Contrast between Yeats's Second Coming and Shelley's OzymandiasWilliam Butler Yeats specialized in the literary style of the early modernists. Fresh out of the late Victorian era, Yeats used strong literary and historical elements in literary form to evoke his symbolic message in "The Second Coming." Through the use of his theme of the "new Apocalypse" (lecture notes on early 20th century modernism) he imagined that the world was entering a state of insecurity due to the post-war modernist experience. The war left people in a state of chaos, and although it was intended to bring people a sense of hope for no more wars in the future, it did far more harm than good, especially in people's minds. The modernist era was reflected in the equally chaotic and unstable word structure in Yeats's poetry. In "The Second Coming" conditions are illustrated as chaotic, "Things fall to pieces; the center cannot stand;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" (Yeats, Longman p. 2329: ll. 3-4), confused in a way. The words he uses, “falling apart,” “not standing,” and “anarchy,” are ...