaotic and corrupt world. Through his poetry, Yeats explores the contradictory existence and nature of beauty in this world as a catalyst and consequence of conflict. In particular, Yeats explores man's desire for truth and man's desire for spiritual transcendence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In “The Wild Swans at Coole” Yeats describes his personal desire to transcend the temporal nature of man. This poem was written during a time of great melancholy for Yeats. After facing rejection a second time from the woman he loved, he went to visit an old friend where he observed swans on the lake. Through this poem, Yeats describes a clear separation between himself and the swans, representing them as “brilliant creatures” whose “hearts have not grown old” and that “passion or conquest… accompanies them still.” This personification depicts the immortality of the swans as they remain young and passionate, juxtaposing Yeats' faded youth. His envy of the swans and desire for eternal youth are emphasized by the irony in the fact that his "heart is aching" rather than full after seeing the beauty of the swans. In the second stanza, Yeats describes how the swans “suddenly mount and scatter,” symbolizing how he cannot control change just as he cannot control his mortality nor resist old age. This suggests Yeats's perspective of beauty as a catalyst for tension as he recognizes eternal beauty, but due to his mortality he can never achieve it. Similarly, Yeats explores man's desire for spiritual transcendence through "The Second Coming." Composed in 1919, the poem was greatly influenced by the great political and social change following the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the Irish War of Independence. Yeats illustrates a world in which “the falcon cannot hear the falconer,” suggesting through this metaphor that man has turned away and rejected a higher being. He highlights the desire for holy revelation through biblical allusions, saying: “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is near.” But this is not the redemptive “second coming” as we know it. Instead, Yeats ironically describes this revelation as destructive where “darkness falls” and “things fall apart.” This reinforces the contradictory nature of beauty, according to which man will never be able to realize it due to the destruction of the world, but also due to man's imperfect and mortal nature. Through his poetry, Yeats also explores man's desire for truth and understanding. However, it suggests that absolute truth can never be achieved, due to the changing world. But if there is no truth, where do our ideologies and beliefs end? This is exactly what Yeats addresses through his poem "Easter 1916". Written as a response to the political and social unrest caused by the Easter Rising, Yeats questions whether it is honorable or foolish to die for one's beliefs. It reflects the paradox of ideologies that create a sense of relative truth but cause conflict over time. This is clearly depicted through the motif of change, followed by the line “A terrible beauty is born” which closes the first, second and last stanzas. This oxymoron illustrates the,.