A Comparative Study of Apocalyptic Concepts in Ahmad Shamloo’s »Journey« and William Butler Yeats’s »The Second Coming«

Abstract

Apocalyptic literature appeared to disclose human’s anxieties in a complicated world. The present study aims at indicating roots of such a literature and displaying the so called Apocalyptic poetry at the Modern age. Hence, this study, while emphasizing American school of Comparative Literature, focuses on two patterns: one is genres and forms, and the other is motifs and types. It is attempted to reveal how Ahmad Shamloo (1925-2000) and William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) came across such a genre in their poetry, and what were their major attitudes toward it. Apocalyptic issues and concepts are various, but this study wished to concentrate on the most distinguished ones in Ahmad Shamloo’s »Journey« and William Butler Yeats’s »The Second Coming«; they are: revelation and poetic contemplation; prevision and exhortation; millennium and end of history; rough language. The results indicates that both poets were familiar with this genre, and far from being influenced or putting influences on each other, the motifs of Apocalyptic literature were strongly present in their selected poems.

Keywords

• ahmad shamloo
• william butler yeats
• apocalyptic literature
• the new poem
• modernism